In the Shadow of the Gun: The Black Panther Party, The Ninth Amendment and Discourses of Self-Defense, in SEARCH OF THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY: NEW PERSPECTIVES ON A REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT
Abstract
Controversy swirled around the Black Panthers from the moment the revolutionary black nationalist Party was founded in Oakland, California, in 1966. Since that time, the group that J. Edgar Hoover called “the single greatest threat to the nation’s internal security” has been celebrated and denigrated, deified and vilified. This collection offers a rich nuanced analysis. Historians, along with scholars in the fields of political science, English, sociology, and criminal justice, examine the Panthers and their present-day legacy with regard to revolutionary violence, radical ideology, urban politics, popular culture, and the media. The essays consider the Panthers as distinctly American revolutionaries, as the products of specific local conditions, and as parts of other movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s.
This Author evaluates the legal basis of the Panthers’ revolutionary struggle, explaining how they utilized and critiqued the language of the Constitution.