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Summary: A sobering account of Huey Newton and the Black Panthers
Review: Hugh Pearson has written a sobering account of the Black Panther Party. He has deconstructed the mythology of the panther party, and given them some historical perspective. Unfortunately, hypocritical man such as David Horowitz, have used the failures of the panther party to discredit some important programs that they created, such as the free Breakfast program. Also, we must not forget, the hands on political involvement they had in their community. They were responsible for helping to elect Oakland's first Black mayor. They brought serious attention to issues such as police brutality, and inspired urban youth all over the world. Mr Pearson is to sympathetic to shady characters such as David Horowitz, who assume abandon the urban poor, because it is no longer chic to favor "liberal" policies that would help them. And this is the major problem with this book, the author is to willing to accept embittered commentary from man such as David Horowitz who are willing to throw away the noble dream of decency and humanism, for the the new chic ideology of neo conservatism. We must acknowlege the failing of the panthers, and the evil that Newton and Cleaver were responsible for, but we must not forget the good either.
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Summary: As reliable as the history book you read in high school
Review: I am not a supporter of the Black Panthers, in fact I oppose them. Hugh Pearson does more than promote the Panthers in his hollow tell-all book by showing the public how lied about the Panthers are. Much of his sources are misinterpreted, as others have said, and he often seeks the worst outlook as a way of conveying the situation, never giving to even a modest viewpoint. He takes several sources that can be interpreted as unreliable, and then makes it worse by distorting the information therein. His book is as reliable as the history book you used in high school. It has so little of a reliable basis that one should only use it with the utmost scrutiny.
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Summary: Critical History of the Black Panthers
Review: I became interested in the Panthers during high school, and during my research for a term paper on the BPP, I encountered sources that only supported and maintained the view that the Black Panthers were destroyed by FBI counterintelligence. Pearson's book finally provides a more accurate view of Panther history. While Pearson concentrates on the party's criminal activities and the overall negative impact on the community and its members' lives, he does not do it with Horowitz-style, moral judgement or a conservative, revisionist agenda. The story Pearson presents is the true story, whether we like it or not, and any educated perspective on the Panthers must take this work into account. However, I do feel that the book lacks serious discussion of the FBI's campaigns against the Panthers, which were damaging. The murder of Fred Hampton is the most egregious example of the government's persecution of the Party, but it only gets a passing mention. Also, Pearson forgets to bring it all together in the end and truly weigh the impact of the Party on the overall civil rights struggle, but overall, for any one who wants to finally see a less biased view of the Black Panters, this book is a definite read.
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Summary: Great book about the Black Panthers!
Review: I have read a few books on the Panthers, and have always been drowned in my own romantacism that I never questioned anything that came from the movement. This book sheds light on so many things; which may at times make readers uncomfortable. At one point you feel greatful for such an organization, while at others your disapointment may sadden you.That is what makes this a good book; objectivity. He lays the positives out, but does not ignore the negatives; in fact, a good percentage of this book is explaining so many of the negatives within the party. Still, at the same time, you get a feeling that the author truly appreciates the positive aspects of the BPP, but appreciates it without ignoring the blemishes within the party's past. Anyway, it's a good book. I have known a few Panthers, and one in particular I made a coment about how I looked up to Huey Newton. He started making some statments and I asked him to stop because I didn't want to have a tarnished image of the man. Now, after reading this book, I see both sides of the issue; which makes things all the more clearer. This book has left me both disapointed and greatful. Disapointed because some things in Panther past were not as I expected; and greatful that I got to see another side of the BPP.
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Summary: Biased in favor, but knowing
Review: I think it's great that people are writing in about my husband's book. However, I'd like to know how the reader from Chapel Hill who has posted a review, would know whether or not Pearson slanted the information of his sources? Was he there for the book interviews? And if he's referring to the documented sources you can look up in the endnotes, I fail to see where my husband is misrepresenting them. Hugh Pearson simply reported his research findings then drew his own conclusions. And as far as the charge goes that he has no feel for the era. What does the reader mean? It's not like Pearson came up with conclusions based only on what he thought. He interviewed Panther veterans. There is one movement veteran in particular in the book who talks, for instance, about the murder of Black Panther Alex Rackley. She says that you have to put the murder of Rackley by fellow Panthers in the context of the times, which were crazy. And that the murder was a mistake that the authorities were using to do in the movement. The book is filled with interviews with veterans who take the reader back to the era. And Pearson doesn't step on any of what they have to say. So I'm at a loss for what the Chapel Hill reviewer is referring to. Lastly, I find it interesting that more people have said they find this negative review helpful than the positive reivews on line. This causes me to question a lot of the motivations of potential customers. Are they looking for reasons not to buy the book? Are they searching for reasons to dismiss what Pearson wrote as happened among so many people who didn't even bother to pick it up when it first came out, and simply went on the attack against him based purely on what reviewers said (many of whom were biased veterans of the era who were culpable in covering up Panther atrocities?). I wonder.
