So, a young Black man, rich in innate and learned intelligence, would not learn anything meaningful about the Black Panther Party, until he came to Death Row. Still now, locked into a steel and concrete box, he gained some sense of a hidden history, learning of some of his hidden birthright. He learned of a history that was his own, of the family of Africans resisting repression in America. Its organizational life span lasted sixteen years from 1966 to 1982. Although not widely recognized, the Party produced a rich and multifaceted legacy that significantly impacted the Black Liberation struggle.
History is a powerful tool for an oppressed people, for it can provide a people with hope.
Past suffering hence becomes an indictment of existing economic and political systems. Memory of resistance and hope, on the other hand, chronicles actual or imagined instances of resistance and liberation. These accounts are a declaration of the possibility of change, and they are examined continuously in an attempt to understand what enables resistance in specific historical situations. No, young buck. The Black Panther wasn't a gang.