Background Information

ABOUT THE DIRECTOR

A.K. SANDHU

A.K. Sandhu is a rising filmmaker, recovering corporate employee, and a mediocre yogi. She is the founder of Re–Present Partners, a womxn and BIPOC owned, Oakland-based production company that embraces the expansion of how underrepresented communities are depicted in media. Sandhu tells stories that tackle the complexities of our perceived differences and inspire deeper understandings about human connections. Inspired by her father’s photographs of their family, she exited a career in finance to pursue her love for visual storytelling. Sandhu employs documentary filmmaking and photography to revive absent narratives that have been buried or suppressed. Her work crosses into experimental docu-hybrid modes of storytelling, probing themes such as race, class, spirituality, and crosscultural solidarity. Sandhu has been awarded the 2021 Emerging Artist Award in the State of California. She is currently a fellow in DOC NYC/VC’s 2021-2022 Storytelling Incubator, a global mentorship initiative, and was selected as part of the inaugural cohort for Represent Media’s Re-Take Oakland 2019–2021 film fellowship for emerging BIPOC filmmakers.

Photo by: Tony Sehgal

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

HUEY P. NEWTON

Huey Percy Newton was born in Monroe, Louisiana. His parents moved to Oakland, California during Newton’s childhood. He graduated from high school without having acquired literacy, but he later taught himself to read. He attended a variety of schools including Merritt College before eventually earning a Bachelor’s degree and a Ph.D. from the University of California at Santa Cruz. During his tenure at Merritt College, Newton joined the Afro-American Association and helped get the first African American History course adopted into the college’s curriculum. Soon after, in October 1966, he and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party for Self Defense (BPP). In 1970, Newton was tried for a variety of violent offenses such as assault and multiple murders. These charges resulted in him fleeing to Havana, Cuba to escape prosecution for three years. Upon his return, he stood trials for one more assault and murder and was acquitted of both charges. Compounding these challenges was the split that developed between Newton and Eldridge Cleaver in early 1971 over the primary function of the Party. Newton wanted the party to focus on serving African American communities while Cleaver thought the focus should be on building relationships with international revolutionary movements. This rift resulted in violence between the factions and the deaths of several BPP members. In 1989, Newton was fatally shot in West Oakland by a member of the Black Guerilla Family and drug dealer named Tyrone Robinson. Relations between the Black Panther Party and the Black Guerilla Family had been strained for nearly twenty years prior to this incident. The murder occurred after Newton left a drug den in a neighborhood where Newton had once organized social programs. Newton’s last words were, “You can kill my body, and you can take my life but you can never kill my soul. My soul will live forever!” Robinson then shot Newton twice in the face. Newton is buried at Evergreen Cemetery in Oakland. Robinson was convicted of murder in 1991 and was sentenced to 32 years to life in prison.

Text Source: The National Archives, “Huey P. Newton (February 17, 1942- August 22, 1989)” (https://www.archives.gov/research/ african-americans/individuals/huey-newton)

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY

The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (BPP) was founded in October 1966 in Oakland, California by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, who met at Merritt College in Oakland. It was a revolutionary organization with an ideology of Black nationalism, socialism, and armed self-defense, particularly against police brutality. It was part of the Black Power movement, which broke from the integrationist goals and nonviolent protest tactics of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The BPP name was inspired by the use of the black panther as a symbol that had recently been used by the Lowndes County Freedom Organization, an independent Black political party in Alabama.

The BPP’s philosophy was influenced by the speeches of Malcolm X of the Nation of Islam, the teachings of Chairman Mao Tse-Tung of the Communist Party of China, and the anti-colonialist book The Wretched of the Earth (Les Damnés de la Terre, 1961) by the Martiniquan psychiatrist Frantz Fanon. The BPP’s practice of armed self-defense was influenced by African American activist BPP co-founders Bobby Seale (left) and Huey P. Robert Williams, who advocated this practice against anti-black Newton (right). aggression by the Ku Klux Klan in his book Negroes with Guns (1962). Newton and Seale canvassed their community asking residents about issues of concern. They compiled the responses and created the Ten Point Platform and Program that served as the foundation of the Black Panther Party. The ten points are: 1. We want freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our Black Community. 2. We want full employment for our people. 3. We want an end to the robbery by the Capitalists of our Black Community. 4. We want decent housing, fit for shelter of human beings. 5. We want education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American society. We want education that teaches us our true history and our role in the present day society. 6. We want all Black men to be exempt from military service. 7. We want an immediate end to POLICE BRUTALITY and MURDER of Black people. 8. We want freedom for all Black men held in federal, state, county and city prisons and jails. 9. We want all Black people when brought to trial to be tried in court by a jury of their peer group or people from their Black Communities, as defined by the Constitution of the United States. 10. We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace. Because of its practice of armed self-defense against police, as well as its Communistic and revolutionary elements, the BPP was frequently targeted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s COINTELPRO program as well as by state and local law enforcement groups. However, despite its militant stance, the BPP also provided free breakfast for school children, sickle cell anemia screening, legal aid, and adult education.

Image Source: Libary of Congress, “Political prisoners of USA fascism” (https://www.loc.gov/item/2017646802/) Text Source: The National Archives, “The Black Panther Party”(https://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/individuals/ huey-newton) For Love and Legacy Curriculum Guide | CAFILM Education 4