Pirkle Jones

In 1968, FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover vilified the Black Panthers as "the greatest threat to the internal security of the United States." That same year photographers Pirkle Jones and wife, Ruth-Marion Baruch, documented the Black Panthers for an exhibition at the De Young Museum in San Francisco. Their hope was to expose the public to the Panthers as they saw them--symbols of pride and strength--rather than the way they were being portrayed in the media. Jones and Baruch were given unprecedented access to the inner circle of the Black Panther Party. At intimate meetings, family gatherings and public demonstrations, we witness, through these incredibly moving photographs, a unique crusade for dignity and self-definition. Black Panthers is a historic documentation of this fascinating movement, so challenging and controversial to our culture that it was virtually erased from established texts and American history books.