Revolution In Our Time by Kekla Magoon

The Black Panthers were complicated. This book tells the far ranging story of them and manages to encompass that range—from militant revolutionaries to human rights advocates working to defend and protect their community. The former got a lot of play at the time they were on the rise, but it is the later that resonates with me, that they tried to ally all people of color, especially those living in poverty, and address things on Maslow's hierarchy of needs--food and health care in particular--as basic human rights. This is a comprehensive, inspiring, and all-too-relevant history of the Black Panther Party, where the author introduces readers to the Panthers’ community activism, grounded in the concept of self-defense, which taught Black Americans how to protect and support themselves in a country that treated them like second-class citizens. For too long the Panthers’ story has been a footnote to the civil rights movement rather than what it was: a revolutionary socialist movement that drew thousands of members—mostly women—and became the target of one of the most sustained repression efforts ever made by the U.S. government against its own citizens. Here is a work that puts the Panthers in the proper context of Black American history, from the first arrival of enslaved people to the Black Lives Matter movement of today.