posting this mainly to remind myself to read these but might be good to share here. if any of yall have read these i'd like to hear what you thought, as a starting point!
Black Reconstruction by WEB Du Bois is the singular best history ever written by an American. Examines exactly how black slaves were the true American proletariat, how they worked with poor whites during Reconstruction to better the lives of everybody in the South, and how northern industrialists collaborated with the souther planter class to bribe those poor whites with the "psychological wage of whiteness" via Jim Crow laws to end that coalition that was beginning to challenge be the hegemony of capital. I highly recommend reading it, as it'll give you a good grounding of what could have been, the historical context for why much of what the Panthers were doing was the "correct" move, and how we can use what was done in the past to inform our program now.
oh perfect, that sounds like a real eyeopener. thanks for the writeup too, piqued my interest in a paragraph. this is going first on my reading list!
I'm halfway through the biography of Malcolm X and I can absolutely wholeheartedly recommend reading it.
awesome, it's been on my To Read list for so long, and i don't know too much about Malcolm X. can't wait to read it
It's a wild ride. Way more entertaining than I expected it to be
