For too long the Panthers' story has been glossed over, cast as a footnote to the civil rights movement rather than what it was: a revolutionary socialist movement of community organizers that drew thousands of followers and the attention of the entire nation and became the target of one of the most sustained and organized repression efforts ever made by the U.S. government against its own people. In this all-too-relevant history of the Black Panther Party, Kekla Magoon introduces readers to the Panthers' community activism, grounded in the concept of self-defense, and puts the Panthers in the proper context of Black American history, from the first arrival of enslaved people on the shores of the continent to the Black Lives Matter movement of today. The story of the Black Panther Party is one of young people setting out to change the world-in radical ways.