This episode of Dancing with the Panthers features a conversation recorded around the year 2000 with Rev. Dr. Finley C. Campbell and historian Dr. Jon Rice, reflecting on their involvement with the Black Panther Party roughly thirty years earlier. Barbara Jean Walsh introduces the discussion by explaining that both men—Campbell in Indiana and Rice in Chicago—became deeply influenced by the Panthers’ philosophy, especially its emphasis on multiracial unity, socialism, and community self‑determination.

Dr. Campbell opens with personal reflections on race, class, and the spread of economic oppression, using a chance encounter as a metaphor for the interconnectedness of racial and class struggle. He recounts how he was “drafted” into the Panthers’ Ministry of Education in Indiana, helping organize Black Student Unions and translating P ...