Jamal Joseph | Panther Baby: A Life of Rebellion and Reinvention
Recorded 2/21/2012
Listen to MP3 audio

As a teenager in the Bronx ghetto of the 1960s, Eddie Joseph was introduced to the tenets of the Black Panther Party just as it gained a national foothold. The cause swallowed him into one of the most emblematic criminal cases of the '60s. After his stint at Rikers, Eddie—now called Jamal—joined the Revolutionary Black Underground and eventually landed back in prison—where he founded a prison theater and earned two degrees. In his memoir, Panther Baby, he vividly recounts his introduction to Panther life and his progression from a naïve street kid to a confident and outspoken member of an influential national movement, and later to an Oscar nominee and a Columbia University professor.