Happy Fall, everyone! My guest in this episode of PDIS is Flores Forbes. Born and raised in San Diego, California, at age sixteen Forbes joined the Black Panther Party for Self Defense. The Panthers had been formed in 1966, and Flores rose through the ranks to become a high-level operative in the Party's military wing, called the Buddha Samauri. As one of the Party's principal armorers, Flores was responsible for maintaining the Party's gun supply -- at any given time, he was one of a very few people who knew the location of most or all of the weapons stashes. He also participated in several military operations, and served for a time as a bodyguard to Huey Newton, the Panthers' charismatic leader. 

In 1977, a botched operation to assassinate a testifying witness ended with the death of one of the assassins. Flores was gravely wounded and had to go underground while undergoing reconstructive surgery and hiding from the authorities. Presumed to have been killed either in the original operation or in a later assassination, for three years Flores lived in safe houses and under assumed names in Chicago and New York. In October 1980 he contacted his family and lawyer to tell them he was alive, and to announce that he was surrendering himself to stand trial.  After serving nearly five years in prison, Flores entered a society which was not prepared or willing to receive returning citizens. Though no longer underground, and living, working, and pursuing education under his real name, Flores had to learn how to conceal his past when engaging with colleagues, professors, potential employers, and even friends. But Forbes, now an Associate Vice President of Community and Government Affairs at Columbia University, has spent the past thirty years since his release in supporting men and women like himself. This work led him to write his second memoir, Invisible Men: A Contemporary Slave Narrative in the Era of Mass Incarceration (Skyhorse Press, 2016; winner of the 2017 American Book Award), which combines searing political analysis, an urgent call for policing and justice reform, and wise insights on how today's returning citizens may prepare themselves for a world which has not quite reached the era of "post-mass incarceration." 

Flores and I spoke on February 21, 2017, before a live audience of students in my course on the history of race, policing, and the carceral state.