Genet, Jean (Seale, Bobby)

Here and Now For Bobby Seale

New York, NY, USA: Committee to Defend the Panthers, 1970. First Edition. Stapled Wrappers. “For the white man, history, past and future is very long, and his set of references is very imposing. For the black man, Time is short, for his History has been brutally interrupted and modified by the whites, who have done everything to prevent him from having his own, original development. And in the U.S.A., we are still busy setting limits on black people’s Time and Space. Not only is each and everyone of them forced to withdraw within himself; he is also imprisoned by us. And when this is not enough, we assassinate him. Because of Chairman Bobby Seale’s exceptional political stature, his trial is in fact a political trial of the Black Panther Party and, on a more general basis, a race trial held against all of America’s blacks. The reality of the black colony within the United States is very complex. Dispersed as they are within a nation so chauvinistic that she likes to think of herself as master of the world, the blacks who are oppressed by racism and indifference and threatened by an oppressive police and administration, have been forced to wage a very new type of fight. That is how the Black Panther Party was created: first of all to defend the rights of the colonized blacks inside the U.S.A., but also to synthesize new ways for blacks to struggle against white oppression.”--Jean Genet, “Here and Now for Bobby Seale.” Jean Genet (1910-1986) was a French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist. Genet, from an early age, was both defiant in the face of authority, and deeply in touch with the political milieu of his time. By age 15 he was sent to Mettray Penal Colony where he was detained until at age 18 he enlisted in the French Foreign Legion. He was eventually given a dishonorable discharge on grounds of indecency, having been caught engaged in a “homosexual act”, and spent a period as a vagabond, petty thief and prostitute across Europe. Once he returned to Paris in 1937, Genet found himself in and out of prison after arrests for theft, use of false papers, vagabondage, lewd acts, and other offences. In prison Genet wrote his first poem, "Le condamné à mort", which he had printed at his own cost, and the novel Our Lady of the Flowers (1944). Eventually, Genet ingratiated himself to Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) who went on to champion Genet and got his novel published. Genet also became close with legendary philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) who petitioned the French President to release Genet from prison in 1949. After the May uprising in 1968 in France, Genet became a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, and became hyperactive politically. He went on to go to America, Palestine, Lebanon, Algeria, and Germany (to protest the arrest of Andres Baader and Ulrike Meinhoff), engaging in a number of high profile political activist movements. Offered today is the 1970 collection of essays Here and Now for Bobby Seale. In the spring of 1970, while both Bobby Seale (b. 1936) and Huey Newton (1942-1989) were incarcerated and after Eldridge Cleaver (1935-1998) had been forced to flee the country, Jean Genet spent some two months with the Party, speaking in its support—particularly to white people—at Yale, Columbia, UCLA, Stanford, and other institutions and (sometimes televised) venues across the country. “Charges of racism and government harassment by a writer of Genet’s international stature doubtless touched the American conscience and contributed to favorable trial outcomes for Panther defendants. Huey Newton’s conviction for voluntary manslaughter was reversed on August 6, 1970; the Panther 21 were exonerated on May 13, 1971; less than two weeks later Bobby Seale was acquitted; and Angela Davis (b. 1944) was found not guilty on all counts on June 4, 1972.” Essays included in this volume are “Bobby Seale, the Black Panthers and Us White People”; “I Must Begin with an Explanation of my Presense [sic] in the United States” (better known as Genet’s May Day Speech, delivered before a crowd of some 25,000 people demonstrating in support of the Black Panthers in New Haven, where Seale was imprisoned); “Here and Now for Bobby Seale”; & “The Black Panthers are Preparing the Revolution with Precipitous Care. The Revolution Will Come: Time is at their Service,” followed by the Black Panther platform, “What We Want : What We Believe” and a lower wrapper ad and subscription form for the Black Panther Party Community News Service. From the collection of Richard Cupidi (b. 1945), our esteemed mate in the UK who managed the fabled Unicorn Bookshop in Brighton, England for founder Bill Butler (1934-1977, the famed American-expatriate bookseller & publisher). From the late 1960s through the early 1970s, Unicorn proffered & published many outstanding productions by William S. Burroughs, J.G. Ballard et al., some of which have become the scarcest, all-but-unobtainable Beat-&-Beyond collectibles (see for example our item no.s 8217, 8366). After prevailing against censorious harassment efforts, Unicorn closed & Butler died in short order. Cupidi went on to found the Public House Bookshop in Brighton, which had a long & successful run but is also now closed, & he still resides there. We have been honored to obtain what Cupidi has termed "The Last Hurrah," all the remaining treasures of Unicorn & Public House, some of which have become the stuff of myth. Stapled wrappers. First & presumably only printing. In relatively fine-to-very fine condition with minor wear to fine edges, slight staining/spotting at spine, light rusting at staples, and very slight discoloration due to age-toning to exterior and interior throughout. Fine-Very Fine. [Item #8500]

Price: $250.00