the odyssey of Byron Booth as told to william cordova
By late January 1969, Byron Booth, a native son born in Chicago and raised in Compton, was writing revolutionary tracts and plotting to break out of prison in California. His getaway and subsequent airplane hijacking were only the first moves on a journey that would take him to Cuba, Algeria, the Soviet Union, North Korea, Egypt, Palestine, and Nigeria, all before his return to the United States more than thirty years later.
The Odyssey of Byron Booth traces the events and conflicts of his life—reuniting with exiled Black Panther Party leader Eldridge Cleaver in Havana, joining in the revolutionary fervor of post-independence Algiers and the early moments of what would become the International Section of the Party, touring Communist countries, meeting with Yasser Arafat of the Palestine Liberation Organization, befriending the King of Afrobeat Fela Kuti while also serving as a federal police officer in Nigeria—through Booth’s own words alongside transcripts of recently discovered audio diaries he made in Cuba and Algeria during his time as a Panther, rare archival materials, and historical context.
Additional Interviews by Tights Helen Schmidt
Controbutions by william cordova, Michael Kirikorian, and Karin L. Stanford, PhD
Research by Graham Eng-Wilmont
