INDEPENDENT LENS: The Black Panthers: Vanguard Of The Revolution

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Change was coming to America and the fault lines could no longer be ignored — cities were burning, Vietnam was exploding, and disputes raged over equality and civil rights. A new revolutionary culture was emerging, one that sought to drastically transform the system. The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense would, for a short time, put itself at the vanguard of that change.

Directed, produced and written by Stanley Nelson, “The Black Panthers: Vanguard Of The Revolution” premiered on INDEPENDENT LENS in 2016.

“The Black Panthers: Vanguard Of The Revolution” is the first feature-length documentary to explore the Black Panther Party, its significance to the broader American culture, its cultural and political awakening for black people, and the painful lessons wrought when a movement derails.

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Black Panthers from Sacramento, Free Huey Rally, Bobby Hutton Memorial Park in Oakland, Calif., 1969.

Courtesy of Pirkle Jones & Ruth-Marion Baruch

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Women drilling with Panther flags. (undated photo)

Courtesy of Pirkle Jones & Ruth-Marion Baruch

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Panthers on parade at Free Huey rally in Defermery Park, Oakland, Calif. July 28, 1968.

Courtesy of Stephen Shames

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Eldridge Cleaver, Berkeley, Calif. (undated photo)

Courtesy of Jeffrey Blankfort

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Kathleen Cleaver, Oakland, Calif., 1968.

Courtesy of Jeffrey Blankfort

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Fred Hampton at Dirksen Federal Building, Chicago, Ill. (undated photo)

Courtesy of Paul Sequeira

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Huey Newton at microphone. (undated photo)

Courtesy of Stephen Shames

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Charles Bursey hands plate of food to a child seated at Free Breakfast Program. (undated photo)

Courtesy of Pirkle Jones & Ruth-Marion Baruch

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A group of seven small children walk to school with books in hand. "Panther Power" is written on the building wall they walk past. (undated photo)

Courtesy of Stephen Shames

Master documentarian Nelson goes straight to the source, weaving a treasure trove of rare archival footage with the voices of the people who were there: police, FBI informants, journalists, white supporters and detractors, and Black Panthers who remained loyal to the party and those who left it.

Featuring Kathleen Cleaver, Jamal Joseph, and dozens of others, “The Black Panthers: Vanguard Of The Revolution” is an essential history and a vibrant chronicle of this pivotal movement that gave rise to a new revolutionary culture in America.

“Stanley Nelson is one of our greatest chroniclers of American movements for justice and social change,” said Lois Vossen, INDEPENDENT LENS executive producer. “From the ill-fated People’s Temple to the idealistic young volunteers of Freedom Summer, from the Native American uprising at Wounded Knee to the Black Panther movement, he brings these incendiary, game-changing movements to vivid life in a way that combines clear-eyed analysis with riveting, edge-of-your-seat storytelling.”

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