Critical Reviews
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We Want Freedom
By Mumia Abu-Jamal
Introduction by Kathleen Cleaver. South End Press. 2004.
292 pp. Flat bound. $18.00. ISBN: 0-89608-718-2.
We Want Freedom was
written as a Master’s thesis and proves to be a very interesting study on the
life, death (1982), and rebirth of the Black Panther Party. The author’s
writing is fluid, clear, and keeps one “hooked.” I was interested in reading
the book for several reasons, including curiosity as to what happened to the BPP,
having lived as a college student during that era. It just seemed to have
disappeared. All I could recall were several police raids and shoot outs.
Later, I’d also followed Abu-Jamal’s case (journalist accused of murdering a
police officer and incarcerated for life) and had read a book of his essays,
which I’d liked. More recently, former BPP member Angela Davis spoke at
Grambling State University, an HBCU (Historically Black College and University),
where I currently teach. I’d sketched a cartoon on her because of her statement
“the way the blacks are treated.” Indeed, I wondered how other BPP members were
being treated today. Were they earning $100,000 plus salaries in comfortable,
life-secure, tenured, academic positions like Davis? As a white man, I’m quite
certain Oprah, Jordan, Davis, Magic, Cosby, Angelou, Giovanni, and numerous
other well-to-do Blacks are being treated a hell of a lot better than I. The
rhetoric spewed by Davis consolidates, more than anything else, the power of
wealthy Black leaders and assures their lucrative reading engagements. Anyhow…
We Want Freedom begins with the origins of the Black Panther Party in the
mind of Huey Newton, its founder. Newton was especially influenced by The
Wretched of the Earth, written by the Caribbean Franz Fanon, who fought for
Algerian independence. He was also influenced by Lenin, Dubois, Baldwin,
Nietzsche, Camus, and Dostoevsky. The roots of the BPP truly fascinate.
Abu-Jamal’s account of early successive black rebellions and movements, dating
as far back as 1526, is enthralling. Most Americans are probably unaware of
them, as they are perhaps unaware that some freed blacks ended up owning
slaves. Living in Louisiana, where so many plantation mansions still exist,
I’ve become quite aware of the latter. Also, of particular interest is the
mention of a group of freed slaves who petitioned the Massachusetts legislature
in 1787 to resettle in Africa because of the “disagreeable and disadvantageous
circumstances” for free Africans in America. The legislature refused that
request. Most Americans are no doubt unaware that some slaves were freed nearly
a hundred years prior to the Civil War. Also, of in interest is the mention
that Lincoln had proposed mass resettlement of Blacks in Central America. He
was opposed to free Blacks mixing with whites. The account of the US-Seminole
wars, where Blacks were aided by Seminole Indians against the US government and
even became Seminole Indians themselves, is fascinating. All of this intriguing
and dense history is of course available. The problem is that it is rarely if
ever widely disseminated.
In any case, the Black Panther Party was created not to support black civil
rights organizations, but rather to supplant them. Newton wrote: “We had seen
Martin Luther King come to Watts in an effort to calm the people and we had seen
his philosophy rejected.” Clearly, Blacks with money and position would in
general reject Newton’s philosophy. Although, hype increased membership, it
also seemed to decrease foot in reality. “The Revolution seemed as inevitable
as tomorrow’s newspaper headlines,” writes Abu-Jamal. Yet, “many of the Party’s
leading members sought refuge abroad.” Abu-Jamal also notes the “educational
materials that every Party member was expected to study,” but does not mention
expected to question, challenge and debate. Clearly, those educational
materials were intended, not to educate, but to indoctrinate, though the term
indoctrination is not mentioned at all in We Want Freedom.
Indoctrination is of course the antithesis of freedom. “When a major
ideological shift was taking place, we followed it, even if we didn’t
particularly agree with it,” writes Abu-Jamal. “The almost-blind faith in the
guidance of Newton would have serious and long-lasting repercussions.” Oddly,
Abu-Jamal also writes “Panthers were taught to eschew what was called careerism
and to shun compartmentalist thinking.” Yet the latter was precisely what they
were being encouraged to do. He also notes “Individualism, like careerism, was
seen as a negative, bourgeois trait that was criticized.” Yet, clearly,
individualism, which implies personal thinking, personal questioning and
challenging, etc., would have made the BPP a healthier, stronger, and wiser
organization. Dictators, small and large, tend to abhor individualism. Stalin,
Hitler, and Mao all sought to crush it. And indeed, Abu-Jamal notes how Newton
chose people who would agree with him, and not question and challenge him.
Newton’s poster hung in every office. He became the object of a leadership cult
in much the same way as Hitler, Mao, Stalin, and any number of other dictators.
So, what killed the Black Panther Party? According to Abu-Jamal, three things
destroyed it: Black “snitches,” the covert COINTRELPRO government operation of
fraudulent letter writing campaigns he terms “brownmail,” and the inflated egos
of its Black leaders, who seemed more interested in keeping power, than
realizing the goals of the BPP. It would have been easy for Abu-Jamal to place
the entire blame upon the white power structure. But he did not take that easy
road. Instead, he placed a large measure of that blame/responsibility on BPP
members themselves. Abu-Jamal notes that some Black snitches, including Earl
Anthony, even went on to public careers of “influence and power.” “The
East-West split [of the BPP] had many beginnings, some known, some unknown, with
the State skillfully manipulating the noxious toxins of ego, pride, and envy
among key Party officials. Hoover authorized false letters to all of these
leaders…” There must have been some truth to the letters for them to have
worked so effectively. Was Newton in fact living in luxury? One COINTRELPRO
letter to Cleaver mentioned: “I am referring to his fancy new apartment which
he refers to as the throne… and the high rent is from Party funds…” Abu-Jamal
does not examine the possibility of truth in some of the “brownmail” letters.
This reviewer’s skeptic’s eye, per usual, hunted for discrepancies in logic, but
found few. Abu-Jamal, for example, mentions how Mao Tse Tung’s famous Red book
was disseminated by Newton amongst followers (“Selling the book made money; and
money would be used to buy what revolutionaries the world over found
indispensable: guns.”), but fails to mention anything at all about Mao’s
infamous other side, the one that succeeded in butchering millions of Chinese
citizens, more murders committed than by any other dictator in the history of
humankind. Abu-Jamal might have also mentioned that today the Black cop is sent
into Black communities and examine that in light of his statement that back in
1967 Eldridge Cleaver wrote, “The white cop is the instrument sent into our
community by the Power structure to keep our people quiet and under control…”
In general, Abu-Jamal does prove to make an unusual effort to find and reveal
the truth, even when that truth might surely be hurtful to him personally, as a
former BPP member. “What is lamentable is that there is every indication that
Cleaver and Newton believed the accounts coming to them, never questioning their
authorship or their accuracy,” writes Abu-Jamal with regards the “brownmail.”
This reviewer recommends this book as pertinent and educational.
—The
Editor
