Panther Party owed its emergence and existence to the oppression and repression visited upon blacks by the various local and national law enforcement agencies. The historical record has revealed that the police and especially the FBI went to any length, including cold-blooded murder of top Panther leaders, in an effort to destroy what FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover declared a subversive group. Hoover said that "The Black Panther Party is the single greatest threat to the internal security of the United States" (156). With the number one law enforcement officer making such a declaration, and with the Panthers determined to fight back when attacked, it is no surprise to find that the existence of the Black Panther Party was regularly marked by armed conflict with the police and FBI in a number of cities in the United States. Therefore, the concentration of such violent episodes in Brown's book is not unexpected.
Still, the author's minimal discussion of political, social or economic concepts, theories and principles is regrettable. Coupled with her emphasis on romantic encounters with Panther leaders, and her accounts of the bitter, ego-driven and violent infighting among the leaders and factions in the Party, this relative lack of political substance reflects poorly on her own seriousness as a Panther leader as well as on the group which would make her such a leader.
The Black Panther Party was born in 1966/67 in Oakland, California, as a black self-defense organization with programs designed to help the black community. Under the leadership of such men as Huey Newton, Earl Anthony, Bobby Seale, George Jackson, Eldridge Cleaver, and Fred Hampton, the Panthers evolved to a point where it boasted chapters in a number of major U.S. urban centers, especially Los Angeles, New York and Chicago, cities where the Party developed effective out
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