The Huey P. Newton Reader

The first comprehensive collection of writings by the Black Panther Party founder and revolutionary icon of the black liberation era, The Huey P. Newton Reader combines now-classic texts ranging in topic from the formation of the Black Panthers, African Americans and armed self-defense, Eldridge Cleaver’s controversial expulsion from the Party, FBI infiltration of civil rights groups, the Vietnam War, and the burgeoning feminist movement with never-before-published writings from the Black Panther Party archives and Newton’s private collection, including articles on President Nixon, prison martyr George Jackson, Pan-Africanism, affirmative action, and the author’s only written account of his political exile in Cuba in the mid-1970s. Eldridge Cleaver, Bobby Seale, Angela Davis, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and Geronimo Pratt all came to international prominence through Newton’s groundbreaking political activism. Additionally, Newton served as the Party’s chief intellectual engine, conversing with world leaders such as Yasser Arafat, Chinese Premier Chou Enlai, and Mozambique President Samora Moises Machel among others."In our messy situation where (whatever remains of) the radical Left is constantly sabotaging itself with its Politically Correct moralism, a Huey Newton reader is needed like daily bread: a remainder of a time half a century ago when incisive philosophical thinking was immediately linked to practical political engagement. Newton was a Communist who saw the struggle for decolonization as outdated, a materialist keeping an eye open for extrasensory perception… Our task is not to return to Newton but to repeat his gesture in today’s predicament. The future of the American radical Left will be Newtonian—or there will be none!" —Slavoj Zizek

"Huey Newton was a hero who brought life blood into a dream of freedom for all of us runaway slaves." —Elaine Brown, author of A Taste of Power: A Black Woman's StoryBeginning with his founding of the Black Panther Party in 1966, HUEY P. NEWTON (1941–89) set the political stage for events that would quickly place him and the Panthers at the forefront of the African American liberation movement for the next twenty years.
DAVID HILLIARD is a founding member and former chief of staff of the Black Panther Party. He is the author of This Side of Glory: The Autobiography of David Hilliard and the Story of the Black Panther Party and currently serves as executive director of the Dr.Huey P. Newton Foundation in Oakland, California.
DONALD WIESE is the editor of Black Like Us: A Century of Lesbian, Gay & Bisexual African-American Fiction. He lives in San Francisco.