Murder in the Model City: The Black Panthers, Yale and the Redemption of a Killer

Against the backdrop of an era when the Nixon administration and the FBI encouraged discord among dissident groups through informants and phone tapping, Rae and Bass recount the circuslike trial of eight Black Panthers accused of killing a suspected spy among them. After the body of Alex Rackley was discovered near New Haven, Conn., on May 21, 1969, Bobby Seale, the Black Panther Party's National Chairman, and seven others were called to court. Rae, a professor at the Yale School of Management, and Bass, a local journalist, write with a keen eye for detail, juxtaposing the events in New Haven with the story of Warren Kimbro, the man who was sentenced to life for Rackley's killing. A community leader whose Panther associations were "a short-lived aberration," Kimbro served less than four years before being released, and graduated from Harvard shortly afterward, dedicating himself to assisting people leaving prison. The authors succeed in crafting an unbiased and clear account of the Panther trials, yet it is the quietly moving story of Kimbro's redemption that will affect readers long after the book is finished. Photos. (Aug.)