This work chronicles how violence brought about the founding of the Black Panther Party in 1966 by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, dominated its policies, and brought about the party's destruction as one member after another, including Eldridge Cleaver, Fred Hampton, Alex Rackley, left the party, was killed, or was imprisoned. The author shows how the party's early emphasis in the 1960s on self-defense, though sorely needed in black communities at...