Photo of JoNina Abron-Ervin. Photo courtesy of JoNina Abron-Ervin.

By Karla Méndez

Journalist and activist JoNina Abron-Ervin spoke with Black Women Radicals’ Lead Editor of Black Feminist Histories and Movements, Karla Méndez to discuss her new book, Driven by the Movement: Reports from the Black Power Era, which examines her experience being the last editor of the Black Panther newspaper and the importance of everyday people in liberatory movements.

JoNina Abron-Ervin has spent a lifetime documenting, and doing, the work of Black liberation. As the last editor of The Black Panther newspaper, she witnessed how a movement is built not only by headline names but by everyday people: the rank-and-file organizers, neighbors, teachers, parents, and volunteers who kept the engine running. Her new book, Driven by the Movement: Reports from the Black Power Era (AK Press, 2025) gathers those underrepresented voices into dispatches that challenge familiar narratives and expand the historical record. In this conversation, Abron-Ervin reflects on what compelled her to assemble the book now, the power of press in shaping collective action, and the lessons today’s organizers can carry forward from the Panthers’ community programs, internal debates, and enduring courage.

Please note: This interview has been edited for readability.

Karla Méndez (KM): Driven by the Movement chronicles voices and moments from the Black Power era. What personal experiences or encounters first convinced you that these stories, especially from grassroots organizers, needed to be preserved in book form?

JoNina Abron-Ervin (JA): You know, time goes on and people pass on. In fact, I interviewed a total of 25 people. Of the 21 that are included in the book, all but five of them have passed away since I started the research on this back in the early 1990s. It's vital information. I want the younger generations, millennials, Gen Z, to know what we tried to do back then, how we did it, what our experiences were, what worked, what didn't work. I was initially inspired to write the book after the Los Angeles rebellion in 1992 after the acquittal of the cops who beat Rodney King. I realized that we have to keep this information. It has to be there 100 years from now. There'll be people organizing and we need that information.

“But the backbone of the Black Power era were everyday, ordinary people and a lot of them didn’t get the credit that they deserved.”

KM: Absolutely. Especially in the climate that we are in right now, with so much of our history in danger of being erased and not accessible to current or future generations. It's incredibly important to make sure that it is available for anyone who is interested, or come across it. I really appreciate you writing this book.

JA: I wanted people to know about the folks who weren’t well-known. A lot of times, attention is paid to the people who are more well known or celebrities, which I'm not devaluing their work. But the backbone of the Black Power era were everyday, ordinary people and a lot of them didn't get the credit that they deserved.

KM: And speaking of that, throughout the Panthers history, so much attention has gone to those people in leadership positions. How did you come to appreciate the role of rank and file members, school teachers, small business owners, and parents, whose contributions are often overlooked or under told?

JA: I didn't become editor of the newspaper until much later, but I was a rank and file member myself, and I knew the hard work that we did. I met other people in other community groups who were doing hard work behind the scenes and didn't make the news reports or things like that. I felt like these are the people who if it wasn't for them, a lot of the accomplishments that were made wouldn't have happened. They made vital contributions. One of the people I interviewed said it made her sad that there's no library for the young people to go to to really know what we did and what we went through. People made personal sacrifices. There's a lot of romanticism revolving around the Black Power era, the Black Power activists, but we were people just like everybody else. We had hopes, dreams, aspirations, disappointments. I wanted people to see everyday people in their totality. In one sense, they dedicate themselves to the struggle. A lot of them put their One person talking about the fact that his first marriage ended because he was so active and away from home all the time. She was unhappy with the situation.

“There’s a lot of romanticism revolving around the Black Power era, the Black Power activists, but we were people just like everybody else. We had hopes, dreams, aspirations, disappointments. I wanted people to see everyday people in their totality.”

KM: I feel like sometimes they're maybe not things that feel exciting enough to be discussed or to catch people's attention. It's unfortunate because, as you said, people do sacrifice quite a bit for this work, and it's not always appreciated, which is really unfortunate.

JA: I was thinking about something else. I'm a single parent. My daughter is part of Gen X. I interviewed a few people who were single parents and one of the women I interviewed talked about her struggle as a single parent and having to deal with going to meetings and things. Her daughter was always complaining about being dragged to meetings because she didn't want to go. She eventually was able to get a house so she could start having the meetings there. But it was difficult, because to be a single woman, and to have a child and try to participate at the high-level she was at.

KM: Gathering first hand accounts can be challenging. Can you walk us through your process for tracking down and interviewing those everyday activists, and how did you build the trust so that they would feel comfortable in discussing all of their life and their experience with you?

JA: The people that I did not know, I had to track down. For instance, there was a pastor who was the president of the movement for community controlled schools in Brooklyn, New York. I had done some reading about that movement and his name came up because he was the president for a long time. He was actually in the phone book, so I was able to track him down. I talked to him on the phone, sent him a letter, explained who I was, and asked him, would he be willing to be interviewed? And he said yes. I got a grant for some travel funds, and went out to New York City to talk to him. So he's someone I'd had to track down. There was another woman who had been a professor, and I was able to track her down through the university where she was. I sent her a letter explaining what my project was, what I was trying to do, and explained that if she was willing to do the interview, anything that she did not want to be recorded, she could simply say, could you please turn off the tape recorder? Because I'm not trying to cause problems for anyone. And there were some people that I did already know because of work I had done with them in other organizations.

