Black Panthers

In 1967, Agnès Varda was living in California when one of the Black Panthers founders, Huey P. Newton, was arrested during a traffic stop for killing a police officer—a clear case of racial injustice, according to the Panthers. In the summer of 1968, Varda took her 16mm camera to a “Free Huey” demonstration in Oakland. She filmed the concert organized in support of the imprisoned leader, which was interspersed with speeches by Bobby Seale, H. Rap Brown, and Stokely Carmichael.

The atmosphere is festive, with children dancing and people lying in the grass, often holding copies of the Marxist-Leninist “Little Red Book.” But this is neither a picnic nor a party, Varda says in the voice-over. A Panther makes a passionate plea for employment, decent housing and education, an end to police brutality, and the release of black prisoners.

Black Panthers was scheduled to air on French television in late 1968 but was canceled at the last minute—according to Varda, because censors feared the film would “reawaken the students’ anger.”