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Still Black, Still Strong
An essential document of the Black Panther Party written by three leading thinkers and party activists who were jailed following the FBI'S 1969 mandate to destroy the organization "by any means possible."
Still Black, Still Strong is partly based upon the 1989 videotape Framing The Panthers by producers Chris Bratton and Annie Goldson. It recounts the stories of Dhoruba Bin Wahad, Mumia Abu-Jamal and Assata Shakur, all of whom were arrested and jailed during the COINTELPRO probe of the Black Panther Party.
Dhoruba Bin Wahad, who organized chapters of the Black Panther Party in New York and along the Estern Seaboard and worked with tenants in Harlem and on drug rehabilitation in the Bronx, was accused of murdering two officers while still in his teens and imprisoned for 19 years. He always maintained his innocence and won his freedom by forcing the FBI to release thousands of classified documents proving that he had been framed. The justice department eventually rescinded Bin Wahad's conviction and he was released in 1990, seven months after the documentary premiered.
Mumia Abu-Jamal, a journalist who headed the Black Panther free breakfast program for inner-city school children in Philadelphia, was also accused of the murder of an officer and sent on death-row, where he still is today.
Assata Shakur was a college educated social worker in her twenties when she was accused of shooting a cop, then arrested and tortured and denied medical treatment. Her interview was conducted in Cuba where she has been exiled since her escape from a New Jersey women's prison in 1975.
Bin Wahad, Shakur and Abu-Jamal offer a little-known history and an incisive analysis of the Black Panthers' original goals, which the U.S. Government has tried to distort and suppress. As one confidential, 1969, memo to J. Edgar Hoover put it, "The Negro youth and moderates must be made to understand that if they succumb to revolutionary teaching, they will be dead revolutionaries."
Still Black, Still Strong is partly based upon the 1989 videotape Framing The Panthers by producers Chris Bratton and Annie Goldson. It recounts the stories of Dhoruba Bin Wahad, Mumia Abu-Jamal and Assata Shakur, all of whom were arrested and jailed during the COINTELPRO probe of the Black Panther Party.
Dhoruba Bin Wahad, who organized chapters of the Black Panther Party in New York and along the Estern Seaboard and worked with tenants in Harlem and on drug rehabilitation in the Bronx, was accused of murdering two officers while still in his teens and imprisoned for 19 years. He always maintained his innocence and won his freedom by forcing the FBI to release thousands of classified documents proving that he had been framed. The justice department eventually rescinded Bin Wahad's conviction and he was released in 1990, seven months after the documentary premiered.
Mumia Abu-Jamal, a journalist who headed the Black Panther free breakfast program for inner-city school children in Philadelphia, was also accused of the murder of an officer and sent on death-row, where he still is today.
Assata Shakur was a college educated social worker in her twenties when she was accused of shooting a cop, then arrested and tortured and denied medical treatment. Her interview was conducted in Cuba where she has been exiled since her escape from a New Jersey women's prison in 1975.
Bin Wahad, Shakur and Abu-Jamal offer a little-known history and an incisive analysis of the Black Panthers' original goals, which the U.S. Government has tried to distort and suppress. As one confidential, 1969, memo to J. Edgar Hoover put it, "The Negro youth and moderates must be made to understand that if they succumb to revolutionary teaching, they will be dead revolutionaries."
272 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
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936 people want to read
About the author
Dhoruba Bin Wahad
5 books8 followersDhoruba Bin Wahad was a leading member of the New York Black Panther Party, a Field Secretary of the BPP responsible for organizing chapters throughout the East Coast, and a member of the Panther 21. Arrested in June 1971, he was framed as part of the illegal FBI Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) and subjected to unfair treatment and torture during his nineteen years in prison. During Dhoruba’s incarceration, litigation on his behalf produced over 300,000 pages of COINTELPRO documentation, and upon release in 1990 he was able to bring a successful lawsuit against the New York Department of Corrections for their criminal activities. Living in both Ghana and the U.S., Dhoruba continues to write and work promoting Pan Africanism, an uncompromising critique of imperialism and capitalism, and freedom for all political prisoners.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
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December 17, 2021So much in here that I will need to study again.
Leaving some choice quotes:
“Unlike reactionary apolitical violence, or vigilante force, the concept of Black self-defense, e.g. the political organization of force, is proactive force.” pg 73
“Racism is more effective in Africa and in the Third World precisely because people of color in these places do not really have a handle on the psychosis, or psychological madness of Europeans, especially white Americans. They do not really understand that the United States’ ruling elite and the European ruling are very sick. They will appeal to their humanity and to their pragmatism when in fact both are shot through with irrational delusions of power and racist supremacy.” pg. 105
“One of the problems that Black people have in this racist society as a sub-culture - because we have been relegated to a sub-culture in many ways - is separating our own insanity and our own internalized oppression from the madness of the oppressor.” pg. 105
“Q: What do you think was the threat that MOVE represented?
