In her autobiography A Taste of Power, A Black Woman's Story, Elaine Brown chronicles her life from her childhood through her rise to the head of the Black Panther Party.
She describes her feelings of powerlessness and fear as a black girl growing up in a poor section of North Philadelphia and her desire to assimilate in order to become like her elementary school classmates - white and affluent.
It is not until after college and several eye-opening relationships with white men that she becomes politicized and turns to the Black Panther Party. She feels that their struggle is her struggle, their problems are her problems - but she rapidly finds herself in conflict.
In the midst of a Black Panther Party that has become obsessed with armed revolution, she fights for social programs such as food banks, schools, and medical assistance.
During her rise to leadership she repeatedly has to confront the machismo of the Panther Party: "A woman in the Black Power movement was considered, at best, irrelevant ... If a black woman assumed a role of leadership, she was said to be eroding black manhood, to be hindering the progress of the black race.
She was an enemy of black people." She journeys from belief to disagreement to violent opposition, and eventually flees in fear for her safety.
A Taste of Power is an insightful, detailed, and fast-moving look into Elaine Brown's struggles against oppression and opposition, before and during the era of the Black Panther movement
Paperback
Dimensions (in inches): 1.03 x 9.14 x 5.96
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0385471076
(January 1994)