Film Review — “The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution”

[Almost all bourgeois media depictions of the Black Panthers have been highly sensationalized, racist, and scarified, designed for bewildered viewers to dismiss.  Some have had a more sympathetic, even empathetic, edge, though usually told in terms that say, “that’s in the past, it won’t happen again.”  But this review connects this new film with its relevance  today in a society riveted and outraged by  the everyday, country-wide, routine police killings of blacks. — Frontlines ed.]

Wickham: The Black Panthers redux

by DeWayne Wickham, USA Today, February 17, 2015

New documentary tells another story of revolutionary group than the one we’ve been told.

NEW YORK — The Black Panther Party is back.

Not the one-dimensional, gun-toting, leather-jacket-wearing caricature that dominated news coverage of the black revolutionary organization during its heyday in the 1960s.

And I’m not talking about the Black Panther Party that was both the target and creation of COINTELPRO, the secret FBI counter-intelligence operation that sought to “neutralize” the Panthers by virtually any means necessary.

SF Bayview Community Activist repeatedly arrested for protesting police abuse

DeBray Carpenter aka Fly Benzo, community activist and hip-hop artist, is again facing trumped-up charges for his outspoken opposition to the SFPD’s harassment, stalking, framing and brutality against the targeted Black community in the San Francisco’s Bayview District.  This time, he was assaulted by police for videotaping their military occupation tactics, and then they threw the book of trumped-up lies at him.  His next hearing will be in the San Francisco Hall of Injustice on Wednesday, November 16.

It’s Really Real TV: FLY Benzo – “War On Terror” // #BlackPOWER #DropTheCHARGES

FLY Benzo’s “War On Terror” Music Video… Filmed, Directed and Edited by Phil Jackson.. Black Power… United We Stand… Divided We Fall… STOP THE VIOLENCE.. START THE HEALIN’!!

Cisco Torres is free of all charges in the SF8 case

Cisco Torres visits Kiilu Nyasha for an interview during one of his many trips to San Francisco from his home in New York City to fight the bogus charges lodged against him and seven other former Black Panthers. He was the last of the San Francisco 8 whose case was still being litigated. What joy that the cloud is finally lifted! – Photo: Hans Bennett

August 19, 2011

by Claude Marks

Judge Philip Moscone signed and filed an order dismissing charges against Francisco Torres late Thursday, Aug. 18. Cisco was the last former Black Panther member facing charges in this 1971 case about the killing of a San Francisco police sergeant.

“It took over four and a half years to win this case!” said Cisco Torres.

In 1973 several of the men were brutally tortured by police in Louisiana to elicit false confessions. The case was dismissed in the 1970s, but charges were filed again in January of 2007 against eight former Black Panthers.

They all resisted this renewed repression. Charges against Ray Boudreaux, Richard Brown, Hank Jones, Richard O’Neal and Harold Taylor were previously dismissed for insufficient evidence. Herman Bell and Jalil Muntaqim pled to greatly reduced charges, receiving time served and probation.

Cisco Torres, speaking for himself and on behalf of the San Francisco 8, was elated, giving “our thanks to all of our supporters for battling with us for so long. Our victory is shared!”