Living for the City - (The John Hope Franklin African American History and Culture) by Donna Jean Murch (Paperback)

About the Book

Living for the City: Migration, Education, and the Rise of the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California

Book Synopsis

In this nuanced and groundbreaking history, Donna Murch argues that the Black Panther Party (BPP) started with a study group. Drawing on oral history and untapped archival sources, she explains how a relatively small city with a recent history of African American settlement produced such compelling and influential forms of Black Power politics.

During an era of expansion and political struggle in California's system of public higher education, black southern migrants formed the BPP. In the early 1960s, attending Merritt College and other public universities radicalized Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, and many of the young people who joined the Panthers' rank and file. In the face of social crisis and police violence, the most disfranchised sectors of the East Bay's African American community -- young, poor, and migrant -- challenged the legitimacy of state authorities and of an older generation of black leadership. By excavating this hidden history, Living for the City broadens the scholarship of the Black Power movement by documenting the contributions of black students and youth who created new forms of organization, grassroots mobilization, and political literacy.

Review Quotes

"Living for the City provides great insight into the motivations of the BPP and the effects it had on civil rights and residents in the Bay Area and around the country. This book would serve as a useful text for undergraduate and graduate students of race and social movements."--Contemporary Sociology

"A provocative reinterpretation of the origins of the Black Panther Party in Oakland . . . Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above."--CHOICE

"Creates an important framework of analysis of local Black radical politics by placing higher education and southern Black migrants as central to its development." --Pacific Historical Review

"In this well-researched, smoothly written book, the author plunges deeply into the archives and emerges with what is probably the most thoughtful history of this important organization written to this point. . . . It is quite doubtful if any [study] will surpass this one in terms of imagination, clear writing, deft scholarship and weighty conclusions."--Journal of American Studies

"Insightful . . . A well crafted and rigorously researched text that makes a strong contribution to the literature."--Left History

"Offers a fresh perspective on East Bay black activism. . . . An engaging work that adds to the expanding literature on the interplay between Black migration and political mobilization." --Journal of African American History

About the Author

Donna Jean Murch is associate professor of history at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.