Mar 25, 2021 - Sale 2562

Sale 2562 - Lot 127

Price Realized: $ 1,188
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 500 - $ 750
(BLACK PANTHERS.) Issues of "Right On!" and "Babylon" put out by the Revolutionary Peoples Communications Network. 7 issues, each 24 pages, 16 1/2 x 11 1/4 inches, on 6 unbound folding sheets; minor wear. New York, April-December 1971
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Additional Details

These two related New York newspapers were launched by Eldridge and Kathleen Cleaver after their split with the Black Panther Party. Offered here are issues 1, 4, [6?] and 7 of Right On!, and 1, 2, and 3 of Babylon, which replaced it.

Issue #1 of Right On! (3 April 1971) is subcaptioned "Black Community News Service, Black Panther Party," and is designed to look much like the California-based weekly. It positions itself as the true heir to the Black Panther tradition, with two long editorials denouncing the David Hilliard-Emory Douglas faction. Issue #4 keeps the Panther logo but drops the Black Panther name and is now issued by the Cleavers' new Revolutionary Peoples Communications Network. Apparently the final issue of Right On! was dated 1 November 1971. That same day, the Revolutionary Peoples Communications Network launched a similar paper under the title Babylon.

The inaugural 1 November issue of Babylon features some of the same articles as Right On! This lot includes issues 1, 2, and 3; we can trace only one more issue which followed these, in January 1972. Mumia Abu-Jamal is listed as the Philadelphia correspondent for Babylon and delivered a scathing cover article on his city's new mayor Frank Rizzo in issue #2.