Seize the Time; The Story of the Black Panther Party and Huey P. Newton

New York: Random House [1970], 1970. First edition. Hardcover. Very near Fine/Very Good. 8vo. [5], vi-xi, [4], 4-429, [5] pp. Brown cloth with a decoration in red on the front board (Seale bound to a chair), red lettering on the spine. Price of $6.95 on the front flap of the dust jacket. Jacket illustration by Howard Brodie. Jacket design by Bob Antler. ANB, Kathleen N. Cleaver, "Newton, Huey P. (17 February 1942-22 August 1989)." Library of Congress, Drawing Justice, "Bobby Seale, Bound and Gagged." The front board and jacket designs both depict Seale bound and gagged at his trial (Seale was one of the Chicago 8 defendants), at the order of Judge Julius Hoffman. Bobby Seale and Huey Newton were the founders of the Black Panther Party. In 1966 they co-wrote a "ten-point platform" for the Black Panthers. The platform advocated for better housing, education, employment opportunities, and for the end of police brutality against Black citizens. Seale wrote this history of the Black Panther Party from his jail cell, as he was imprisoned for being in contempt of court. He suffered a series of racially-motivated outrages at the hands of Judge Hoffman, during the trial of the Conspiracy 8. In the jacket's blurb, Seale states that he was motivated to correct the public's perception of the Black Panther Party and its political and social goals, before, "the power structure, through its pigs, attempts to murder any more of us" (this motivation was surely informed by the FBI's murders of Black Panthers Fred Hampton and Mark Clark in 1969). In 1974 Seale would leave the Black Panther Party, due to a growing schism between the different leadership factions within it, but he left an indelible mark on the Black liberation movement. The jacket with light edge wear, including a few creases on the front flap, and a tiny damp spot on its rear panel.