Reviews
Asking what motivated the women redefining service provision and community in the Black Panther Party, of which she was a key member, activist Ericka Huggins provides readers with a deceptively concise answer: love. This collection... honors their legacy by weaving Huggins's reflections on her fellow "comrade sisters" together with photographer Stephen Shames's black-and-white shots of the Black Panther Party's activities. "However, the book doesn't only represent women's influence in domestic or caregiving roles," Staff Writer Taylor Michael reports. "Black women can be seen alongside men in courtrooms, at podiums, and in positions of power." From food giveaways to protests to a young girl mastering addition in a math workshop, intimate moments between community members are paired with Huggins's words to highlight the crucial work of the women who built and sustained the movement., The book is a powerful record of an intense period of grassroots activism and political engagement, a counter-narrative to the one propagated by J Edgar Hoover, the head of the FBI, who called the Panthers "the greatest threat to the internal security of the country".... a dynamic visual and oral testament to the crucial role played by women in a revolutionary group whose figureheads, with a few exceptions, were men....Alongside Shames's powerful images of a moment of black activism that echoes through the decades to this day, [the women's] stories evoke a time in which young black women experienced life-changing personal empowerment and collective possibility.", Because of the trust that Shames [the photographer] established, he was able to make intimate photographs that are really quite different than a lot of media coverage of the Panthers. In his new book...Shames takes us away from a dominant view of the Black Panthers by focusing on the women, not the men, who were involved at that time....Interestingly enough...some six out of 10 people in the Black Panthers were women. This is what Shames's new book is all about. It peels back the curtain on their lives and contributions to the movement.While the women of the Black Panther Party were definitely working alongside their male counterparts agitating and protesting, they also were instrumental in..."building communities and enacting social justice, providing food, housing, education, health care, and more"....This is precisely what Shames's photos show. "In Sight,", From schools to free food and health care, the group's majority female membership carried out life-sustaining, grass-roots programs that went far beyond politics....This book rewrites the record through images and testimonials of the women who -- as teachers, students, writers, musicians, medics, mothers, daughters, aunties, worshipers, factory laborers and so much more -- grew a movement by taking the well-being of the community into their own hands., This book rewrites the record through images and testimonials of the women who -- as teachers, students, writers, musicians, medics, mothers, daughters, aunties, worshipers, factory laborers and so much more -- grew a movement by taking the well-being of the community into their own hands.