MAJ: The idea. There’s nothing more powerful than an idea. MOVE is a family of revolutionaries, committed to resisting the system. MOVE believes that this entire reform world-system is a threat to life, and needs to be confronted, and they’ll begin to resist it, by any means necessary.” pg. 119
“A right that cannot be exercised is no right at all.” pg. 131
“You can talk about overcrowding all you want, but if you’ve got one man in one cage who’s being treated like a dog and he can’t stretch enough to grow, then you’ve got one man too much.” pg. 143
“My family was subjected to police harassment on every level. My mother had a heart attack because the police went to her job, they tried to storm the door. Surveillance cameras, phone bugs, devices, strange phone calls at all hours of the night playing forged recordings of my voice, all this stuff they suffered because they were my family. They couldn’t just sit and have a conversation in the house, everything was being recorded. Part of the car’s motor would fall off and then they would take it to the garage and see that it had been mysteriously sawed; tires would be slashed. Letters, all kind of letters, from police agents, threatening letters - it was just an onslaught of harassment, meant to break them down and destroy our family unity, trying to turn us against each other, trying to scare them to death so that they would be afraid even to have a relationship with me. But it didn’t work. We survived it, and I think that our family is stronger as a result of that. We resisted together, and we struggled together, and that has made us - all of us - much more serious about who we are and about our love for each other.” pg 219-20
Defend the dead. Remember the MOVE 11 massacred by the state. Remember all of those harrassed, killed, or exiled for their belief in freedom for our people. Free Mumia. Free them all. Keep resisting, for life.
Leaving some choice quotes:
“Unlike reactionary apolitical violence, or vigilante force, the concept of Black self-defense, e.g. the political organization of force, is proactive force.” pg 73
“Racism is more effective in Africa and in the Third World precisely because people of color in these places do not really have a handle on the psychosis, or psychological madness of Europeans, especially white Americans. They do not really understand that the United States’ ruling elite and the European ruling are very sick. They will appeal to their humanity and to their pragmatism when in fact both are shot through with irrational delusions of power and racist supremacy.” pg. 105
“One of the problems that Black people have in this racist society as a sub-culture - because we have been relegated to a sub-culture in many ways - is separating our own insanity and our own internalized oppression from the madness of the oppressor.” pg. 105
“Q: What do you think was the threat that MOVE represented?
MAJ: The idea. There’s nothing more powerful than an idea. MOVE is a family of revolutionaries, committed to resisting the system. MOVE believes that this entire reform world-system is a threat to life, and needs to be confronted, and they’ll begin to resist it, by any means necessary.” pg. 119
“A right that cannot be exercised is no right at all.” pg. 131
“You can talk about overcrowding all you want, but if you’ve got one man in one cage who’s being treated like a dog and he can’t stretch enough to grow, then you’ve got one man too much.” pg. 143
“My family was subjected to police harassment on every level. My mother had a heart attack because the police went to her job, they tried to storm the door. Surveillance cameras, phone bugs, devices, strange phone calls at all hours of the night playing forged recordings of my voice, all this stuff they suffered because they were my family. They couldn’t just sit and have a conversation in the house, everything was being recorded. Part of the car’s motor would fall off and then they would take it to the garage and see that it had been mysteriously sawed; tires would be slashed. Letters, all kind of letters, from police agents, threatening letters - it was just an onslaught of harassment, meant to break them down and destroy our family unity, trying to turn us against each other, trying to scare them to death so that they would be afraid even to have a relationship with me. But it didn’t work. We survived it, and I think that our family is stronger as a result of that. We resisted together, and we struggled together, and that has made us - all of us - much more serious about who we are and about our love for each other.” pg 219-20
Defend the dead. Remember the MOVE 11 massacred by the state. Remember all of those harrassed, killed, or exiled for their belief in freedom for our people. Free Mumia. Free them all. Keep resisting, for life.
February 21, 2021
if i could recommend one book to everyone to read rn, this would be it
July 16, 2011
blactastic
February 23, 2019
An incredible collection of interviews and essays, first published in 1993, the three authors are all current or former political prisoners: Dhoruba Bin Wahad, a member of the Panther 21, former political prisoner and current activist, Assata Shakur, former panther 21 and Black Liberation Army member who lives in exile in Cuba, and Mumia Abu-Jamal, the most famous political prisoner in America.
The analysis is perceptive as it is sharp, detailing the reality of life in the american prisons, the persistence of white supremacy and the national oppression of black people, and the common streams of struggle of the people of the world against US imperialism. Particularly notable is Mumia's Panther Daze, an essay memorializing Huey Newton.
The analysis is perceptive as it is sharp, detailing the reality of life in the american prisons, the persistence of white supremacy and the national oppression of black people, and the common streams of struggle of the people of the world against US imperialism. Particularly notable is Mumia's Panther Daze, an essay memorializing Huey Newton.
February 8, 2021
Still Black, Still Strong: Survivors of the War Against Black Revolutionaries
This was a compilation of writings from three Black revolutionaries and it was a great and informative read. It starts out with pieces by Dhoruba Bin Wahad; these were my favorite to read because I was pretty unfamiliar with his history. Next was Mumia Abu-Jamal; with these pieces I was introduced to some MOVE history which gave me a few new books to add to my TBR pile! The collection ends with Assata Shakur. It includes her testimony, which I had read previously but would read countless times over. It also includes a timeline of the Black Panther Party and FBI COINTELPRO documents. This is a good book to have on hand, pick it up if you can.
5/5⭐️
This was a compilation of writings from three Black revolutionaries and it was a great and informative read. It starts out with pieces by Dhoruba Bin Wahad; these were my favorite to read because I was pretty unfamiliar with his history. Next was Mumia Abu-Jamal; with these pieces I was introduced to some MOVE history which gave me a few new books to add to my TBR pile! The collection ends with Assata Shakur. It includes her testimony, which I had read previously but would read countless times over. It also includes a timeline of the Black Panther Party and FBI COINTELPRO documents. This is a good book to have on hand, pick it up if you can.
5/5⭐️
July 4, 2025
This booklet is dynamite. If you have it at hand, go read it. As relevant now as it’s ever been.
October 8, 2025
I really don’t get why people don’t read books by revolutionaries but rush to see insincere movies about fictional revolutionaries…..essential reading always and of course for these times.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews