This comprehensive history of the Black Panther Party begins with a brief accounting of the experience of Black people in America from 1619 to the early 1960s; essential to understanding why and how the Black Panther Party was formed in 1966. The author compares the Party’s formation to an earthquake: a lot was happening for years beneath the surface that led to the decision to start a new kind of activist movement in the Panthers. A narrative that looks at the party’s history both chronologically and thematically, with chapters and sections devoted to their organizational structure and their essential community outreach, as well as their political beliefs, forms of protest, and the disturbing, at times infuriating response of local police departments and the U.S. government, which engaged in concerted efforts to undermine, attack, frame and even murder Black Panther Party members in an attempt to destroy the organization. Extensive, well-documented research is the foundation of a volume that includes stories about many of the Panther leaders across their history and across the country, including many women. The median age of members of the Black Panther Party was 19, a fascinating fact for readers to consider; it’s extraordinary to realize some of the key leaders in the Panthers were under age 20. Black-and-white photographs and other visual material is included. (Age 12 and older)

A National Book Award Finalist
A Coretta Scott King Author Award Honor Book
A Michael L. Printz Honor Book
A Walter Dean Myers Honor Book


With passion and precision, Kekla Magoon relays an essential account of the Black Panthers—as militant revolutionaries and as human rights advocates working to defend and protect their community.

In this comprehensive, inspiring, and all-too-relevant history of the Black Panther Party, Kekla Magoon introduces readers to the Panthers’ community activism, grounded in the concept of self-defense, which taught Black Americans how to protect and support themselves in a country that treated them like second-class citizens. For too long the Panthers’ story has been a footnote to the civil rights movement rather than what it was: a revolutionary socialist movement that drew thousands of members—mostly women—and became the target of one of the most sustained repression efforts ever made by the U.S. government against its own citizens.

Revolution in Our Time puts the Panthers in the proper context of Black American history, from the first arrival of enslaved people to the Black Lives Matter movement of today. Kekla Magoon’s eye-opening work invites a new generation of readers grappling with injustices in the United States to learn from the Panthers’ history and courage, inspiring them to take their own place in the ongoing fight for justice.