“As a member of the organization to see things changing, it makes us think “What do we do now? What do I do now with my life? I had to figure that out. That was challenging and a little frightening.”

Cover of the book, *Driven by the Movement: Reports from the Black Power Era,* by JoNina Abron-Ervin.

KM: As the final editor of the newspaper, you inherited both the legacy and the last chapter of the paper. What was that experience like, balancing both the revolutionary ethos of the newspaper, the practicalities of keeping it afloat and the shifting political tides that were occurring during that period?

JA: For myself and the other people who worked on the paper, there was a lot of personal grief when we found out we were no longer able to publish the newspaper. It made us all very sad. It was one of the most visible programs of the Black Panther Party. Whether they agreed with it or not, people knew what the Black Panther newspaper was.

But also, as you say, we were understanding that we were coming towards the end of a particular period in history. We no longer had the funds to do the newspaper. Times were changing. The newspaper actually lasted a little bit past what is considered the time frame of the Black Power era, which is basically 1965 to 1975. The last issue of the newspaper was actually published in September of 1980. I think that's because of the respect that it had and how well known it was. So there was the balancing of the personal grief of the newspaper itself, but also realizing that the Black Panther Party had been part of the particular era of history, and time was moving on. I certainly didn't have all the answers about how to navigate it, so. It was difficult. As a member of the organization to see things changing, it makes us think “What do we do now? What do I do now with my life? I had to figure that out. That was challenging and a little frightening.

KM: I can imagine. You spent so much time involved with the organization, and then it's gone. You know, as we've been talking about, like, so much of your life is devoted to your time with that organization. Looking back on the movement and the individuals you feature in Driven by the Movement, what lessons do you hope modern organizers will take from these everyday figures, especially when it comes to sustaining long-term grassroots work beyond the spotlight?

JA: A fundamental thing I learned from this is that people have to take care of themselves on a personal level. I hear younger activists talk about burnout, and I'm like, I don't want you all to go through what we went through. You have to take care of yourself on a personal level. The Black Panther Party for a long time was a 24/7 commitment. It was not until towards the end that we realized people needed one day off. You can’t forget yourself. We always talked about serving the people, body and soul, in the Black Panther Party. But the fact of the matter was, we're people too.

Something else I learned from the late black sociologist Robert Allen, and this is an abbreviation, is radical social change and revolution does not proceed in a straight line. You're going to have setbacks. You're going to have victories. You're going to have betrayals. People are going to sell you out, and you have to constantly keep that in mind, and not allow that to discourage you. It's hard, but you have to realize that that is just part of the territory. You may have to step back for a while, take a pause, re-evaluate your strategy and tactics, but that's part of it.

“A fundamental thing I learned from this is that people have to take care of themselves on a personal level. I hear younger activists talk about burnout, and I’m like, I don’t want you all to go through what we went through. You have to take care of yourself on a personal level.”

KM: That makes me think about how activists and organizers of these movements are constantly repeating that the work never stops. And I think, yes, that's true. As you said, it's so important to remember that you can take a pause and you can take care of yourself, because if you don't, then you will burn out and the work will stop. You have to continue to feed yourself to be able to feed others. I think we don't allow ourselves to take those breaks because if we're, we're taking breaks, maybe we don't care as much. I think that's, unfortunately, part of the mentality that we just have in this country, where you're encouraged to always be producing. And that is incredibly unhealthy and unsustainable.

JA: I remember one time when I was editor of the paper, I did take some time off to go visit my parents. I was, you know, trying to make sure everything was going to be okay with the newspaper while I was gone and I was kind of worried about it. One of my comrade brothers in the Black Panther Party said, “You know, Black people weren't free for years and years, you take a week off, we'll be okay.

KM: What do you believe makes a Black Woman Radical?

JA: Well, if you live in the United States, just the basic conditions will make you radical. The fact that if you are female, then you're going to undergo the racist and gender discrimination. If you don’t want to have a life that fits the so-called American Dream will make you radical. By the time I was a teenager, I had made up my mind that I didn’t want to get married and I didn't want to have children. I wanted to be involved in the Black liberation struggle. Of course, I did get married later and I adopted a child, but in my early years, that's not what I wanted. People look at you like, what do you mean? Girls are supposed to want to get married and have the house with the picket fence around it. If you don't want that, the action you get from people can make you radical. It probably contributed to me being the way that I am.

Living in a country that can afford to feed people and deliberately doesn’t, that can make you radical. Some people may say, it's too bad they have to take care of themselves. But they have enough to feed everybody in this country. There's no excuse for this.

For more information about Driven by the Movement: Reports from the Black Power Era, please visit AK Press: https://www.akpress.org/driven-by-the-movement.html

About the Author

Karla Méndez is an arts and culture writer whose work examines the histories of Black and Latin American women and their representations within visual art, literature, poetry, and performance. She is interested in how women put forth representations of themselves that are accurately representative of their expansiveness and how they use these avenues to engage with topics of identity, gender, race, and the female body. Ultimately, her work seeks to explore and reinstate forgotten and ignored histories as a site of care for ourselves and our communities.

She is the lead columnist of Black Feminist Histories and Social Movements, a column for the advocacy organization Black Women Radicals. She is a contributor for the Boston Art Review and Elephant Magazine and her work has appeared in the Brown Art Review and Ampersand: An American Studies Journal.

Behind the Headlines: JoNina Abron-Ervin Chronicles the Overlooked Architects of Black Power