One of the things I really like about AK Press is their use of publishing to expand public knowledge of how diverse anarchist theory, practice, and history are. Often, anarchist reading material is limited to difficult to find zines or historical texts of a few dead anarchists or revolutionaries. While these texts are certainly valuable, they are only a minuscule part of the picture.
One especially radical focus has been to put out books specifically on Black Anarchism. This is another thing where you may hear name drops and quotes, but rarely get to read full books from various thinkers past and present. However, even within this sphere sometimes these texts can be somewhat inaccessible to the greater public. This is not necessarily a bad thing across the board. I think that As Black as Resistance for instance is a masterpiece, but it’s not a book I would hand to the average person in my low income apartment building. I think of accessibility similar to science and healthcare. We desperately need those jargony research papers that detail important discoveries for the science/medical community and we also need public health education that teaches most people what vaccines are and why they’re awesome. Anarchist Panther: The Selected Writings of Ashanti O. Alston falls into the latter category. I feel like I could take this book and hand it to just about anyone and have them get something out of it and understand what anarchism is about. It provides an understanding specifically of Black radical tradition and how anarchism is part of that whether people label themselves as such or not.
This book is described as collected writings but also has a ton of interviews that are transcribed. It was really amazing to get to read all of these little time capsules from when Ashanti Alston was sharing wisdom with people. The amount of personal growth he went through as well is something I find myself looking up to. The amount of humility he has is striking. The open-mindedness to new things while still holding true to radical ideals is not an easy balance to strike yet he manages to do so. This growth and humility makes him an excellent vehicle for helping the average person come to terms with not only ideas of anarchism, but all the other little isms inside of it such as feminism, lgbtq liberation, prison abolition, and even the so often bafflingly ignored animal/earth liberation was mentioned. He has frank discussions about how various oppressions can destroy movements and how the Black Panther party specifically was hampered by issues with feminism and queerphobia. In some ways you had women in leadership positions and men doing feminized labor, and in other ways you had misogyny and disrespect. He gives simple ways of understanding how collective liberation is important for any movement to thrive and survive.
Alston also has a joyful nature to how he approaches things. It made me realize how much this is lacking in general discussion of… anything radical really. He manages to discuss difficult and serious things including horrible abuses and deaths, but does not stop finding ways to access happiness throughout that. He discusses depression and mental health, so I am not saying that he’s sunshine and rainbows all the time. It’s the whole “if I can’t dance it’s not my revolution” type of idea that’s present throughout.
Having been a political prisoner himself on top of being part of the Black Panthers, Anarchist People of Color, Jericho, Critical Resistance, Estacion Libre, and so many other projects, he really drives home the important of prisoner support. It was a little bit of kick I needed to get back on my letter writing. Also, community is of central importance throughout everything he discusses.
The inclusion of interviews means there can be some repetitiveness at times due to similar questions being posed, but I did not find it too distracting. There is also good use of footnotes in the book, the editors did not assume the reader is familiar with every single group or idea. A few cool historical graphics from fliers are sprinkled throughout.
It was so exciting to not only get a better understanding of Alston’s history and thought, but also to have a book in my hands that I can recommend to anyone at any level of political understanding. This book will benefit both those new to the topic and those who’ve been reading about it for decades.
This was also posted to my goodreads and storygraph.