Phenomenal read. Newton is a brilliant thinker. His paints a clear portrait of early life as a black man in a capitalist country built on economic and racial oppression. His capacity for vivid detail makes you feel enraptured in his stories - especially the frequent violent encounters with police and his trial over John Frey.

I learned a lot about the founding of the Black Panthers and this book helped me to understand their philosophy and the world they were trying to build while the press, police, and FBI - the general power structure - were intent on destroying any notion of it.

I appreciated that Newton presented his ideas in a profound, passionate, yet level-headed way. He doesn’t ignore the realities around him. He highlights how that focus separated him and Bobby Seale from other leaders of the Black Liberation movement, but he doesn’t do so with malice.

The saddest part of this read was realizing throughout that he wrote this in ‘73 when he vision for the future was bright and the BPP hadn’t yet been fully destroyed. There was so much potential in the party.

Definitely makes me want to go down a YouTube rabbit hole of him and Bobby Seale and read more about the movement leaders of that time.