he Marin County courthouse incident was an event which occurred on August 7, 1970, when 17-year-old Jonathan Jackson attempted to negotiate the freedom of the Soledad Brothers (which included his older brother George) by kidnapping Superior Court judge Harold Haley from the Marin County Civic Center in San Rafael, California. The resulting shootout left four men dead, including both Jackson and Judge Haley. Two others were wounded.The event received intense media coverage, as did the subsequent manhunt and trial of Angela Davis, an ousted assistant professor from UCLA who was involved with George Jackson, Jonathan Jackson, and the Black Panthers. Davis owned the weapons used in the kidnapping and murder.

During the 1960s and 1970s, the Weatherman group gained notoriety for their violent, clandestine resistance to racism and imperialism in the United States. Drawing on documents and interviews, this book provides a history of the group.

Kuwasi Balagoon was a participant in the Black Liberation struggle from the 1960s until his death in prison in 1986. A member of the Black Panther Party and defendant in the infamous Panther 21 case, Balagoon went underground with the Black Liberation Army (BLA). Balagoon was unusual for his time in that he combined anarchism with Black nationalism, broke the rules of sexual and political conformity, took up arms against the white supremacist State--all the while never shying away from critiquing the movements's weaknesses. The first part of this book consists of contributions by those who knew or were touched by Balagoon; the second consists of court statements and essays by Balagoon himself, including several documents which have never been published before. The third section consists of excerpts from letters Balagoon wrote while in prison. A final section includes a historical essay by Akinyele Umoja and an extensive intergenerational roundtable discussion of the significance of Balagoon's life and thoughts today.

Amid music festivals and moon landings, the tumultuous year of 1969 included an infamous case in the annals of criminal justice and Black liberation: the New York City Black Panther 21. Though some among the group had hardly even met one another, the 21 were rounded up by the FBI and New York Police Department in an attempt to disrupt and destroy the organization that was attracting young people around the world. Involving charges of conspiracy to commit violent acts, the Panther 21 trial—the longest and most expensive in New York history—revealed the illegal government activities which led to exile, imprisonment on false charges, and assassination of Black liberation leaders. Solidarity for the 21 also extended well beyond “movement” circles and included mainstream publication of their collective autobiography, Look for Me in the Whirlwind, which is reprinted here for the first time. Look for Me in the Whirlwind: From the Panther 21 to 21st-Century Revolutions contains the entire original manuscript, and includes new commentary from surviving members of the 21: Sekou Odinga, Dhoruba Bin Wahad, Jamal Joseph, and Shaba Om. Still-imprisoned Sundiata Acoli, Imam Jamil Al-Amin, and Mumia Abu-Jamal contribute new essays. Never or rarely seen poetry and prose from Afeni Shakur, Kuwasi Balagoon, Ali Bey Hassan, and Michael “Cetewayo” Tabor is included. Early Panther leader and jazz master Bilal Sunni-Ali adds a historical essay and lyrics from his composition “Look for Me in the Whirlwind,” and coeditors kioni-sadiki, Meyer, and Panther rank-and-file member Cyril “Bullwhip” Innis Jr. help bring the story up to date. At a moment when the Movement for Black Lives recites the affirmation that “it is our duty to win,” penned by Black Liberation Army (BLA) militant Assata Shakur, those who made up the BLA and worked alongside of Assata are largely unknown. This book—with archival photos from David Fenton, Stephen Shames, and the private collections of the authors— provides essential parts of a hidden and missing-in-action history. Going well beyond the familiar and mythologized nostalgic Panther narrative, From the Panther 21 to 21st-Century Revolutions explains how and why the Panther legacy is still relevant and vital today.

For those wondering how Bill Clinton could pardon white-collar fugitive Marc Rich but not Native American leader Leonard Peltier, important clues can be found in this classic study of the FBI's COINTELPRO (Counterintelligence Program). Agents of Repression includes an incisive historical account of the FBI siege of Wounded Knee, and reveals the viciousness of COINTELPRO campaigns targeting the Black Liberation movement. The authors' new introduction examines the legacies of the Panthers and AIM, and shows how the FBI still presents a threat to those committed to fundamental social change. Ward Churchill is author of From a Native Son. Jim Vander Wall is co-author of The COINTELPRO Papers: Documents from the FBI's Secret Wars Against Dissent in the United States, with Ward Churchill.

"Mae's work may be more relevant now than in her heyday. Like those of many other freedom fighters throughout history, the ghost of Mae Brussell will never rest till justice is served."—Tim Cahill "The main Brussell thesis, if I dare risk commit the sin of summary on her complex work, was that an ex-Nazi scientist-Old Boy OSS clique in the CIA using Mafia hit men changed the course of American history by bumping off one and all, high and low, who became an irritant to them."—Warren Hinkle, San Francisco Examiner columnist The Essential Mae Brussell is a compilation of chilling essays and radio transcripts by the seminal American anti-fascist researcher, famously supported by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Mae Brussell was a married housewife with five children living in southern California before she took up the study of fascism in America. After the Kennedy assassination, she purchased the twenty-six-volume Warren Commission Report, and compiled, for herself, evidence that Lee Harvey Oswald was, as he maintained after his arrest, a "patsy." She had a regular radio broadcast on KLRB, an independent FM radio station in Carmel, California. She also published articles in Paul Krassner's the Realist, Hustler, People's Almanac, and the Berkeley Barb. In 1983, Mae's hour-long program shifted to KAZU-FM in Pacific Grove, California, and she remained on the air weekly until her final broadcast in June 1988. On October 3, 1988, at sixty-six, Brussell died of cancer.

With the US having the highest incarceration rate in the world, prisons have become sites of radical political discourse and resistance. Dylan Rodriguez examines the work of a number of imprisoned intellectuals, such as Angela Davis and Leonard Peltier, and looks at how imprisonment has shaped their writing.