PFA presents Beyond Black and White, a series of historical and contemporary documentaries which, together with the photography exhibition The Black Panthers 1968, on view in the museum's Theater Gallery, offers an inside view of the Oakland-founded Black Panther Party. Some of the most potent images of the late sixties depict Black Panthers marching in time clad in black leather jackets and berets, carrying guns into the State Assembly, and shouting “off a pig” on the Alameda County Courthouse steps. When seen in the mainstream press, often accompanied by commentary denouncing or exaggerating Panther activities, they generated fear and rationalized the government's scrutiny of the organization. Yet, in radical documentaries from the time, these same images provided an alternative to the network news and served to organize community support. Less familiar, but providing a more complex picture of the Black Panthers, were scenes recorded by the local collective Newsreel of Huey Newton equating the struggle of the black community to that of the Vietnamese, Bobby Seale reciting the Panthers' Ten-Point Platform, and young children being fed in breakfast programs. Newsreel's gritty, urgent shorts and other provocative films of the time are too-little-known documents of the era. More recent films in our program continue to explore the history of the Black Panthers so that we can have a more nuanced understanding of the revolutionary movements that forever changed this country.
Notes by Kathy Geritz
Presented in conjunction with The Black Panthers 1968: Photographs by Ruth-Marion Baruch and Pirkle Jones, on view in BAM's Theater Gallery March 26 through June 29. (Please see Art Notes page 5). Viewers are invited to visit the Theater Gallery, which is located at the Durant Avenue entrance to the museum and open until 7 p.m., admission free.
