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chris_chester 's review for:
Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party
by Waldo E. Martin, Joshua Bloom
My exposure to the history of the Black Panther Party prior to reading Black Against Empire is relatively thin. There is the axiomatic approach to the Civil Rights movement in American education, wherein Martin Luther King Jr. represented the peaceful wing of the movement and Malcolm X represented a more militant arm that flirted with violence. I associated the Panthers vaguely with the Malcolm X wing of the movement and knew that they were vaguely menacing guys with natural hair, leather jackets and berets.
So basically I knew nothing.
But in our political moment in 2020, they suddenly seem much more interesting. As millions of people rally to try and advance the cause of racial justice in the United States, you start to look around for examples. And the Civil Rights-era tack of nonviolent resistance seems pointedly antiquated. Which serves up the Panthers as a credible alternative. So what is their history?
Bloom does a REALLY succinct job summing up that history in the first paragraph of his conclusion:
What the Panthers would demonstrate from a historic perspective is that a genuine insurgent movement depends on very specific conditions that can evaporate at any time. They were able to channel existing conditions along with specific alliances to the heights of political power from 1968-70. But those conditions were tenuous and those alliances subject to being co-opted by political opportunists.
They are, in a lot of ways, an able demonstration of the limits of armed insurrectionist tactics within the United States. If the black population in the United States is indeed a colony as party leaders contend, than it is still a minority party and the odds of achieving lasting military alliances within the larger country are small. The capacity of the American state for violence is awesome and it's difficult to see any group standing up to such a challenge, even with broad-based support.
Still, one of the enduring legacies of the Black Panthers is the enduring example of state repression that they provoked in their time. Fire-bombings, assassinations, agents provocateur -- these are things we know authorities both local and federal are capable of committing because of the exaggerated response they conducted against the Panthers. The story of Fred Hampton alone should be taught in American schools to demonstrate the capacity of the state for ruthless violence.
And while the violence advocated for and provoked by the Panthers might be especially memorable, Bloom does take care to talk at length about the social work that they did as well, in many places giving shame to LBJ's Great Society with programs like free breakfasts for kids. In a lot of ways social democratic programs like these -- buses to prisons, free clinics, etc. -- were more enduring, but they weren't as radical or effective politically, so they do tend to fade into the background of the story.
This was a really compelling read for me on a bunch of different axes. Just learning more about the history of American black leadership is eye-opening. So too is the idea that there has never been another credible insurrectionist challenger to the American political system. It's instructive as it is fascinating.
So basically I knew nothing.
But in our political moment in 2020, they suddenly seem much more interesting. As millions of people rally to try and advance the cause of racial justice in the United States, you start to look around for examples. And the Civil Rights-era tack of nonviolent resistance seems pointedly antiquated. Which serves up the Panthers as a credible alternative. So what is their history?
Bloom does a REALLY succinct job summing up that history in the first paragraph of his conclusion:
"When Civil Rights practices proved incapable of redressing the grievances of young urban blacks in the late 1960s, the Black Panthers armed themselves and promised to overcome poverty and oppression through revolution. They organized the rage of ghetto youth by confronting the police and resisted repression by winning the support of moderate black, antiwar, and international allies. These allies, like the Party, recognized the limited recourse available for real change through traditional political channels. But as blacks won greater electoral representation, government employment, affirmative action opportunities, as well as elite college and university access; the Vietnam War and military draft wound down; and the United States normalized relations with revolutionary governments abroad, it became impossible for the Panthers to continue advocating armed confrontation with the state and still maintain allied support. The Party, racked by external repression and internal fissures, quickly and disastrously unraveled." - Pg. 390
What the Panthers would demonstrate from a historic perspective is that a genuine insurgent movement depends on very specific conditions that can evaporate at any time. They were able to channel existing conditions along with specific alliances to the heights of political power from 1968-70. But those conditions were tenuous and those alliances subject to being co-opted by political opportunists.
They are, in a lot of ways, an able demonstration of the limits of armed insurrectionist tactics within the United States. If the black population in the United States is indeed a colony as party leaders contend, than it is still a minority party and the odds of achieving lasting military alliances within the larger country are small. The capacity of the American state for violence is awesome and it's difficult to see any group standing up to such a challenge, even with broad-based support.
Still, one of the enduring legacies of the Black Panthers is the enduring example of state repression that they provoked in their time. Fire-bombings, assassinations, agents provocateur -- these are things we know authorities both local and federal are capable of committing because of the exaggerated response they conducted against the Panthers. The story of Fred Hampton alone should be taught in American schools to demonstrate the capacity of the state for ruthless violence.
And while the violence advocated for and provoked by the Panthers might be especially memorable, Bloom does take care to talk at length about the social work that they did as well, in many places giving shame to LBJ's Great Society with programs like free breakfasts for kids. In a lot of ways social democratic programs like these -- buses to prisons, free clinics, etc. -- were more enduring, but they weren't as radical or effective politically, so they do tend to fade into the background of the story.
This was a really compelling read for me on a bunch of different axes. Just learning more about the history of American black leadership is eye-opening. So too is the idea that there has never been another credible insurrectionist challenger to the American political system. It's instructive as it is fascinating.