Audiobooks by Justin Gifford

In the 1960s, no Black political group stood for grassroots insurgency more than the Black Panther Party. And the figure who embodied their militant and controversial spirit more than anyone was Eldridge Cleaver. Charismatic, brilliant, and courageous, Cleaver built a base of power and influence that struck fear deep in the heart of white America. It was therefore shocking to many left-wing radicals when Cleaver turned his back on Black revolution, the Nation of Islam, and communism in 1975. While Cleaver seemed sincerely disillusioned with radicalism, his erratic behavior over the next two decades revealed something that had been a latent part of his psyche all along-narcissistic megalomania. His influence declined significantly through the 1980s until he found himself back on the streets committing petty crimes. By the time he died, in 1998, he was largely viewed as a turncoat who had betrayed the cause of Black freedom. How can we make sense of Cleaver's precipitous decline from his position as one of America's most vibrant Black writers and activists? And how do his contradictory identities as criminal, party leader, international diplomat, Christian conservative, and Republican politician reveal that he was more than just a traitor to the advancement of civil rights? In Revolution or Death, acclaimed biographer Justin Gifford answers these questions and many more by providing, for the first time, the life story of one of the most notorious Black revolutionaries in history. He explores the audacious dreams and spiritual transformations of the eccentric radical and places him squarely within the context of his changing times. Gifford was granted exclusive access to declassified files from the French police, the American embassy, and the FBI, as well as Kathleen Cleaver's private archive, and he explored previously unseen documents from archives around the world. He draws from a massive body of materials to reassemble the story of a man far more compelling and complex than most have given him credit for. In a country defined by its extreme political positions on the right and left, Cleaver embodied both ideologies in pursuit of his conflicting ideals. His inability to resolve these competing desires ultimately destroyed him.

Justin Gifford (Author), Corey Allen (Narrator)

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Street Poison: The Biography of Iceberg Slim

The first and definitive biography of one of America's bestselling, notorious, and influential writers of the twentieth century: Iceberg Slim, ne Robert Beck, author of the multimillion-copy memoir Pimp and such equally popular novels as Trick Baby and Mama Black Widow. For a career as a, yes, ruthless pimp in the '40s and '50s, Iceberg Slim refashioned himself as the first and still the greatest of "street lit" masters, whose vivid books have made him an icon to such rappers as Ice-T, Jay-Z, and Snoop Dogg and a presiding spirit of "blaxploitation" culture. You can't understand contemporary black (and even American) culture without reckoning with Iceberg Slim and his many acolytes and imitators. Literature professor Justin Gifford has been researching the life work of Robert Beck for a decade, culminating in Street Poison, a colorful and compassionate biography of one of the most complicated figures in the twentieth-century literature. Drawing on a wealth of archival material-including FBI files, prison records, and interviews with Beck, his wife, and his daughters-Gifford explores the sexual trauma and racial violence Beck endured that led to his reinvention as Iceberg Slim, one of America's most infamous pimps of the 1940s and '50s. From pimping his profoundly influential confessional autobiography, Pimp, to his involvement in radical politics, Gifford's biography illuminates the life and works of one of American literature's most unique renegades.

Justin Gifford (Author), JD Jackson (Narrator)

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Shetani's Sister

From the multi-million copy master of vernacular black literature and pioneeer of hip hop culture, a masterpiece of crime fiction set in Los Angeles' meanest, toughest streets. Here is the newly discovered novel by Iceberg Slim, the creator and undisputed master of African-American "street literature," a man who profoundly influenced hip hop and rap culture and probably has sold more books than any other black American author of the twentieth century (not that he saw the royalties from those sales). In many ways Iceberg Slim's most mature fictional work, Shetani's Sister relates, in taut, evocative vernacular torn straight from the street corner, the deadly duel between two complex anitheroes: Sergeant Russell Rucker, an LAPD vice detective attempting to clean up street prostitution and police corruption, and Shetani (Swahili for Satan), a veteran master pimp who controls his stable of whores with violence and daily doses of heroin.

Iceberg Slim, Justin Gifford (Author), Korey Jackson (Narrator)

Audiobook