Complacent liberals love to make snorting noises when supporters of the NRA argue that the Second Amendment of the US Constitution is there to (among other mad things) help citizens protect themselves from state oppression. Well, they will find more than a few assumptions rattled in the opening sequences of this worthy, stout documentary.
Formed in Oakland nearly 50 years ago, the Black Panther Party sought first to protect local African-Americans from police brutality. They did this by exercising their “right to bear arms” on the streets of the city and – in one astonishing sequence – within the California State Legislature. Governor Ronald Reagan (no less) found himself forced to place virtual fences round the gun nuts’ founding text.
“When I heard about Sacramento, I was, like, damn, these brothers are bad,” a new recruit notes. “They’re here up in Sacramento, in the capitol? Packing?”
There are other surprises to be found in the film, but this is, for the most part, a disappointingly thin treatment of a fascinating subject. Working without a voiceover, employing promiscuous talking heads, director Stanley Nelson walks us through the story in efficient, if unexciting, fashion.
Still upright panthers describe the arrival of such controversial leaders as Huey Newton and Eldridge Cleaver. We are asked (and almost certainly comply with the request) to admire the sheer style of the party – distressed leather jackets, brash afros, suave sunglasses – while gut-throbbing funk underscores the action.
Some may worry that the director is too much on the movement’s side. Veteran police officers do appear, but, surrounded by so much righteous anger, they can’t help but seem like cops in a James Ellroy novel (complete with the square buzz-cuts). Hysterical contemporaneous news footage does, however, remind us that the Panthers are due some compensatory payback from the media.
Inevitably, like all such movements (not least those on this island), the Black Panther Party succumbed to infiltration and factionalism. Happily, the film confirms that its legacy is robust. Vanguard of the Revolution is at its strongest when it entertains female voices: Elaine Brown, Kathleen Cleaver, Ericka Huggins. Their fire is vigorously undimmed.
