s their identity outside of images black men retained for them.
WolfensteinÆs (47) depiction of the roles of women and men within the black Nationalist movement is similar to BrownÆs initial views that drew her to powerful men within the Black Panthers organization, ôMen are supposed to be independent and strong; women are supposed to lean on and require their strengthàShe can work like a man, even outwork a man, and bear the lash like a man. Yet she is a woman.ö Brown certainly worked like a man, outworked many, and bore the pain and violence she suffered as stoically as any male. However, the violence exhibited toward her often came at the hands of black men determined to keep women in their place within the black community and activist movement. Such a role for black women often limited their power, intellect, and development. In a painful reassessment of her dependency on men within the movement, after being subjected to a violent beating, Brown (310) admits, ôThis was the deepest truth of why I was in the Black Panther Party, of why I smothered my life with Huey Newton.ö
As Wolfenstein (45) writes in ôReflections on Malcolm X and Black Feminism,ö ôNot only were black men the official leaders of the liberation movement, they also were insistent that black manhood was central to the emancipatory struggle.ö The notion of
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