Anarchism
Anarchism and anarchists and anything associated with the thinking, the people, or the history generally get a raw deal from the media and even mainstream historians. It is true that anarchism is profoundly anti-authoritarian, but its popular association with violence (wild-eyed bearded men throwing bombs) is exaggerated, even fictionalized by the very forces threatened by it, namely governments and the media with vested interests in things as they are.
As with any subversive political and economic movement, some proponents became impatient and felt justified in striking out in vengeance or justice. Thus you have Alexander Berkman and his attempted assassination of Pennsylvanian Henry Clay Frick in 1892 and Leon Czolgosz and his successful assassination of President William McKinley in 1901. Berkman, however, served his time in jail, wrote a deep and insightful account of his experience and went on to write more worthwhile books on the subject which possessed his life. (Czolgosz did not have that opportunity, being executed forty-five days after the death of his victim.)
Anarchism survived its dramatic beginnings in the 19th Century, however, and interested readers can find its articulate concern with agricultural reform, labor rights, and prophetic worries about the growth of the surveillance state in many excellent books. Here you will find books and a superb documentary on Sacco and Vanzetti (as well as Woody Guthrie's cd of his investigation into the miscarriage of justice). Here you will find histories, biographies, anthologies, memoirs, and fiction. It is a rich tradition, relevant to this day and to the future.
To Die for the People
To Die for the People
A fascinating, first-person account of a historic era in the struggle for black empowerment in America.
Long an iconic figure for radicals, Huey Newton is now being discovered by those interested in the history of America’s social movements. Was he a gifted leader of his people or a dangerous outlaw? Were the Black Panthers heroes or terrorists?
Whether Newton and the Panthers are remembered in a positive or a negative light, no one questions Newton’s status as one of America’s most important revolutionaries. To Die for the People is a recently issued classic collection of his writings and speeches, tracing the development of Newton’s personal and political thinking, as well as the radical changes that took place in the formative years of the Black Panther Party.
With a rare and persuasive honesty, To Die for the People records the Party’s internal struggles, rivalries and contradictions, and the result is a fascinating look back at a young revolutionary group determined to find ways to deal with the injustice it saw in American society. And, as a new foreword by Elaine Brown makes eminently clear, Newton’s prescience and foresight make these documents strikingly pertinent today.
Huey Newton was the founder, leader and chief theoretician of the Black Panther Party, and one of America’s most dynamic and important revolutionary philosophers.
“Huey P. Newton’s To Die for the People represents one of the most important analyses of the politics of race, black radicalism, and democracy written during the civil rights-Black Power era. It remains a crucial and indispensible text in our contemporary efforts to understand the continuous legacy of social movements of the 1960s and 1970s.”
—Peniel Joseph, author of Waiting Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America
“Huey P. Newton’s name, and more importantly, his history of resistance and struggle, is little more than a mystery for many younger people. The name of a third-rate rapper is more familiar to the average Black youth, and that’s hardly surprising, for the public school system is invested in ignorance, and Huey P. Newton was a rebel — and more, a Black Revolutionary . . . who gave his best to the Black Freedom movement; who inspired millions of others to stand.”
—Mumia Abu Jamal, political prisoner and author of Jailhouse Lawyers
“Newton’s ability to see theoretically, beyond most individuals of his time, is part of his genius. The opportunity to recognize that genius and see its applicability to our own times is what is most significant about this new edition.”
—Robert Stanley Oden, former Panther, Professor of Government, California State University, Sacramento