Freedom! The Story of the Black Panther Party

Ages 12 to 18, Grades 7 to 12

Booklist Editors’ Choice

WINNER of the Russell Freedman Award for Non-Fiction for a Better World

WINNER – International Literacy Association (ILA) – Young Adult Nonfiction

HONOR – 2023 Malka Penn Award for Human Rights

Top 10 – In the Margins Book Award

Editor’s Choice - Booklist

Knowledge is power. The secret is this. Knowledge, applied at the right time and place, is more than power. It’s magic.

That’s what the Black Panther Party did. They called up this magic and launched a revolution.

In the beginning, it was a story like any other. It could have been yours and it could have been mine. But once it got going, it became more than any one person could have imagined.

This is the story of Huey and Bobby. Eldridge and Kathleen. Elaine and Fred and Ericka.

This is the story of the committed party members. Their supporters and allies. The Free Breakfast Program and the Ten Point Program. It’s about Black nationalism, Black radicalism, about Black people in America.

From the authors of the acclaimed book, Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party, and introducing new talent Jetta Grace Martin, comes the story of the Panthers for younger readers—meticulously researched, thrillingly told, and filled with incredible photographs throughout.

P R A I S E

★  “A passionate, honest, and intimate look into an important time in civil rights history.”

—Booklist (starred)

★ “Impeccable writing and stellar design make this title highly recommended.”

—School Library Journal (starred)

“Detailed, thoroughly researched...A valuable addition to the history of African American resistance.”

—Kirkus

About the Author

Jetta Grace Martin is a debut author from the San Francisco Bay Area. She earned her A.B. in Social Studies and African American Studies from Harvard University. Jetta is also a dancer, performer and choreographer who has performed nationally and internationally, and whose choreography has been presented by the Museum of the African Diaspora and the Black Choreographer's Festival. Jetta is the recipient of the Cornel West Prize and the Kathryn Ann Huggins Prize, for her research on race, embodiment, and Katherine Dunham.

Joshua Bloom is Director of the Social Movements Lab and faculty in Sociology at University of Pittsburgh, where he studies the dynamics of insurgent practice and social transformation. He is the co-author of Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party, which won the American Book Award. Before earning a PhD, Bloom spent many years as an anti-racist organizer.

Waldo E. Martin Jr. is the Alexander F. and May T. Morrison Professor of American History and Citizenship at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of No Coward Soldiers: Black Cultural Politics in Postwar America (2005), as well as other books, and the co-author of Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party, which won the American Book Award. Aspects of the modern African American freedom struggle and the history of modern social movements unite his current research and writing interests.