Revolution in Our Time: The Black Panther Party's Promise to the People

by Kekla Magoon

Overview

A National Book Award Finalist
A Coretta Scott King Author Award Honor Book
A Michael L. Printz Honor Book
A Walter Dean Myers Honor Book

With passion and precision, Kekla Magoon relays an essential account of the Black Panthers—as militant revolutionaries and as human rights advocates working to defend and protect their community.


In this comprehensive, inspiring, and all-too-relevant history of the Black Panther Party, Kekla Magoon 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.

Revolution in Our Time 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. Kekla Magoon’s eye-opening work invites a new generation of readers grappling with injustices in the United States to learn from the Panthers’ history and courage, inspiring them to take their own place in the ongoing fight for justice.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781536214185
Publisher:	Candlewick Press
Publication date:	11/08/2021
Pages:	400
Sales rank:	34,936
Product dimensions:	7.40(w) x 10.10(h) x 1.10(d)
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

Kekla Magoon's young adult novel The Rock and the River, which won the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Author Award, was the first mainstream novel for young people to feature the Black Panther Party. She is the Margaret A. Edwards Award-winning author of more than a dozen books for young readers, including Fire in the Streets and How It Went Down. She is also the coauthor, with Ilyasah Shabazz, of X: A Novel, which was long-listed for the National Book Award and received an NAACP Image Award and a Coretta Scott King Honor. Kekla Magoon grew up in Indiana and now lives in Vermont, where she serves on the faculty at Vermont College of Fine Arts.

Table of Contents

Preface viii

Spark: May 2, 1967 1

1 Shattering the Status Quo 3

Kindling: 1619-1965 11

2 The Dark Past 13

3 Separate but Equal 27

4 Shall We Overcome? 39

5 The Aggressive Alternative 55

Blaze: 1966-1982 71

6 Picking Up the Gun 73

7 A Cold Reception 89

8 Filling the Ranks 97

9 Off the Pigs! 115

10 Death of the King 133

11 Going National 143

12 Life in the Party 155

13 Survival Pending Revolution 173

14 All Power to the People 185

15 The Wrath of COINTELPRO 197

16 Traitors in the Ranks 213

17 Political Prisoners 225

18 The Split 239

19 Last Gasp 257

Embers: 1982-Present 273

20 The Post-Panther Decades 275

21 Legacy 299

Authors Note Revolution in Our Time 309

Acknowledgments 317

Key People 318

Time Line 324

Glossary 326

Further Reading 329

Source Notes 333

Bibliography 365

Image Credits 376

Copyright Acknowledgments 382

Index 383

Editorial Reviews

★ 08/16/2021

In this powerful history, Magoon (Light It Up) presents an incisive, in-depth study of the Black Panther Party. Detailed, accessible text includes ample context around the BPP’s rise and fall, starting with a history of slavery, emancipation, and segregation before diving into the civil rights and Black Power movements and ending with Black Lives Matter. While offering nuanced information about the group’s self-defense stance (“capable of fighting back, but would prefer not to fight at all”), Magoon also describes the community programs that the party created for Black people, its dedication to ensuring all of its actions were legal, and the lengths to which the U.S. government and local law officials went to destroy the party. Photographs, newspaper clippings, and Black Panther art are featured throughout, providing visual breaks that inform while contributing to a pace that is digestible for young readers. Back matter includes an author’s note explaining the importance of young people in creating lasting change, a timeline of the events mentioned, glossaries of key people and terms, and a list of sources and further reading. Ages 12–up. Agent: Ginger Knowlton, Curtis Brown. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

This comprehensive, meticulously researched volume helps readers understand the Panthers within the spectrum of Black resistance. The narrative is cinematic in its descriptions of the personalities and incidents that make up the party’s history while presenting a throughline to the anti-racist activism of today. The book’s attractive graphic design, with ample use of robin’s egg blue in contrast to dramatic black-and-white photographs, and with memorable quotes scattered throughout, makes it visually pleasing. . . highly readable and not-to-be-missed.
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

