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Following the conference, the Black Panther began to critique not only the police and white political leaders but also black political leaders and organizations that it viewed as counterrevolutionary. On July 20, the Black Panthers introduced their “Bootlicker” column. The idea was to identify “boo…

In the Detroit uprising, rebels not only looted but also turned to more serious insurrectionary tactics, such as arson and sniping. Unlike looting—which offers rebels instant material benefit—these activities subjected rebels to significant risk while offering no instant material benefit, thus sugg…

In 1967, the black community in Newark, New Jersey, was emblematic of the ghetto isolation and containment from which rebellions grew. At that time, Newark was the thirtieth largest city in the United States, with a population of four hundred thousand. As blacks migrated to Newark in the late 1950s…

The Panthers also reached out to students on college campuses. As soon as Bobby Seale was released on bail from the arrest in Sacramento, Peter Camejo of the Young Socialist Alliance at the University of California, Berkeley, scheduled an event on campus to set the record straight about the Black P…

Newton’s conception of the vanguard party was important because of the way he envisioned the party’s relationship to the people. He did not simply want to educate the people but also saw the importance of winning their respect.6 While approvingly citing Mao Zedong’s dictum that “power grows out of …