The Black Panthers: Photographs by Stephen Shames (Aperture, 2007). The Black Panthers is a long awaited collection of the stunning black-and-white photographs by Stephen Shames: photos of the Party at the height of its influence and importance. Some readers might wonder why we need another book about the Black Panthers in 2007. Indeed, there are several excellent studies of the Panthers already published. I recommend two books in particular, The Black Panther Party (Reconsidered) (Black Classics, 1998), edited by Charles E. Jones, and Liberation, Imagination, and the Black Panther Party (Routledge, 2001), edited by Kathleen Cleaver and George Katsiaficas. These help restore truth and sanity to the historical analysis of the Party. The Black Panthers Speak, (Da Capo, 2002), edited by Philip S. Foner, is an excellent collection of essays by those who actually lived and worked within the Party, but none of these books is as moving as this new volume of photography. Stephen Shames captures the faces of brave young men and women at critical historical moments. The young Panthers come to life, in too many cases back to life, upon the page. These beautiful black revolutionaries look to the future with determination and passion. Better than thousands upon thousands of words, these extraordinary photographs take us back to the heart of their fight for freedom. We are there with them, discovering their grace, their humor, their faith in the truth of the revolutionary cause. Forty years on, ground has been gained. Unfortunately, much, if not most, of what the Panthers struggled toward, has yet to be achieved. The Panthers dignity, commitment and love, often wrongly defined as hate, should give hope to the activists of today and the revolutionaries of tomorrow.

There are plenty of photographs of the young Panthers, male and female, in their familiar berets and black leather, looking tough and stylish, with pseudo-military poses, no doubt scaring the shit out of Nixon’s frightened silent majority of white Amerikkka. Where this book excels is when it takes us into not so familiar terrain. Outside a liquor store boycott, surrounded by sign-carrying ordinary folks are three members of the Black Panther band, the Lumpen. Heretofore, I have never heard of this group. Certainly I have never heard their music, but looking at them caught in black and white, just two guys with congas and a third with no instrument but his moves, and I know they had to be great. And I love the name! Photos of the Panther’s free food and clothing stores show how the Party was about much more than standing up to the man, quoting from law books and flashing big guns. No words could ever capture the image of the children of party members at attention next to their desks at a Panthers elementary school classroom. These kids appear somehow simultaneously remarkable and just plain ordinary children.

We are also given a glimpse into the post-prison lifestyle of the Panther’s cult-of-personality leader, Huey P. Newton, doing an interview before a television camera crew in his luxurious penthouse apartment with a gray panorama city skyline backdrop. Contrast this nervous looking celebrity and his faux-Tonight Show set-piece with the photo of a grinning, proud young teen showing off his new duds at the Panther free clothing store, an enormous pile of earth in the background. The demise of the Panthers starts to make more sense. There is no doubt that the insidious government program COINTELPRO was what murdered the Black Panther Party. Likewise the FBI’s slow process of infiltration and corruption led to many if not most of the organizational flaws, but there seems to have been a sickness within the Party which may or may not have existed without Hoover’s cruel assistance.

In addition to Stephen Shames' brilliant photography, this new book includes essays by Black Panther co-founder, Bobby Seale and historian Charles E. Jones. The book also includes the original October 1966 Black Panther Party Platform and Program, an African-Americans Declaration of Independence of a sort. The ten points of this declaration show how far African-American people have to go to achieve the goals of the Black Panther Party and honor the lives and deaths of these fierce and compassionate activists. This new book helps puts the struggle toward freedom that defined the Black Panther Party into the here and now.