In this powerful history, Magoon (Light It Up) presents an incisive, in-depth study of the Black Panther Party.
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Magoon has produced a comprehensive and all-encompassing account of the group. . . . Her history of the Black Panther Party is meticulously detailed. . . . Magoon goes beyond the dissolution of the Party to discuss life for Black Americans from 1982 to 2020, expertly drawing parallels between the Black Panther Party and the Black Lives Matter movement. . . invaluable for both individual and classroom reading.
—The Horn Book (starred review)

Exceedingly well researched, illustrated, and sourced. . . This rounded accounting of a pivotal but often-overlooked time in U.S. history should be widely read.
—Booklist (starred review)

Magoon offers an in-depth look at the Black Panthers that we’ve not really seen for young people—-one that is honest and offers a much-needed corrective. . . A must-have.
—School Library Journal (starred review)

Magoon delivers what may be her magnum opus—a complete history of the Black Panther Party (BPP) written from the viewpoint of an insider. . . . Her linear narrative writing style fits this work well. . . a must for students.

—School Library Connection (starred review)

Magoon, writing with clarity and accessibility, gives a full picture of an organization based in Black power, how it came to be, and how it has been purposely misrepresented in history books for decades. . . . a compelling portrait.
—The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

A must-read for anyone interested in fighting injustice, this courageous book takes readers beyond what we think we know and provides an objective and insightful view of our nation’s history.
—NPR

Although Magoon covers decades, even centuries, of history, she does so with a straightforwardness and detail that makes this book a helpful resource for readers of every age.
—Vox

Kekla Magoon's fascinating, meticulously researched account of the Black Panther Party, liberally illustrated with photos and news clippings and other documentary material, is a National Book Award finalist and deserves wide readership for shining a spotlight on a movement that has much relevance to the present day.
—The Buffalo News

This important National Book Award finalist makes a compelling case: that the legacy of the Black Panther Party lives on in our endemic and enduring struggles to overcome systemic racism.
—The San Francisco Chronicle

Magoon does an outstanding job of exploring the reality that much of the group’s power and movement came because of the dedication of Black women.
—Book Riot

An extraordinary and comprehensive history on the Black Panther Party.
—Ms. Magazine

Kekla Magoon is a national treasure, and Revolution in Our Time passionately and meticulously details a critical truth that is both feared and necessary in the classroom.
—Rita Williams-Garcia, award-winning author of A Sitting in St. James

From the Publisher

★ 2021-07-08
An account of the origins and lasting impact of the militant organization that grew out of the oppression of Blacks in the United States.

The Black Panther Party existed in mostly poor and low-income communities across the country from 1966 until 1982, advocating self-reliance and self-defense, particularly against aggressive policing. Magoon provides critical historical context, documenting the harsh, sometimes deadly efforts to control first the enslaved, then those who were freed when legal bondage ended. Despite legal changes brought by the civil rights movement, many communities suffered economic deprivation, societal challenges, and hostility from police and politicians, leading activists to see Black political power as an alternative. The Panthers took a holistic approach to improving Black communities by providing food, health, and education programs. Their rising influence elicited harassment from law enforcement, including often illegal FBI attempts to destroy them. Many of their leaders were imprisoned or killed in the process, weakening the party’s effectiveness. This comprehensive, meticulously researched volume helps readers understand the Panthers within the spectrum of Black resistance. The narrative is cinematic in its descriptions of the personalities and incidents that make up the party’s history while presenting a throughline to the anti-racist activism of today. The book’s attractive graphic design, with ample use of robin’s egg blue in contrast to dramatic black-and-white photographs, and with memorable quotes scattered throughout, makes it visually pleasing.

The highly readable and not-to-be-missed story of America’s history and current reality. (key people, timeline, glossary, further reading, source notes, bibliography, image credits, index) (Nonfiction. 12-18)

Kirkus Reviews