PANTHER BABY
A Life of Rebellion and Reinvention
From FBI fugitive to Ivy League professor a true and inspirational story
Eddie Joseph was a high school honor student, slated to graduate early and begin college. But this was the late 1960s in the Bronx's black ghetto, and at the age of 15, Eddie was introduced to the tenets of the Black Panther Party, which was just gaining a national foothold. By 16, his devotion to the cause landed him in prison on the infamous Rikers Island charged with conspiracy as one of the Panther 21 in one of the most emblematic criminal cases of the '60s. When exonerated, Eddie now called Jamal became the youngest spokesperson and leader of the Panthers' New York Chapter. He joined the "revolutionary underground", later landing back in prison. Sentenced to over twelve years in Leavenworth, he earned three degrees there and found a new calling. He is now Chair of Columbia University's School of the Arts' film division the very school he exhorted students to burn down during one of his most famous speeches as a Panther. In raw, powerful prose, Jamal Joseph makes us understand what it meant to be a soldier inside the militant Black Panther movement. He recounts a harrowing, almost deadly, imprisonment as he charts his path to manhood, in a book filled with equal parts rage, despair, and hope.
Orphan, activist, subversive, urban guerrilla, the FBI's most wanted fugitive, drug addict, drug counselor, convict, writer, poet, filmmaker, father, professor, youth advocate, and Oscar nominee, Jamal Joseph lives with his wife and family in New York City.
Orphan, activist, subversive, urban guerrilla, the FBI's most wanted fugitive, drug addict, drug counselor, convict, writer, poet, filmmaker, father, professor, youth advocate, and Oscar nominee, Jamal Joseph lives with his wife and family in New York City.
Available products |
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Book
Published 2012-02-01 by Algonquin Books |
Book
Published 2012-02-01 by Algonquin Books |