"That stoplight was a factual situation, which the movie treats with just a bit of creative license," attests David Hilliard, 52, who joined the Panthers in '66 and now serves as executive director of the Oakland-based Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation. "We're very proud of what Mario and his father have done. Their film shows the embryonic stages of our organization — it shows the police patrols, the breakfast programs, a lot of positive symbolism. It's not a thorough accounting of Panther history, but no one can do that in a two-hour film."

To the film's director, whether Panther provokes partisans from the '60s is far less important than how the movie speaks to kids in the '90s. "It's real interesting to see it with an audience," Van Peebles says. "They go in there rooting with all this militancy. But when the movie says if black people have guns, we'd probably shoot each other, they get real quiet. You can hear a pin drop. The guns, which were once the symbols of defiance, in the hands of today's kids have had devastating effects."

(Additional reporting by Frank Swertlow)

Originally posted May 12, 1995 Published in issue #274 May 12, 1995 Order article reprints
Page 1 2
You Might Also Like

Add your comment

The rules: Keep it clean, and stay on the subject or we might delete your comment. If you see inappropriate language, e-mail us. An asterisk * indicates a required field.

500 characters remaining