This video interviews Stanley Nelson, the director of “The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution” documentary. Nelson’s documentary discusses the origins of the Panthers, the US politics surrounding the party, and the culture in the 1960s. The documentary starts in the 1960s, discusses the height of the Black Panther Party, and ends in 1973. Nelson felt that the public had a misconstrued view of the Panthers. He felt that the party was “demonized and mythologized”. Hence, people couldn’t see who the Panthers truly were and their intentions. The documentary informs the audience of the party without bias to show that the Panthers weren’t as awful as the government/media portrays them. During the interview, the FBI and Hoover’s involvement in destroying the Panthers were mentioned. There were memos written by Hoover to FBI agents to destroy the Panthers. It shows how the FBI feel threatened by the Black Panthers. At the end, the relevance of the documentary was questioned. Nelson mentioned how not much has changed in society. The education, healthcare system, and police system has not improved, which makes the film relevant. Even though this video was created 7 years ago, the points made in the interview still resonate today. There has not been much change to improve institutions. Police brutality is still an issue that people face and not much reform has been enacted. The interview highlights how even in the 21st century African American still face these same issues because of the government’s lack of urgency. It shows how important movements, like the Black Panther Party, should be remembered and represented correctly to take a step in the right direction.
4 thoughts on “Why Revisiting the Black Panther Revolution Resonates Today?”
Comments are closed.
I really think that this was an interwsting video to watch and liked your discussion about it. I remember in the ted talk in class how 70 percent of the information on the black panther was made by the FBI, and how biased all this info was. The FBI tried to turn people against them and villianized them. But they were not villains, they were really heroes and they need to be remembered as heroes. I also agree that its important to still revisit the panthers today, and continue to learn about them in an unbiased way.
I love your in-depth review of the documentary, as it sounds truly interesting! I like that this documentary emphasizes the Panthers as they truly were instead of villainizing them. Documentaries such as this one are very important as they show today’s generation the original mission of the Panthers, which is extremely hard to find today as our information can be distorted by numerous factors.
I would definitely agree that the Black Panther Party is often viewed in a negative light and usually looked at as almost a militant group. However the reality of it is that the party really wanted to protect people that were oppressed and there should be nothing wrong with that
I watched a documentary about the truth of the Black Panther Party, it highlighted how the group was only created for self-defense of the African Americans. I don’t understand why the FBI would feel threatened by this party since its only purpose was to protect African Americans. I think the public misunderstood the intentions of the group because the black panther party went against the police force and the government.