Driven by the Movement: Reports from the Black Power Era

A collective portrait of the Black Power movement by radical journalist and former Black Panther JoNina Abron-Ervin

Driven by the Movement collects the stories of twenty ordinary people who did extraordinary things for the Black liberation struggle during the pivotal decade of 1965-1975. These activists came from across the US and all walks of life--single working mothers, clergy, students, teachers, military veterans--to organize against police brutality, poverty, hunger, substandard schools, and colonialism in Africa.

Drawing from her own experience at the heart of the movement, JoNina Abron-Ervin’s on-the-ground reporting offers a rare look into the pragmatism, optimism, compromise, and contradiction and the everyday acts of dedication that animated the Black Power era.

This new edition includes expanded material on the history of the Black Panther newspaper as a source of mass political education and on the Black Panther Party’s legendary survival programs, such as its Free Breakfast for Children and healthcare programs.

A foreword by writer and organizer William C. Anderson connects two torchbearers of the Black radical tradition across generations.

JoNina Abron-Ervin is a journalist, grassroots community organizer, and former member of the Black Panther Party. She was the last editor of the Black Panther newspaper and the managing editor of The Black Scholar magazine. JoNina is a retired Western Michigan University associate professor of communication and cohosts the Black Autonomy Podcast.

William C. Anderson is a writer and activist from Birmingham, Alabama. He is the author of The Nation on No Map and coauthor of As Black as Resistance. He’s also the cofounder of Offshoot Journal and a producer of the Black Autonomy Podcast. His writings have been included in the anthologies Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect? and No Selves to Defend.