Launching August 30th: Guns Unpacked with Dr. Curtis Austin on the Politics of Self-Defense and the Black Panther Party
On August 30th, join Guns Unpacked in conversation with Dr. Curstis Austin as his book Up Against the Wall, his current research on the San Francisco 8, and his childhood in Mississippi shaped his interest in the Black Power movement and the politics of self-defense. To contextualize the Black Power Movement and the Black Panther party, Dr. Austin unpacks how violence shaped the development of capitalism in the US, from colonization and slavery–and eventually fueled the Civil Rights and Black Power movements.
"To keep people in their place, you have to be very violent with them."
While the origin of Black Power as a political slogan initially “wasn’t associated with guns at all,” Dr. Austin illuminates how the Black Panthers capture the discontent lingering in the shadows of the Civil Rights movement. As he notes, Black people were still experiencing violence and oppression–even if some laws on the books had changed.
"Now somebody's here to defend us."
By asserting that armed self-defense is a valid act of community protection, the Black Panthers claimed the Second Amendment for Black communities–and provided a new model for empowerment.
"When you can defend yourself, you become more human."
As Dr. Austin notes, however, this assertion of constitutional rights was met with profound backlash, including the FBI’s deployment of COINTELPRO against the Black Panthers in the 1960s and 1970s. Dr. Austin is still documenting the ramifications of this repression in his upcoming history of the San Francisco 8.