Book Description
for Panther Baby by Jamal Joseph
From the Publisher
In the 1960s he exhorted students at Columbia University to burn their college to the ground. Today heÕs chair of their School of the Arts film division. Jamal JosephÕs personal odysseyÑfrom the streets of Harlem to RikerÕs Island and Leavenworth to the halls of ColumbiaÑis as gripping as it is inspiring.Eddie Joseph was a high school honor student, slated to graduate early and begin college. But this was the late 1960s in BronxÕs black ghetto, and fifteen-year-old Eddie was introduced to the tenets of the Black Panther Party, which was just gaining a national foothold. By sixteen, his devotion to the cause landed him in prison on the infamous Rikers IslandÑcharged with conspiracy as one of the Panther 21 in one of the most emblematic criminal cases of the sixties. When exonerated, EddieÑnow called JamalÑbecame the youngest spokesperson and leader of the PanthersÕ New York chapter.He joined the Òrevolutionary underground,Ó later landing back in prison. Sentenced to more than twelve years in Leavenworth, he earned three degrees there and found a new calling. He is now chair of Columbia UniversityÕs School of the Arts film divisionÑthe very school he exhorted students to burn down during one of his most famous speeches as a Panther.In raw, powerful prose, Jamal Joseph helps us understand what it meant to be a soldier inside the militant Black Panther movement. He recounts a harrowing, sometimes deadly imprisonment as he charts his path to manhood in a book filled with equal parts rage, despair, and hope.
Publisher description retrieved from Google Books.