85
BLACK
PANTHERS,
TAKE TWO
MORE THAN A QUARTER-
CENTURY after the Black
Panthers were portrayed in
Forrest Gump as gun-toting
ideologues, a new film, Judas
and the Black Messiah, seeks
to delve into their humanity
and community-based
activism. Daniel Kaluuya, at
lectern, says researching the
role of Fred Hampton for the
film “taught me about me.”Poverty Law Center gave D’s and F’s
to the majority of states’ approaches
to teaching the civil rights movement,
with five states neglecting the subject
altogether. Black history lessons often
focus on slavery and even then can
downplay the atrocity of the slave trade:
five years ago, a ninth-grade geography
textbook made headlines for describing
enslaved Africans as “workers.” Figures
like Ida B. Wells and James Baldwin
are chronically undertaught. Some edi-
tions of the textbook The American Pag-
eant, which has been used for decadesin AP History classes, reduced the
Black Panthers to two sentences: “With
frightening frequency, violence or the
threat of violence raised its head in the
black community. The Black Panther
party openly brandished weapons in the
streets of Oakland, California.”
Hollywood, with its primacy in the
American imagination, has played a
significant role in upholding a certain
vision of American history; indeed,
that impulse is baked into its origins.
The first American blockbuster, D.W.
MOVIE STILLS: COURTESY WARNER BROS. PICTURES (3); GLEN WILSON (2); ARCHIVAL IMAGES: AP (4); GETTY IMAGES (8) Griffith’s 1915 The Birth of a Nation,
PHOTOGRAPHS BY NAKEYA BROWN FOR TIME