In Search of the Black Panther Party

“Jama Lazerow and Yohuru Williams have assembled a superb, timely, and significant anthology that historicizes one of the most controversial groups of the 1960s. Wide-ranging in scope, provocative, and deeply insightful, In Search of the Black Panther Party is a major contribution to the burgeoning literature on the Black Panthers and the wider Black Power era.” - Peniel E. Joseph, author of Waiting ’Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America

“Researchers have uncovered more useful information on the Panthers in the past ten years than in the preceding thirty. This wide-ranging collection contains some of the finest examples of today’s exciting new scholarship. It tops the list of required reading for those seeking to make up for lost time.” - William L. Van Deburg, author of New Day in Babylon: The Black Power Movement and American Culture, 1965–1975

“[In Search of the Black Panther Party] avoids a weakness common to collected conference papers, as each of the chapters refers to the other essays and flows clearly into the next piece. Although the general outline of the birth, rise, and collapse of the Panthers is common knowledge, this volume shows the complexity and debatable heritage of the group.” - Thomas J. Noer, Social History

“Collectively, the essays raise important questions about the Panthers that demonstrate the organization’s complexity, and should stimulate an energetic scholarly discussion and reevaluation of the Panthers’ historical significance. . . . Highly Recommended.” - M. Cachun, Choice

“Recent scholarship is well represented, resulting in a collection of essays that treat their subject in a scholarly, yet sensitive manner. . . . Lazerow, Williams, and the contributing authors are to be commended for producing a collection of essays that compels scholars to reexamine the Black Panthers and their true impact on U. S. and African American history.” - Oscar Williams, Journal of African American History

“These diverse and insightful essays, drawn from many untapped sources, collectively highlight the importance of local studies in complicating historians’ understandings of the BPP, which, as the authors point out, must be a key element in creating a historically rich narrative about this era.” - Beth Slutsky, Journal of American Ethnic History

"In Search of the Black Panther Party makes a valuable contribution to the field of Panther historiography." - Paul Alkebulan, The Historian

"Taken as a whole, the essays offer a critical evaluation of the BPP and do not hesitate to challenge the shibboleths and assumptions that heretofore have dominated scholarship on the Panthers. . . . [A]n important contribution. . . ." - Gregg L. Michel, Journal of American History