ArticlePublisher preview available

The Socratic Black Panther: Reading Huey P. Newton Reading Plato

DOI:10.1007/s12111-017-9339-7
Authors:
Brian P. Sowers
Brian P. Sowers
Brian P. Sowers
  • This person is not on ResearchGate, or hasn't claimed this research yet.
Read publisher preview
Download citation
To read the full-text of this research, you can request a copy directly from the author.

Abstract

This essay examines the role of Platonic literature and philosophy in part 2 of Newton’s (1973) Revolutionary Suicide (RS) and argues that Plato’s Republic, as the seminal text in Newton’s early adult life, intertextually directs the course of events, both the ways Newton describes the plight of Black America and how Newton engages other literary texts, poetry in particular. Over the course of part 2 of RS, Newton increasingly adopts the guise of a modern day Socrates, confounding his white opponents and revealing the truth about racial oppression. Studying prose texts, especially philosophy, becomes (inter)textually symbolic for racial enlightenment, on the one hand, and for the responsibility Newton sees of himself to share that enlightenment with those still chained in the dark recesses of the cave, on the other.
  • A preview of this full-text is provided by Springer Nature.
  • Learn more
Preview content only
Content available from Journal of African American Studies
This content is subject to copyright. Terms and conditions apply.
ARTICLES
The Socratic Black Panther: Reading Huey P. Newton
Reading Plato
Brian P. Sowers
1
Published online: 24 January 2017
#Springer Science+Business Media New York 2017
Abstract This essay examines the role of Platonic literature and philosophy in
part 2 of Newton’s(1973)Revolutionary Suicide (RS) and argues that Plato’s
Republic,astheseminaltextinNewton’s early adult life, intertextually directs
the course of events, both the ways Newton describes the plight of Black
America and how Newton engages other literary texts, poetry in particular.
Over the course of part 2 of RS, Newton increasingly adopts the guise of a
modern day Socrates, confounding his white opponents and revealing the truth
about racial oppression. Studying prose texts, especially philosophy, becomes
(inter)textually symbolic for racial enlightenment, on the one hand, and for the
responsibility Newton sees of himself to share that enlightenment with those
still chained in the dark recesses of the cave, on the other.
Keywords Huey P. Newton .Black Panthers .Revolutionary Suicide .Plato .Republic
Introduction
During the trial for the death of John Frey, Huey P. Newton begins his deposition with
an anecdote about how he had learned to read by studying Plato’sRepublic.
1
According
to his testimony, Platonic philosophy had a profound influence on him:
I tried to explain what a deep impression Plato’s allegory of the cave had made on
me and how the prisoners in that cave were a symbol of the Black man’s
predicament in this country. It was a seminal experience in my life, I explained,
J Afr Am St (2017) 21:26–41
DOI 10.1007/s12111-017-9339-7
1
This essay is indebted to the growing (sub)field known as Black Classicism or Classica Africana, especially
Rankine (2013), Orrells et al. (2011), Walters (2007), and Rankine (2006).
*Brian P. Sowers
bsowers@brooklyn.cuny.edu
1
Brooklyn College (CUNY), 2900 Bedford Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11210, USA
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.
Justice for All Without Exception: Julia Ward Howe's 1886 Lecture “The Position of Women in Plato's Republic ”
Article
  • Feb 2021
Julia Ward Howe, author of the lyrics to “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” remains known as a poet, abolitionist, and founding member of the antiracist organization American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA), but her work on political philosophy and her foundational sense of the necessity for justice and suffrage for all without exception are still unexplored. Howe's speech, “The Position of Women in Plato's Republic ” provides a window into the philosophy that shaped the second half of her life and her political organizing. Howe explores problems feminist scholars have often had with Socrates's plans to educate and enfranchise women of the ruling class, analyzes the rhetoric behind Socrates's successful persuasion of reluctant interlocutors, and transforms Plato's arguments into overwhelming rhetorical support for universal suffrage. Howe's intellectual conversion to the cause of suffrage, which occurred later in life and after her support for the 15 th Amendment, comes into focus as she wrestles with the questions fundamental to her change of heart: women's moral relationship to human excellence, whether suffrage would destabilize family life, the relationship of gender to divine genderless unity, and the relationship of the Platonic principle of the Good to practical political policy.
View
View
Ulysses in Black: Ralph Ellison, classicism, and African American literature
Book
  • Jan 2006
In this groundbreaking work, Patrice D. Rankine asserts that the classics need not be a mark of Eurocentrism, as they have long been considered. Instead, the classical tradition can be part of a self-conscious, prideful approach to African American culture, esthetics, and identity. Ulysses in Black demonstrates that, similar to their white counterparts, African American authors have been students of classical languages, literature, and mythologies by such writers as Homer, Euripides, and Seneca. Ulysses in Black closely analyzes classical themes (the nature of love and its relationship to the social, Dionysus in myth as a parallel to the black protagonist in the American scene, misplaced Ulyssean manhood) as seen in the works of such African American writers as Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, and Countee Cullen. Rankine finds that the merging of a black esthetic with the classics-contrary to expectations throughout American culture-has often been a radical addressing of concerns including violence against blacks, racism, and oppression. Ultimately, this unique study of black classicism becomes an exploration of America's broader cultural integrity, one that is inclusive and historic. © 2006. The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System. All rights reserved.
View
View
African American Literature and the Classicist Tradition: Black Women Writers from Wheatley to Morrison
Book
  • Jan 2007
This book explores the significant relationship between western classical mythology and African American women’s literature.
