A Taste of Power: A Black Woman's Story
by Elaine Brown
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I have all the guns and all the money. I can withstand challenge from without and from within. Am I right, comrades? With these words, Elaine Brown proclaimed to the assembled leadership of the Black Panther Party that she was now in charge. It was August 1974. The Panthers had grown from a small Oakland-based cell to a national organization that had mobilized black communities throughout the country. The party's achievements had won the support of millions of white liberals, but the violent show more assaults on the party by the police had brought death or imprisonment to many of its prominent members. Now its charismatic leader, Huey Newton, heading for refuge in Cuba, asked Elaine Brown to hold together a party threatened by internal conflict and the FBI. How she came to that position of power over a paramilitary, male-dominated organization and what she did with that power is an unsparing story of self-discovery. Growing up in a black Philadelphia ghetto and attending a predominantly white school, Elaine Brown learned firsthand the pain and powerlessness of being black and female. The Panthers held the promise of redemption. Elaine's account of her life at the highest levels of the Panthers' hierarchy illuminates more than the pain of sexism and the struggle against racism: The male power rituals she recounts carried the seeds of the Black Panther Party's destruction. Nowhere was this undertow more evident than in the complex character of Huey Newton, who became Elaine's lover and ultimately her nemesis. More than a journey through a turbulent time in American history, this is the story of a black woman's battle to define herself. Freedom, Elaine Brown discovered, may be more than a political question.. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
This is a cold hard look at the Black Panther Party at it's least inspirational.
The title is surprisingly apt. Elaine Brown is a social climber, and we watch her ascent to the top of the Black Panther Party via a combination of her hard work and her ability to find and latch onto the most powerful person in the room. In the beginning of the book she brags about being in control of the baddest people in the room, that she has power over them. At the end of the book, while Huey Newton becomes more wealthy socially isolated philosopher than street-level organizer, she has moved on into "official" politics, first as a candidate, and then as advocate/advisor for candidates at the governor and finally presidential level. I literally couldn't show more have cared less about her constant jockeying for power.
I knew that the BPP had difficulties with misogyny, no more and no less than the rest of the New Left, who were likely less terrible than society as a whole at that time. Sexual violence and intimate partner violence pepper the book and Brown's own life experiences. That the BPP used bullwhips to enforce discipline (whipping people who did not meet party deadlines) was a shocking revelation. show less
The title is surprisingly apt. Elaine Brown is a social climber, and we watch her ascent to the top of the Black Panther Party via a combination of her hard work and her ability to find and latch onto the most powerful person in the room. In the beginning of the book she brags about being in control of the baddest people in the room, that she has power over them. At the end of the book, while Huey Newton becomes more wealthy socially isolated philosopher than street-level organizer, she has moved on into "official" politics, first as a candidate, and then as advocate/advisor for candidates at the governor and finally presidential level. I literally couldn't show more have cared less about her constant jockeying for power.
I knew that the BPP had difficulties with misogyny, no more and no less than the rest of the New Left, who were likely less terrible than society as a whole at that time. Sexual violence and intimate partner violence pepper the book and Brown's own life experiences. That the BPP used bullwhips to enforce discipline (whipping people who did not meet party deadlines) was a shocking revelation. show less
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Author Information
2+ Works 556 Members
In 1974, Elaine Brown became chairman of the Black Panther Party. Her autobiography, A Taste of Power, is currently being developed as an HBO movie. She lectures at colleges and universities across America and currently lives in Atlanta, where she serves on the executive board of Mothers Advocating Juvenile Justice and is planning development of a show more model school for black and other poor children under her nonprofit education corporation, Fields of Flowers show less
Awards and Honors
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Classifications
- Genres
- Nonfiction, Biography & Memoir, History, General Nonfiction, Sexuality and Gender Studies
- DDC/MDS
- 973.04960730092 — History & geography History of North America United States United States Ethnic And National Groups Other Groups African Americans African Americans
- LCC
- E185.97 .B866 .A3 — History of the United States United States Elements in the population Afro-Americans Biography. Genealogy
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 502
- Popularity
- 59,738
- Reviews
- 4
- Rating
- (3.81)
- Languages
- English, French
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 9
- ASINs
- 3
