![]() The only way you’re gonna get it from me is to try and take it.”įor a few surreal months, the newly formed Black Panther Party challenged the police again and again without a single shot being fired. “You’re supposed to be people enforcing the law, and here you are, ready to violate my constitutional rights. “What’s the matter with you?” Newton told one officer. Time and again, their standoffs with officers ended with Newton and Seale giving lectures on the law. ![]() To fight police brutality, they policed the cops. So Newton and Seale patrolled ghetto streets armed with rifles, shotguns and copies of California’s liberal gun laws. Back then, it was legal for California residents to carry firearms in public - as long as said weapons were held in full view. In “Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party,” we learn that Huey Newton and Bobby Seale felt lots of gun love as they drove up and down the streets of Oakland in 1966. The self-styled revolutionaries believed there’s something powerful and liberating about holding a firearm in your hands. ![]() The defenders of the 2nd Amendment once had a powerful ally in America: the Black Panthers. Martin Jr.University of California Press: 560 pp., $34.95 Black Against EmpireThe History and Politics of the Black Panther Party ![]()
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