In the remote French village where her father lived in exile, Kimberly Cox Marshall stayed up most of the night reading page after typewritten page of the memoir of her father, Field Marshal Don Cox, gun-runner and a leader for the Black Panther Party. “I couldn’t put it down,” she recalls of the detailed account.

Just four months later, in February 2011, Donald Cox died in his sleep. Back home in California, Kimberly was left to fulfill her promise to publish his recollections of his five years as a leader of the San Francisco chapter of the Panthers.

On Wednesday, December 1, Kimberly and Heyday publisher Steve Wasserman will be featured guests at Berkeley City Club’s Arts & Culture.

They will discuss Cox’s father’s transition from a 34-year-old San Francisco businessman and father — who owned a home, wore Brooks Brothers suits, and drove an Austin-Healy — to Field Marshal DC. He took part in many peaceful civil rights protests but also advocated for militant action, obtained guns for Party members, and taught them to shoot so they could defend themselves against what they saw as oppression from a white racist establishment.

Register to attend at Berkeley City Club’s Eventbrite listing.