ABSTRACT
The roots of the Black Revolution that shook the San Francisco Bay Area to its foundations during the 1960s stretched far back into the region’s past. Despite their more moderate attempts at revolutionary reform, however, the Black Panther Party unraveled under the strain of outside law enforcement oppression and internal divisions created by the party’s institutional culture. Although numerous other historians, journalists, and former members of the party have chronicled the Panthers’ history during the late 1960s and the 1970s, relatively few critics have probed the origins of the Black Revolution that spawned the party. Although their efforts to build a national and international revolutionary movement ultimately failed, these prophets of rage would transform African American protest, change the character of domestic policy, and redefine the meaning of blackness in America. In the face of white racism, moderate African American leaders agitated for reform.
