Jane Rhodes

Starting with a double entendre title, Jane Rhodes has written a detailed account of how the Black Panther Party was demonized by the mainstream press, which chose to report on the violent rhetoric of party leaders, like Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, and Eldridge Cleaver. Reporting was extremely biased, choosing inflammatory adjectives, creating fear among whites in the 1960s. Most of her book is focused on the period from mid-1967 through 1968 into 1969, starting with the Black Panthers protest at the state Capitol building in Sacramento, which was completely peaceful even though they openly carried guns. However, certain Panthers were eventually prosecuted under an obscure law against disrupting the legislature in session. The incarceration of both Bobby Seale and Huey Newton and the eventual disappearance of Eldridge Cleaver overshadowed the message that blacks should arm themselves to protect against police persecution and targeting, especially in the aftermath of Martin Luther King's assassination which for the BPP finished the movement for civil disobedience. The killing by police of Fred Hampton in Chicago also went unpunished in this era, and the unsolved murders of BPP leaders like Bunchy Carter and John Huggins in L.A. fanned smoldering resentment of the "pigs." The decision to publish their own newspaper was one of strategic importance for the BPP: both to promote their message and party platform as well as to raise much needed funding for party activities, including defense attorney fees.

Jane Rhodes writing is superb and her research top-notch. I was disappointing though that her focus was almost exclusively on the Oakland Panthers, ignoring most of the other important chapters, especially Chicago, New York and New Haven, which merited only 2-3 pages each. Also, there was very little mention of the social programs, probably because of her focus on the media, which chose to ignore the mundane, day-to-day activities to build community in the inner cities.… (mehr)

Mary Ann Shad Cary was a courageous and outspoken 19th-century African-American who used press and public speaking to fight slavery and oppression in the United States and Canada. Part of the small free black elite who used their education and limited freedoms to fight for the end of slavery and racial oppression, Shad Cary is best known as the first African-American woman to publish and edit a newspaper in North America. She was an active participant in many of the social and political movements that influenced the 19 century – abolition, black emigration and nationalism, women's rights, and temperance. She emigrated in the 1850s to Canada, where she taught the children of fugitive slaves and founded a newspaper, the Provincial Freeman. During the Civil War, she recruited black troops for the Union Army, and in the midst of Reconstruction she entered law school at middle-age to become the second black women attorney and the nation.… (mehr)

This made me realize just how woefully inadequate my education has been. The people in power get to write the history, and unfortunately that means a lot of things are left out of a public education. This should really be required reading in schools across the country. A great way to fight back against the propaganda being shoved down the throats of students in US public schools. I'm embarrassed by how little I knew of the rich history of what is still today such a strong influence in American history, culture, and politics.

Received for review… (mehr)