The Black Panther Party: A Graphic Novel History

If you were looking for a good historical account of the Black Panther Party, look no further. The graphic novel gives you a detailed, contextual history about the movement & the people involved in the struggles the group faced. It's truly an educational resource that's fun to look at & goes a long way to humanize historical figures that we haven't given enough attention to so far.I can't gush about this enough. I bought the print & digital versions because it's so well done. If you're looking for the excuse to buy it, take this review as your final push. Do it, you'll be glad you did.

I love this book!!! The first thing that grabbed me was the beautiful illustration art by Marcus Kwame Anderson. His artistic translations of iconic images are warm and affectionate, and his research on period clothing, cars, and neighborhoods is so on point I felt like I was there in the visual sequences he created from oral or written accounts. I love that every single panel in this book is beautiful to look at, even when the subject matter is heartbreaking or enraging. There is so much to examine visually, I find myself going back to look again and again. The artist’s line quality is just beautiful, and I loved the use color, and the production design too!The writing in this book is also excellent!! The writer, David Walker, lays out the preceding history that led to the formation of the Black Panther Party. That context really illuminates these young peoples sense of urgency and righteous indignation, and the real threats to their lives and health, and the way white supremacy and racist policy touched every part of Black people’s lives, as it continues to today. Reading this book is like listening to a favorite history professor give a riveting lecture - there are many threads, many lives, many events, but he makes a cohesive narrative that a lay person can follow and understand, and get excited about. I appreciate the balance in the writing as well, all the facts are put out there, making for a well rounded, human history of the Party.This is a great book for anyone who loves history, art, comics, is interested in Civil and Human Rights, and is interested in current events as well, because this history draws a direct line to today. It should definitely be a part of every library collection and taught in high schools and universities.

This graphic novel blew my mind. In college, I took a Black Studies course that was taught by a former black panther. I knew about most of these stories and the complexity of the movement because of government resistance and it’s a lot to unpack. For anybody interested in history, uplifting black voices, and lover of comic books and graphic novels? You won’t regret it. David Walker and Marcus Kwame are legends in the making and I can’t wait to see what else they’ll continue to do from here on out.This is also the perfect book to gift to your kids, friends and fellow comrades. It’s the perfect gift.

I was very pleased to receive this book. I know one of the artists behind this book so I wanted to see what he did with the subject matter and I am quite impressed. The book is well made, the graphics are very good (that's my friend's work) and the research that went into providing the text is very apparent. As a fellow writer, I know that reading a book is something that others seem to be less and less. But this is a very essential book for both young and adult readers. It provides important information about the rights of people subjected to injustice wherever they reside; it just so happens that most of the book focuses on America. I strongly encourage others, certainly primarily people of color, to prepare your favorite beverage, settle into a favorite chair and delve into this important book. It is a graphic comic book, but it still matters. 175pgs. The vendor was very dependable and the book arrived in a very timely manner.

This exceeded my expectations. I bought this for a teenage student who struggles with reading due to a TBI but is very interested in civil rights and historical movements. It's the perfect level for him - high interest, easy to digest, appropriate for both his age and ability level. I also loved reading it and planning lessons for him. Great for 12 and older, would consider maturity level and how much they already know about the history for younger kids

It's a great start for those who don't know anything about the Black Panther Party for Self Defense. Seize The Time by Bobby Seale as well as Revolutionary Suicide by Huey P. Newton are great too for those that want a more in depth look at the creation of the party.

In the afterword to this book, author David F. Walker provides a rather nuanced view of the Black Panthers, and correctly sums it all up by saying that the conditions that gave birth to the Panthers remain in force today in America. This is a gorgeously illustrated book that tries to tell the story of this uniquely Black American political movement without falling into the trap of demonising or mythologising the Panthers. To a degree, it succeeds — but only to a degree. One of the most moving parts of the book is a scene that runs for several pages, which depicts an imagined encounter between Panther founder Huey P. Newton and a white police officer. The officer has stopped the car in which Newton is sitting with three other Panthers. The Panthers are armed. Newton speaks for them, asserting their right to state only their names and also their right to bear arms. It is a very tense scene, and it ends with the police backing down. In the wake of all that has happened since, the seemingly unending killing of unarmed and innocent Black men and women by white police officers in the half century since that happened, one cannot help but feel sympathy for Newton. But having said that, one also cannot avoid noticing not only the Panthers’ glorification of violence but also their sympathy for some of the most murderous regimes of the twentieth century. The book includes an illustration of the Black Panther newspaper with an article by North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung. The Panthers’ combination of violent criminality with Stalinist politics proved to be toxic. In the end they were destroyed by the FBI and police, as the book points out on several occasions. But the Panthers would almost certainly have destroyed themselves in the end.

Easy to read. A concise and simple history of the Black Panthers - perhaps a little biased in their favour

I recommend it wholeheartedly.

An insightful and comprehensive accounting of the history of the Black Panther Party told in an accessible and engaging format.

Great way to learn the history of the BPP! well drawn and written