Ann's wrong about the Panthers. The ones I knew were promoting violent, Marxist revolution. It was from them that I got my copy of the little red book, "Quotations from Chairman Mao," as well as my Che Guevarra buttion. Then they move on, and, instead of admiring Che and Mao, they extolled the virtues of Kim Il Sung. It was the Black Panthers who conducted the so-called "Revolutionary Peoples' Constitutional Convention," supposedly to draft a constitution for post revolutionary America.
Otherwise, Ann's column is right on (sorry).
Wasn't Angela Davis a member of the Black Panthers or connected with them?