Book Talk: Destroy This Temple: The Voice of Black People in Britain

About the book

First published in 1971, Destroy This Temple was noted as "the first full-scale exposition of Black Power thought in a British context." Egbuna penned this compilation of essays while jailed in London on charges of plotting to kill police officers. In doing so he provided a personal narrative on "...racial attitudes amongst both White and Black people in Britain; his involvement with the Black Panther movement; his visit to America and the profound effect on him of meetings with Elijah Muhammad founder of the Black Muslims, a  New Mexican Indian chief, and a Harlem prostitute; (and) his reactions to the Biafran War." Destroy This Temple was well received by radicals on both sides of the Atlantic as a seldom heard first-person narrative of a Black British activist.  In the United States, the book served to contrast and complement the much more noted Black Power movement. 

The Black…