Books in Brief: Revolutionary Suicide

Revolutionary Suicide, by Huey P. Newton (Harcourt, 333 pp., $8.95). When not blackwashing his life of crime and pinning blame on cops for all his woes, Huey Newton emerged as Information Minister of the Black Panther party, wrote To Die for the People, and now pens this autobiography, which exhorts the masses to surrender themselves to the revolution. Although he disdains the Stokely Carmichael position of support for anyone Negro—“we consider this viewpoint both racist and suicidal. If you support a Black man with a gun who belongs to the military arm of your oppressor, then you are assisting in your own destruction”—and ridicules Eldridge Cleaver’s fall from grace, he details an almost all-inclusive case against Caucasian society. But Newton transcends the usual racist screed by offering many valuable clues to help readers understand the depth of his people’s resentment of the majority race. Having seen him recently on Firing Line, where he philosophized incomprehensibly, I’ve some doubts as to how much of this quite cogent book is Newton’s own; it’s billed as “with the assistance of J. Herman Blake.” Nevertheless, the man obviously is exceedingly talented, frank, and provocative in explaining his passions. The text, coupled with several photo sections (Huey beaming at Chou, Huey blushing with Congresshuman Chisholm, etc.), reveals the evolution of a nice, bright little colored kid into a troublesome Negro and then into the pin-up boy of black extremism. The back cover has him barechested and pensive, suggesting a future career should he abandon white-baiting: Harry Belafonte II. But can he sing as well as he shoots?

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D. J. C. Brudnoy

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Revolutionary Suicide, by Huey P. Newton (Harcourt, 333 pp., $8.95). When not blackwashing his life of crime and pinning blame on cops for all his woes, Huey Newton emerged as Information Minister of the Black Panther party, wrote To Die for the People, and now pens this autobiography, which exhorts the masses to surrender themselves to the revolution. Although he disdains the Stokely Carmichael position of support for anyone Negro—“we consider this viewpoint both racist and suicidal. If you support a Black man with a gun who belongs to the military arm of your oppressor, then you are assisting in your own destruction”—and ridicules Eldridge Cleaver’s fall from grace, he details an almost all-inclusive case against Caucasian society. But Newton transcends the usual racist screed by offering many valuable clues to help readers understand the depth of his people’s resentment of the majority race. Having seen him recently on Firing Line, where he philosophized incomprehensibly, I’ve some doubts as to how much of this quite cogent book is Newton’s own; it’s billed as “with the assistance of J. Herman Blake.” Nevertheless, the man obviously is exceedingly talented, frank, and provocative in explaining his passions. The text, coupled with several photo sections (Huey beaming at Chou, Huey blushing with Congresshuman Chisholm, etc.), reveals the evolution of a nice, bright little colored kid into a troublesome Negro and then into the pin-up boy of black extremism. The back cover has him barechested and pensive, suggesting a future career should he abandon white-baiting: Harry Belafonte II. But can he sing as well as he shoots?