"CRUCIAL AND INDISPENSABLE… ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT ANALYSES OF THE POLITICS OF RACE, BLACK RADICALISM AND DEMOCRACY": RARE PRESENTATION/ASSOCIATION FIRST EDITION OF HUEY NEWTON'S TO DIE FOR THE PEOPLE, 1972, INSCRIBED BY HIM TO CIVIL RIGHTS LEADER AL LOWENSTEIN, "A RELENTLESS OPPONENT OF INJUSTICE"

NEWTON, Huey P. To Die for the People. The Writings of Huey P. Newton. New York: Random House, 1972. Octavo, original black cloth, original dust jacket. $8200.

First edition of a volume of Newton's 35 key writings and speeches, an exceptional presentation/association copy inscribed by him to a fellow leader in "civil rights, anti-apartheid and human rights movements"—Newton's bold inscription reading, "To—Al Lowenstein All Power to the People—From—Huey," with 16 pages of illustrations, in original dust jacket.

"With the most vivid image of him a poster—the Black Panther defense minister poised on a throne-like rattan chair, a spear in one hand, a rifle in the other—it would be easy to see Huey Newton living and dying by the gun. A fuller picture is more complex" (New York Times). In 1966 Newton and Bobby Seale created the basis for a national Black Panther Party when they crafted a Ten-Point Program. Featured herein, it "called for Black self-determination, decent housing, education" and an end to police brutality. "Immersing himself in a self-fashioned radical intellectual canon… Newton tinkered with standard revolutionary concepts, shaping them to local conditions in order to make a politics of revolution comprehensible to average African Americans" (Joseph, Waiting 'Til the Midnight Hour, 208-9). When he was charged in 1967 with killing a police officer, the Panthers initiated a "'Free Huey' movement that… galvanized Blacks, resulting in phenomenal growth and the development of a national Black Panther Party buoyed by the rallying cry 'All Power to the People.'" Found guilty of manslaughter, he was released after a successful appeal in 1970 to a Party that had grown with "offices in more than 30 cities… The unique way the Black Panther Party fused conflicting elements within one organization paid tribute to Newton's vision… while the traditional civil rights organizations sought 'first-class citizenship,' the Panthers viewed the legacy of slavery, segregation and racism as a as a form of colonialism" (ANB). In addition to the founding 1966 Program', other works included are his Executive Mandates, his writings on "Black Capitalism," Vietnam, Angela Davis, the Middle East, prisons and much more.

To historian Peniel Joseph, "To Die for the People represents one of the most important analyses of the politics of race, black radicalism, and democracy written during the civil rights-Black Power era. It remains a crucial and indispensable text in our contemporary efforts to understand the continuous legacy of social movements of the 1960s and 1970s. "At news of his death in 1989, Seale recalled how the Party was formed. "'It came right out of Huey Newton's head,' he said. 'Huey was the theoretician. And I'm the one who stayed on Huey, egging him on to get something going'" (Washington Post). First Edition stated on copyright page. Edited by Toni Morrison while at Random House; she later told writer Hilton Als: "I wanted to give back something. I wasn't marching. I didn't go to anything. I didn't join anything. But I could make sure there was a published record of those who did march and did put themselves on the line." This very memorable presentation/association copy is inscribed by Newton to Al Lowenstein: "a relentless opponent of injustice in the U.S. and throughout the world. His passionate leadership played a crucial role in the civil rights, anti-apartheid, anti-war and human rights movements of the 60s and 70s" (Yale Law School). He represented New York in the U.S. Congress for a term, was U.S. representative to the U.N. Human Rights Commission, and was "revered for his intellectual honesty, for his passionate commitment to a civil and human rights activism… he counted among his friends and acquaintances many of the leading political figures of the postwar generation," including Huey Newton (Washington Post). Perhaps best known as leader of the "Dump Johnson" movement that forced Lyndon Johnson "not to seek reelection in 1968… Lowenstein was assassinated on March 14, 1980. The inscription on his headstone is from a note Robert Kennedy once sent him, quoting Emerson: 'If a single man plants himself on his convictions and there abide, the huge world will come around to him'" (Yale Law School).

Book fine; mere trace of edgewear to bright about-fine dust jacket.