Framing the Black Panthers

An iconography of a pop image: the Black Panthers as symbols of Black militancy in America New material: The book features original Interviews with the Panthers and never-published photographs. Important contribution: The book offers an important new view of this controversial group, the first such major re-evaluation since Hugh Pearson’s extremely negative analysis. This book examines the cult of celebrity around the Black Panthers, and why they have endured as both political and cultural figures. As media and pop culture latched onto this small, militant group, the Panthers became adept at exploiting and manipulating this coverage, pioneering a sophisticated version of mass media activism. Ultimately, the news media participated in the government campaign to eradicate the Panthers, while simultaneously elevating them to a celebrity status that remains long after their demise.Framing the Black Panthers examines the early development of the Black Panther Party from the late ’60s to the early ’70s, their complex relationship with the mass media, and their subsequent place in the nation’s collective memory. During their heyday, the Panthers appeared on the front pages of newspapers and magazines, were the subject of television news reports, and were the inspiration for mass market books (e.g. Eldridge Cleaver’s `Soul on Ice’ to the “new journalism” of Tom Wolfe, Murray Kempton, Gail Sheehy), documentary films, and memorabilia,. The book considers the Party as agents – rather than victims – in the construction of their public representations, exploring their complex relationship with national corporate media in their quest to shape their own image.