View
Plato in Folsom Prison: Eldridge Cleaver, Black Power, Queer Classicism
Article
Of the many structures which constitute the intellectual architecture of Black Power, where do “canonical” sources of political theory stand? How are they incorporated, reworked, and critiqued by the movement’s leading, innovative thinkers? Eldridge Cleaver, author of Soul on Ice and Minister of Information in the Black Panther Party, is certainly such a thinker. Subsequently scorned or ignored, he sought to advance the African American struggle for liberty and equality by exposing gendered and sexualized structures of racial oppression. Cleaver chooses distinctive theoretical tools, a kind of queer classicism, engaging with Plato’s Symposium and Republic as he develops new models for understanding the interdiction of black–white erotic relations, the policing of black masculinity, and the subordination of black persons within a racialized political order. Analyzing Cleaver’s engagement with Plato equips us to recognize intersections of classical political theory and modern radical thought and activism, the limits of such engagements, and the challenges for political theory when the complex interstices of race, gender, sexuality, and classicism are interrogated.
View
View
Black against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party
Book
  • Jan 2013
In Oakland, California, in 1966, community college students Bobby Seale and Huey Newton armed themselves, began patrolling the police, and promised to prevent police brutality. Unlike the Civil Rights Movement that called for full citizenship rights for blacks within the U.S., the Black Panther Party rejected the legitimacy of the U.S. government and positioned itself as part of a global struggle against American imperialism. In the face of intense repression, the Party flourished, becoming the center of a revolutionary movement with offices in 68 U.S. cities and powerful allies around the world. Black against Empire is the first comprehensive overview and analysis of the history and politics of the Black Panther Party. The authors analyze key political questions, such as why so many young black people across the country risked their lives for the revolution, why the Party grew most rapidly during the height of repression, and why allies abandoned the Party at its peak of influence. Bold, engrossing, and richly detailed, this book cuts through the mythology and obfuscation, revealing the political dynamics that drove the explosive growth of this revolutionary movement, and its disastrous unraveling. Informed by twelve years of meticulous archival research, as well as familiarity with most of the former Party leadership and many rank-and-file members, this book is the definitive history of one of the greatest challenges ever posed to American state power.
View
Ancient Literacies: The Culture of Reading in Greece and Rome
Book
  • May 2011
Recent advances in cognitive psychology, socio-linguistics, and socio-anthropology are revolutionizing our understanding of literacy. However, this research has made only minimal inroads among classicists. In turn, historians of literacy continue to rely on outdated work by classicists (mostly from the 1960s and 1970s) and have little access to the current reexamination of the ancient evidence. This timely volume seeks to formulate interesting new ways of conceiving the entire concept of literacy in the ancient world, as text-oriented events embedded in particular socio-cultural contexts. This book rethinks from the ground up how students of classical antiquity might best approach the question of literacy in the past, and how that investigation might materially intersect with changes in the way that literacy is now viewed in other disciplines. The result provides new ways of thinking about specific elements of "literacy" in antiquity, such as the nature of personal libraries, or what it means to be a bookseller in antiquity; new constructionist questions, such as what constitutes reading communities and how they fashion themselves; new takes on the public sphere, such as how literacy intersects with commercialism, or with the use of public spaces, or with the construction of civic identity; new essentialist questions, such as what do "book" and "reading" signify in antiquity, why literate cultures develop, or why literate cultures matter.
View
Aristotle and black drama: A theater of civil disobedience
Article
  • Jan 2013
Civil disobedience has a tattered history in the American story. Described by Martin Luther King Jr. as both moral reflection and political act, the performance of civil disobedience in the face of unjust laws is also, Patrice Rankine argues, a deeply artistic practice. Modern parallels to King’s civil disobedience can be found in black theater, where the black body challenges the normative assumptions of classical texts and modes of creation. This is a theater of civil disobedience. Utilizing Aristotle’s Poetics, Rankine ably invokes the six aspects of Aristotelian drama—character, story, thought, spectacle, song, and diction. He demonstrates the re-appropriation and rejection of these themes by black playwrights August Wilson, Adrienne Kennedy, and Eugene O’Neill. Aristotle and Black Drama frames the theater of civil disobedience to challenge the hostility that still exists between theater and black identity.
View
African Athena: New Agendas
Article
  • Jan 2012
The appearance of Martin Bernal's Black Athena: The Afro-Asian Roots of Classical Civilization in 1987 sparked intense debate and controversy in Africa, Europe, and North America. His detailed genealogy of the 'fabrication of Greece' and his claims for the influence of ancient African and Near Eastern cultures on the making of classical Greece, questioned many intellectuals' assumptions about the nature of ancient history. The transportation of enslaved African persons into Europe, the Americas, and the Caribbean, brought African and diasporic African people into contact in significant numbers with the Greek and Latin classics for the first time in modern history. In this book chapters explore the impact of the modern African diaspora from the sixteenth century onwards on Western notions of history and culture, examining the role Bernal's claim has played in European and American understandings of history, and in classical, European, American, and Caribbean literary production. This book examines the history of intellectuals and literary writers who contested the white, dominant Euro-American constructions of the classical past and its influence on the present.
View