Black Panthers: 1968.by Ruth-Marion Baruch Ruth-Marion Baruch is a photographer most famous for her pictures of the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1960s. These include series on the Black Panther Party and the hippies of Haight-Ashbury. and Pirkle Jones Pirkle Jones was born in Shreveport, Louisiana on January 2,1914. His first experience with photgraphy was when he purchased a Kodak Brownie at the age of seventeen. In the 30's his photographs were featured in pictorialist salons and publications. Greybull Press, October 2002, $50.00, ISBN ISBN abbr. International Standard Book Number ISBN International Standard Book Number ISBN n abbr (= International Standard Book Number) → ISBN m 0-967-23669-X His name was George. And I can't, for the life of me, think of his last name. But I do remember seeing him occasionally in my classroom back in 1967 at Wayne State University Wayne State University, at Detroit, Mich.; state supported; coeducational; established 1956 as a successor to Wayne Univ. (formed 1934 by a merger of five city colleges). in Detroit and at various political rallies. He was unforgettable because he was always waving a book in my face by Mao, Che Guevara, Malcolm X Malcolm X, 1925–65, militant black leader in the United States, also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, b. Malcolm Little in Omaha, Neb. He was introduced to the Black Muslims while serving a prison term and became a Muslim minister upon his release in 1952. , Kwame Nkrumah and countless other revolutionaries. Recently, as I was flipping through Ruth-Marion Baruch and Pirkle Jones' book Black Panthers: 1968, I saw a photograph of George. Apparently when he left Detroit he went to Oakland, California, and began to live the life he had read about. George's photo is among the most revealing of the close-ups of the Panthers and their supporters during that momentous year. You can almost see the camera reflected in his pupils. His lips are full with a hint of a smile, his gaze intense, his visage emboldened em·bold·en tr.v. em·bold·ened, em·bold·en·ing, em·bold·ens To foster boldness or courage in; encourage. See Synonyms at encourage. Adj. 1. by the tilt of his beret covering his Afro. There's another photo of him elsewhere in the book where he is seen grasping what appears to be a sword, and he is surrounded by a knot of other determined looking Panthers. Most of the photographs (black and white) in the book were taken during the summer of 1968. If the turbulent '60s had a signature year, this was it, marked by the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy. The Black Panther Party Black Panther Party (for Self-Defense) U.S. African American revolutionary party founded in 1966 by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale (b. 1936) in Oakland, Calif. Its original purpose was to protect African Americans from acts of police brutality. , the brainchild of Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, was about two years old and was the largest target of the FBI's hit list. Baruch and Jones, a husband and wife team whose photos are as seamlessly blended as their companionship, were granted permission to capture the Panthers in various settings during the year, but mainly at Free Huey rallies at Oakland's DeFremery Park, later to be named Bobby Hutton Memorial Park, in honor of the Panther's first martyr. Baruch wrote in 1969 that the idea to photograph the Panthers came from a museum director in San Francisco, but the real inspiration, she added, may have come about "because I am Jewish and have experienced much prejudiced myself." Moreover, her husband came from a southern family, and his father used to tell him all about the barbarity of lynchings. The photos, a mixture of known and unknown Panthers, are captioned at the end of the book. You don't have to be a survivor of the volatile '60s to be moved by the humanity of the Panthers, to be absorbed by their passionate defiance. "I remember the fleeting events given a timeless intimacy in these images," writes Kathleen Cleaver in the introduction and whose photos embellish the book's beauty. In 1995, in conjunction with a movie about the Panthers, a pictorial book depicting the making of the film was released, but that was Hollywood. Baruch and Jones' collection is the real deal. --Herb Boyd is a frequent reviewer and his reviews of books by John Oliver Killens John Oliver Killens (January 14, 1916-October 27, 1987), a black American fiction writer, was born in Macon, Georgia, to Charles Myles, Sr., and Willie Lee Killens. His father Charles encouraged him to read Langston Hughes's writings and his mother Willie Lee, president of Dunbar and Rosa Guy appeared in the November-December issue of BIBR BIBR Bay Islands Beach Resort (Roatan, Honduras) BIBR Backward Indicator Bit Received . |
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