We Want Freedom: A Life in The Black Panther Party (New Edition)

by Mumia Abu-Jamal

The world's most renowned political prisoner, Mumia was only 15 when he helped found the first Philadelphia branch of the Black Panther Party. We Want Freedom: A Life in the Black Panther Party, reexamines his days in one of the most misunderstood revolutionary groups in U.S. history.

With a poetic voice and critical gaze, We Want Freedom combines memories of day-to-day life in the Party with rigorous analysis of the Black liberation struggle. Mumia challenges historians who claim that only the civil rights model was authentic, positioning the BPP as an ahistorical aberration. He brilliantly locates the Party in a centuries-long tradition of Black resistance, a legacy articulated in Kathleen Cleaver's sharp introduction as a "disfavored history." The roots of today's struggles are brought to the surface time and again as Mumia examines the long history of resistance to slavery, racial politics in Philadelphia, and the FBI's subversion of justice through COINTELPRO and earlier operations.

In an open, conversational style Mumia also remembers his personal experience as a Party member, placing the reader in the life of the average Black Panther. While many books on the BPP focus on the icons of the Party, We Want Freedom conveys the everyday grit, love, and dedication of the tens of thousands who called themselves Panthers.