The Black Panther Party was formed in Oakland in 1966 to monitor and challenge police brutality against black people.
With the recent murder of George Floyd at the hands of four police officers amidst continued brutality against the black community, Stanley Nelson’s 2015 documentary The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution is recommended viewing for anyone looking to understand the organisation’s complex history and its relationship with black culture.
“It is essential to me as a filmmaker to try and give the viewer a sense of what it has meant to be black in America and consider this within our contemporary context,” Nelson says. “The legacy of the Black Panther Party had a lasting impact on the way black people think and see ourselves, and it is important that we look at and understand that. As a great lover of music, I wanted to capture this sentiment in the music we used to give audiences a sense of the time and the undercurrents of change and revolution.”
The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution is available to stream on Amazon Prime, and buy or rent digitally from Amazon or iTunes.
A statement from FACT
We stand in solidarity with protestors fighting across the globe for justice for the murder of George Floyd and protesting against continued systemic racism and police brutality, who are showing extreme bravery and strength in the face of increasingly violent abuse by police officers.
We are harrowed and horrified by the murder of George Floyd, as well as the murders of Breonna Taylor, David McAtee, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery and many others, just in recent memory. We recognise that it is our responsibility to fight against racism and violence of all forms towards black people, in the US and globally, and to commit to learning and practising anti-racism.
We acknowledge that the vast majority of the music and art that we cover comes from black culture and firmly believe that it is our essential responsibility to support the communities without which our publication would not exist. Black Lives Matter.
You can support George Floyd’s family by donating to the Official George Floyd Memorial Fund, as well as those protesting his murder and those communities worst affected by police violence by donating to Black Lives Matter, Black Visions Collective, Reclaim The Block, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Color of Change and the Northstar Health Collective. You can also split your donation between more than 70 community bail funds, including the Minnesota Freedom Fund, the LGBTQ Freedom Fund and the Bail Project, here.
You can check here for a longer list of resistance funds to donate to, and here for a list of resources to support George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement. You can also find a list of over 1,000 Black artists and Black-owned labels to show your support here.
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