An Untold Chapter in Black History

I was nineteen when I joined the Black Panther Party and was introduced to the realities of life in inner-city Black America....From the security of the college campus and the cocoon of the great American Dream Machine, I was suddenly stripped of my rose-colored glasses by a foray into Harlem and indecent housing, police brutality, hungry children needing to be fed, elderly people eating out of garbage cans, and hopelessness and despair everywhere. If I hadn't seen it for myself, I would never have believed that this was America. It looked and sounded like one of those undeveloped Third World countries.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website

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