Panther Man

Title: Panther Man

Author: Emanuel, James A.

Publication: Detroit, Michigan: Broadside Press, 1970.

Description: First edition, first printing of this collection of poems by James A. Emanuel. In the preface, Emanuel writes that this book is "special for its reflection of personal, racially meaningful predicaments and events that compelled its expression of my feelings about the most abysmal evil in the modern world: American racism." The title poem “Panther Man” is about the murders of Blank Panthers Fred Hampton and Mark Clark by Chicago police in 1970, the year of publication. In stapled black card wrappers with white lettering. 8.5 x 5.5 inches; 32 pages. Mild edgewear and creasing at the spine. About Near Fine. An attractive, collectible copy.

James A. Emanuel (1921-2013) was a Black poet, educator, and scholar, who was mentored by Langston Hughes. He taught the first class on Black poetry at the City College of New York and co-edited a major anthology of Black literature, titled "Dark Symphony: Negro Literature in America." He moved to Europe in the late 1960s to escape American racism, and he vowed never to return after his only child, James A. Emanuel, Jr., committed suicide in 1983 after being beaten by three Los Angeles police officers. The Broadside Press, started by Dudley Randall in his home in Detroit, Michigan in 1965, published some of the most important Black poetry of the 1960s and 1970s.