"We
photographed the Black Panthers intensively from July into October of
1968, during the peak of a historic period and in the Bay Area, where
the Black Panthers National Headquarters is located. We couldn't
possibly photograph all the aspects of this virile, rapidly growing, and
deep-rooted movement, but we can show you: this is what we saw, this is
what we felt, and these are the people."
- Pirkle Jones and Ruth-Marion Baruch, 1969
The
San Francisco Bay Area was a turbulent cauldron in the sixties. The
Free Speech Movement, Vietnam War protests, Haight-Ashbury, Love-Ins and
the Black Panthers were all part of the roiling pot of political
change, cultural unrest and social upheaval. Huey Newton and Bobby
Seale, students at Merritt College in Oakland, California founded the
Black Panther Party for Self-Defense in 1966, and by 1968 the movement
had spread to over 15 U.S. cities with an estimated membership of over
10,000 people nationwide.
The
party set out to create practical change, and distinguished itself from
both the non-violent civil rights movement of Martin Luther King, Jr.,
and the black nationalist rhetoric of Malcolm X, instead aligning itself
with socially, politically and economically oppressed people throughout
the world.
Former
Party Communications Director Kathleen Cleaver recalls the Panthers as
"a mobilization of tremendously talented but very young Black people who
had little financial and institutional resources, but we had unlimited
imagination.... We had to imagine how we could make a fundamental change
in the United States that would make Black People's lives better."
Despite
rampant vilification by the mainstream media and a rash of internal
conflicts that would eventually divide the party, the Black Panthers
were able to combine divergent activities in a unique way. They provided
free breakfasts for school children and other community service
programs. Simultaneously, they ran electoral campaigns, challenged
racist exploitation, published a newspaper, organized schools, engaged
in armed clashes with police forces, formed international alliances with
nations and movements that shared their ideologies, and advocated a
revolutionary transformation of the political system of the United
States.
By
1968, however, optimism had taken some serious hits. FBI Chief J. Edgar
Hoover vilified the Black Panthers as "the greatest threat to the
internal security of the United States." Huey Newton was awaiting trial
for allegedly killing an Oakland, California police officer.
Ruth-Marion Baruch and Pirkle Jones
entered the scene at this critical moment. Baruch had proposed a
photographic essay on the Black Panthers to Jack McGregor, Director of
the De Young Museum in San Francisco, with the idea of presenting "the
feeling of the people." McGregor agreed to show the photographs that
same year, understanding the timeliness of the subject matter.
After
gaining permission to photograph the Free Huey Rally at DeFremery park
from Panther Party leaders Kathleen and Eldridge Cleaver, Baruch set out
to document the party for the next several months, bringing husband
Pirkle Jones to photograph alongside her. After showing the Cleavers
their first photographs, they were given unprecedented access to the
Party and its inner circle.
Stemming from the artists' work with the
Peace and Freedom Party, the project reflects a desire to capture in
images a closer understanding of the Black Panthers and their
organization.
The work of Baruch and Jones stands in radical
contrast to mass media images of the time depicting the Panthers as
thugs, criminals, or dangerous subversives. Their pictures reflect the
dignity and humanity that animated the young revolutionaries, and also
suggest universal themes of family, commitment, and hope for the
future.
McGregor
cancelled the De Young show, fearing media backlash, but when Baruch
and Jones fought against the censorship, he eventually agreed to let the
exhibition go forward. In December 1968, A Photographic Essay on the Black Panthers
opened to record crowds and was viewed by over 100,000 people before
traveling to three other venues. The Vanguard, A Photographic Essay on
the Black Panthers was published in 1970 by Beacon Press, and Black
Panthers, 1968, which includes an essay by Kathleen Cleaver was
published by Greybull Press in 2002.
February is Black History Month 2012 and in conjunction with this exhibition, Smith Andersen North will be screening The Black Power Mixtape, 1967 - 1975,
a 2011 documentary containing footage shot by a group of Swedish
journalists who documented the Black Power Movement in the United States
in the late '60s and '70s. The documentary has been edited together by
contemporary Swedish filmmaker Göran Hugo Olsson and features extraordinary, virtually unseen footage from the Black Power Movement.
For additional information, please contact:
Stefan Kirkeby or gallery manager Jennifer O'Keeffe
Left: Pirkle Jones, "Kathleen Neal Cleaver, DeFremery Park, Oakland, 1968", Gelatin silver print, 16"x20"
Right: Pirkle Jones, "Black Panther Demonstration, Alameda County Courthouse, 1968", Gelatin silver print, 20"x16"
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Thank you for reading, and for your feedback. Please support John Sinclair. Love, steve