First collection by a beloved thinker in Black anarchism
One of the enduring legacies of the Black Power Era is the turn by some revolutionaries toward a politics that questioned hierarchical leadership, patriarchy, and the role of the state in social transformation. This practice came to define a distinct form of anarchism rooted in the Black experience. Ashanti Omawali Alston helped nurture and define this turn through his experiences with the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army, and through social movement activity from the late 1960s to today. Anarchist Panther collects, for the first time, his thoughts that have influenced generations of radicals the world over.
These essays, interviews, and speeches trace Alston’s ideas and influences, including those on psychology, political prisoner support, feminism, the legacy of the Black Panther Party, the Zapatista rebellion, and Black anarchism. Edited alongside William C. Anderson and introduced by kai lumumba barrow, Anarchist Panther brings to life the beautiful movement expression “All power to the people!”
Download the free Anarchist Panther reading guide.
About the Author
Ashanti Omowali Alston is a writer, speaker, father, and activist originally from New Jersey. He is a former member of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army. Alston is an inspiration and mentor to younger activists, helping to develop Black anarchist politics and support for political prisoners.
William C. Anderson (Co-Editor) is a writer and activist originally from Birmingham, Alabama. His work has appeared in the Guardian, MTV, Truthout, British Journal of Photography, and Pitchfork, among others. He is the author of The Nation on No Map and co-author of As Black as Resistance. His writings have been included in the anthologies Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect? and No Selves to Defend.
For over forty years kai lumumba barrow (Foreword) has worked with numerous organizations on campaigns and projects to stop jail expansion; confront police violence; free political prisoners, and experiment with abolitionist models for shrinking carceral logics. Barrow is interested in the praxis of radical imagination, experimenting with abolition as an aesthetic vernacular. Her sprawling paintings, multimedia collages, environmental installations, and found object sculptures incorporate images, materials, sites and ideas that perform queer, Black feminist theory.
What People Are Saying
“In Anarchist Panther, Alston explores the layers of a revolutionary life with candor and a commitment to intersectionality, anti-sexism, and horizontalism that will inspire many to come. This is a series of texts that feel like an homage to our Black radical past and a manifesto for our future.” Prince Shakur, author of When They Tell You to Be Good
"As if responding directly to the rising fascism of our present moment, Ashanti Alston challenges us to recognize and expand the revolutionary practices that already prevail in our communities. Grounded, accessible, and self-critical, Anarchist Panther demands that we learn from past struggle in order to recommit ourselves anew. An invaluable contribution to the Black Panther canon." Orisanmi Burton, author of Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt
"Meet your teacher, one exceptionally gifted with radical insights and loving commitments. Ashanti Alston's Anarchist Panther offers a unique book on educational, analytical, political, radical rebellions for love of our lives and freedoms. Over decades, this Panther vet has labored and fought for freedoms. Ashanti has presented us with an invaluable gift: a book that can hold the memories, analyses and heartbeats of struggle that quell poverty, fascism, racism, sexism, and anti-queer/trans violence. Anarchist Panther embodies expansive resurrections of Fred Hampton's rainbow coalition. Everyone who dares to fight for liberation should read and reflect on this unique text." Joy James, editor of Confronting Counterinsurgency: Cop Cities and Democracy's Terrors, and author of New Bones Abolition and Contextualizing Angela Davis.
"No one is ever the same after they interact with Ashanti and accept his warm embrace. Since first meeting him almost thirty years ago, I have come to know the political thinker, organizer, creative catalyst, jokester, fellow parent, principled comrade and grounded radical philosopher who electrifies the pages of Anarchist Panther. Across these chapters, as in life, Ashanti initiates reciprocal gestures of thoughtful liberationist militancy that absorb experimentation and 'failure' as the living archives of another world—one that is already in the surround, activating insurgency against this Civilization as the gateway to thriving, autonomous collective being. This book is an endless revelation, an invitation to commune with the vibrant proliferations of Black anarchism while stoking connection to intersecting, diverging, converging traditions of survival, counter-war, and liberation." Dylan Rodríguez, distinguished professor at University of California and author of Counterinsurgency Machine (forthcoming)
"Ashanti Alston is a soldier. A survivor. A radical eclectic in the best sense of the word. Our collective struggle is elevated by this seasoned Panther’s thoughtful contributions to an anarchism unapologetically African and intersectional." Andrew Sage, anarchist writer and YouTuber
"Alston’s timely collection offers the Black Left an unflinching analysis of all that keeps our movements bound to anti-revolutionary doctrine that fluently speaks a language that moves against the forces of antiBlack predation and beyond the confines of political petrification." Tea Troutman, Managing Editor, Scalawag Magazine
