Jamal Joseph Fundraiser

Start: 02/14/2012 7:30 pm

Buy a ticket from the Idaho Human Rights Education Center (208) 345-0304 and seize the chance to meet and to listen to Jamal Joseph. His story is riveting and eye opening. Lunch tickets are $60 and include lunch and an autographed copy of Panther Baby, Dessert tickets in the evening are $30 and include an autographed copy of Panther Baby. More details about how to purchase tickets here

Eddie Joseph was a high school honor student, slated to graduate early and begin college. But this was the late 1960s in Bronx’s black ghetto, and fifteen-year-old Eddie was introduced to the tenets of the Black Panther Party, which was just gaining a national foothold. By sixteen, his devotion to the cause landed him in prison on the infamous Rikers Island—charged with conspiracy as one of the Panther 21 in one of the most emblematic criminal cases of the sixties.

When exonerated, Eddie—now called Jamal—became the youngest spokesperson and leader of the Panthers’ New York chapter. He joined the “revolutionary underground,” later landing back in prison. Sentenced to more than twelve years in Leavenworth, he earned three degrees there and found a new calling. He is now chair of Columbia University’s School of the Arts film division—the very school he exhorted students to burn down during one of his most famous speeches as a Panther.

In raw, powerful prose, Jamal Joseph helps us understand what it meant to be a soldier inside the militant Black Panther movement. He recounts a harrowing, sometimes deadly imprisonment as he charts his path to manhood in a book filled with equal parts rage, despair, and hope.

About the Author: Orphan, activist, subversive, urban guerrilla, the FBI’s most wanted fugitive, drug addict, drug counselor, convict, writer, poet, filmmaker, father, professor, youth advocate, and Oscar nominee Jamal Joseph lives with his wife and family in New York City.