Rating:
Summary: Biased in favor, but knowing
Review: I think it's great that people are writing in about my husband's book. However, I'd like to know how the reader from Chapel Hill who has posted a review, would know whether or not Pearson slanted the information of his sources? Was he there for the book interviews? And if he's referring to the documented sources you can look up in the endnotes, I fail to see where my husband is misrepresenting them. Hugh Pearson simply reported his research findings then drew his own conclusions. And as far as the charge goes that he has no feel for the era. What does the reader mean? It's not like Pearson came up with conclusions based only on what he thought. He interviewed Panther veterans. There is one movement veteran in particular in the book who talks, for instance, about the murder of Black Panther Alex Rackley. She says that you have to put the murder of Rackley by fellow Panthers in the context of the times, which were crazy. And that the murder was a mistake that the authorities were using to do in the movement. The book is filled with interviews with veterans who take the reader back to the era. And Pearson doesn't step on any of what they have to say. So I'm at a loss for what the Chapel Hill reviewer is referring to. Lastly, I find it interesting that more people have said they find this negative review helpful than the positive reivews on line. This causes me to question a lot of the motivations of potential customers. Are they looking for reasons not to buy the book? Are they searching for reasons to dismiss what Pearson wrote as happened among so many people who didn't even bother to pick it up when it first came out, and simply went on the attack against him based purely on what reviewers said (many of whom were biased veterans of the era who were culpable in covering up Panther atrocities?). I wonder.
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Summary: Chapel Hill was right--shaky on the facts
Review: On page 26, Pearson says that Robert F. Williams founded a group called the "Deacons for Defense" in Monroe, NC. This is not the case, and the group by that name was founded several years later in Jonesboro, LA. The book is sprinkled with similar errors of fact, born of failure to read the existing historical literature and (in some cases) of a desire to hype the excitement. For example, he uses James Forman's The Making of Black Revolutionaries as a source for his account of Monroe, NC, but Pearson's version of events distorts Forman utterly. In most areas where I know the history, Pearson bungles it, apparently in an effort to give the story more melodrama. His vision of black Southerners, other than Robert Williams, as patient pacifists is not grounded in the historical record, but is drawn from stereotypes. Maybe in all other instances he is a reliable handler of sources, but the number of factual errors I have stumbled across in this book makes me wonder.
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Summary: Nicely written, research sometimes borders on deceitful
Review: Pearson tells a good story, and we can be glad that our historical understanding has moved a little closer to a reasonable view of Huey Newton and the Black Panther Party. His posture of "balance," however, can create an appearance of reliablity that the book does not deserve. In fact, if you check his sources closely, he often misrepresents them, and always in the direction of amplifying the drama. There is the problem that he does not know that much about the African American freedom movement, on the one hand, and the problem that he stretches the truth on purpose, on the other. Pearson's "good story" sometimes wanders far from the facts, and it isn't just sloppy, but dishonest at points. This could have been a good book, but instead it is second-rate history at best. I hope that the remaining Black Panthers will someday decide to tell the truth and let the chips fall where they may. But I hope they tell it to a historian with some intellectual integrity.
Rating:
Summary: Nicely written, research sometimes borders on deceitful
Review: Pearson tells a good story, and we can be glad that our historical understanding has moved a little closer to a reasonable view of Huey Newton and the Black Panther Party. His posture of "balance," however, can create an appearance of reliablity that the book does not deserve. In fact, if you check his sources closely, he often misrepresents them, and always in the direction of amplifying the drama. There is the problem that he does not know that much about the African American freedom movement, on the one hand, and the problem that he stretches the truth on purpose, on the other. Pearson's "good story" sometimes wanders far from the facts, and it isn't just sloppy, but dishonest at points. This could have been a good book, but instead it is second-rate history at best. I hope that the remaining Black Panthers will someday decide to tell the truth and let the chips fall where they may. But I hope they tell it to a historian with some intellectual integrity.
Rating: 
Summary: My Research Was as Thorough as Possible Given the Parameters
Review: Recently it appears that certain customers are finally beginning to comment about my book after it has been out for close to six years. And among the comments that have been posted are those of a few who seek to discredit my research calling into question all of it based upon what they know (or think they know) about one particular passage describing events in Monroe, NC. I wish to respond to this assault on my integrity. The material in question is part of a summation of civil rights events described as a prelude to the founding of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. Contrary to what the customers seeking to discredit my account of what happened with Robert Williams in that town are telling others, the source of the description of the events isn't solely James Forman's book "The Making of Black Revolutionaries." As the endnotes make clear another source of events in that town is an extensive article by Julian Mayfield that I discovered in the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley entitled, "The Monroe Kidnapping," published in November 1961 in "The West Indian Gazette and Afro-Asian Carribbean News." Thus perhaps the section they seek to discredit that is at variance with James Forman's description of events is due to the description given by Mayfield. In any event my research also indicated that the organization Williams came up with shared the same name (or similar names) with the organization also founded in later years in Louisiana. One was called "The Deacons for Defense and Justice," the other, either "The Deacons for Defense," or "The Deacons of Defense." Now there are those who insist that Robert Williams's group went by another name altogether and there is a book out now about the incidents in that town that didn't exist when I wrote "The Shadow of the Panther." In any event, what's described is a very minor piece in a much larger puzzle. In other words, "The Shadow of the Panther" isn't about Williams and his group. I feel that it is very unfair to discredit my entire book and research by nit-picking on one incident and then extraplotating from that to calling my entire book into question as well as my motives. It is not easy researching a book of the scope of "The Shadow of the Panther." I can assure readers that I engaged in no funny stuff, no intended sleight of hand, etc. As all authors of serious works discover, however, there is always someone out there ready to discredit what you've done for their own reasons. I have no problem with people exploring the contents of what I wrote and drawing their own conclusions. I only ask that they not assume that they understand the motivations of an author based upon a few possible (and I underline possible) mistakes. That's all I have to say about my book. Let the debate continue.
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