To the Editor:
The skewed article “New Views of the Black Panthers Paint Shades of Gray” (The Chronicle, March 2) omitted any mention of the Black Panther Party’s anti-Semitism. The Black Panther newspaper equated Zionism with racism, claimed Israel sought to include land from the Nile to the Euphrates, and often substituted the word “Zionist” for “Jew,” a tactic long employed by right-wing anti-Semites. ...
In 1970, Connie Matthews, the Black Panthers’ international coordinator, described defendants at the Chicago 8 trial as “Zionists” and claimed they had sold out Black Panther Bobby Seale to gain publicity. That same year, a Black Panther delegation visiting Jordan urged Israel’s destruction. ...
The article also failed to point out that the Black Panther Party glamorized North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung and championed his thought. As it drew closer to the Communist Party, the Black Panther Party moved away from Maoism. This necessitated selecting a hero who, unlike Mao, was not aligned with China in the Sino-Soviet conflict.
Stephen H. Norwood Professor of History and Judaic Studies University of Oklahoma Norman, Okla.
***
To the Editor:
While reading Peter Monaghan’s article, I kept waiting for some mention that the Black Panther Party was a Marxist group that opposed capitalism. In that way, they were very different from other black-power groups and were willing to create alliances with white Marxists.
I hope that this omission is a reflection of Monaghan’s reporting and not an attempt by contemporary scholars to rewrite history.
Fred L. Pincus Professor of Sociology and Anthropology University of Maryland-Baltimore County Baltimore
***
To the Editor:
Peter Monaghan’s “report” of an alleged rehabilitation of the Black Panthers is a particularly grotesque example of the intellectual debasement of the contemporary academy, which is especially notable in subject areas dear to the political left. His article focuses on an ineptly conceived, crudely written, and dishonestly argued book — Up Against the Wall, by Curtis J. Austin, an assistant professor of history at the University of Southern Mississippi. In presenting his case, Monaghan ignores the mountain of evidence establishing that the Panther leaders were gangsters and murderers who left a trail of innocent victims in their wake.
Most notably, Monaghan ignores Will You Die With Me?: My Life and the Black Panther Party, the recent memoir by Flores A. Forbes, a member of the Panther “central committee” and rapt admirer of Huey Newton, reviewed last September in The New York Times by Stanley Crouch. Crouch wrote: “In a very low-key, matter-of-fact style that takes attempted murder, gunplay, beatings, extortion and arrests as normal occurrences, Forbes pulls the covers off Newton with so much authority that the case his book makes against the Black Panther legend will be hard to dismiss.” Evidently not for Monaghan, who fails to even mention Forbes’s book in his article.
Critical works on the Panthers by left-wing writers Kate Coleman and Hugh Pearson are simply ignored, as is my own eyewitness testimony, Radical Son. ...
Flores Forbes was the head of the Panthers’ security squad and proudly describes himself in his memoir as an “assassin.” Eventually Forbes served five years for murder after an assassination attempted by him went awry. In this incident, Forbes inadvertently killed his own comrade in an exchange of gunfire triggered when their target — a black bookkeeper — fired back in self-defense. This critical event, which led to the final unraveling of the Panthers, is not even mentioned in Austin’s book, which is subtitled Violence in the Making and Unmaking of the Black Panther Party.
To this day, Flores Forbes remains morally confused enough to believe that his criminal acts were revolutionary. In other words, he is not a Panther critic and cannot be dismissed as having political agendas that would cause him to misrepresent these facts. There is no reason to challenge his account of the criminal nature of the Panther organization, and certainly no reason to ignore it the way Monaghan has done. ...
Professor Austin’s history of the Panthers doesn’t mention Flores Forbes. Other key Panther figures who fail to make an appearance in this incompetent text are Gwen Goodloe, who ran the party’s economy under Newton; Joan Kelly, who ran the party’s operations under Elaine Brown; and Brenda Bay, who ran the party’s showcase school. ...
Austin’s tendentious account of the torture and murder of Alex Rackley suppresses the facts that Ericka Huggins, a Panther icon, boiled the water that was used to torture the hapless victim and that every Panther leader present ... thought it was revolutionary to torture and murder a young black man on the accusations of a lone individual who Professor Austin characterizes as a “fool.”
Rehabilitating the Panthers is a hopeless and morally repellent endeavor. It doesn’t surprise me that today’s universities would provide the platform for this charade. It does surprise me that The Chronicle’s editors would go along with it.
David Horowitz President David Horowitz Freedom Center Los Angeles
***
To the Editor:
The article by Peter Monaghan takes a sociological approach to the impact of the Black Panthers on American society in the 1960s. I believe the article fails to realize the true value of this movement. ...
In 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson realized that nonviolent movements such as the one led by Martin Luther King Jr. would calm the nation and provide an acceptable alternative to the militant groups. By paying tribute to the civil-rights movement, Johnson could gain minority support and forestall civil uprisings in a nation already torn by the draft and the failure of the Vietnam campaign. He could gain widespread support for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by presenting the militant movement as unacceptable for its potential impact on the American economy and political stability. ...
The pressure brought by militant groups such as the Black Panthers served as a constant warning to Congress to keep civil rights on the front burner, to prevent civil insurrection and to contain the movement by rewarding nonviolent alternatives. This was the true value added by the militants of the 1960s. ...
Alan H. Newman Professor of Economics Farmingdale State College Farmingdale, N.Y.
http://chronicle.com Section: The Chronicle Review Volume 53, Issue 31, Page A47
