black panther party - book - 2007 - Framing the Black Panthers: The Spectacular Rise of a Black Power Icon

Jane Rhodes
Framing the Black Panthers: The Spectacular Rise of A Black Power Icon
The New Press
2007
404 pages


Jane Rhodes is, as of the time of this writing, the presiding Dean of for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, Professor, and Department Chair at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnessota.  Much of her work focuses on black activism and the media representation of people of colour.  Judging from a quick survey of her publication titles, she often combines these two interests, which is the case with Framing the Black Panthers.  In this text, Rhodes charts a history of the Black Panther Party as it appeared in media of all kinds.

Rhodes begins her text with an analysis of the 1995 film Panther, directed by Mario Van Peebles.  Panther was a film by a black director that represented the Panthers positively as fighters for black freedom. In some sense Van Peeble's film is the cinematic culmination of a legacy of the Panther as a romantic revolutionary figure for the post-modern world of media and image driven politics.  After a lengthy analysis of Van Peebles’ film (and some other films that represent a black power ethos from the same period, including Spike Lee’s Malcolm X, and a brief mention is given to Robert Zemeckis’ Forrest Gump).  Following her study of Van Peeble’s cinematic portrayal of the radical organization,  Rhodes proceeds to a comprehensive historical analysis of media and the Black Panther Party.

Framing the Black Panthers can be read as a microcosm of how radical politics appeared in the media during the 1960s.  At the first appearance of the Black Panthers in 1967, newspapers reacted immediately to the party with an oppositional, hostile tone. The BPP was founded in Oakland CA, where the two nearest major newspapers, The Oakland Tribune and the San Francisco Examiner, both immediately began attacking the Panthers in print following the emergence of the radical group.  These two publications consistently representing them as militant thugs without any coherent political platform perpetually on the edge of violence.  Incidentally, in the 1989 book Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts about the Sixties by former New Left leader, David Horowitz’s, the Panthers are remembered with the same venom that they were characterized with by their contemporary mainstream press. During the late 60s, however, the Panthers were discussed positively from a flourishing underground press and also began their own party newspaper (which is archived online here). The offices of the BPP became a target for police repression, as media consistently represented party as a paramilitary mob.  Through the dissemination of their own newspaper however, the Panthers entrenched themselves into the communities which they sought to defend (and elevate).  Furthermore, the popularity of their newspaper within poor black communities meant that the Panthers political program was read and understood by the people the BPP was reaching out to.

Rhodes investigates how the Panthers became accomplished media figures over the course of their careers in radical politics.  One particular photograph, a representation of Black Panthers co-founder Huey Newton enthroned in a large wicker chair with a Kalashnikov rifle in one hand and a spear in the other, became one of the iconic images of the late 1960s.  

The image was originally published in Ramparts magazine, but it developed a life of its own and was frequently used in the Panther’s own propaganda.  Rhodes described the Panther’s as an organization that was constantly concerned with the image it presented, with combating negative or racist portrayals, and with finding the widest possible audience for their messages.

Rhodes presents the Panthers as a force in radical politics that was always operating on two seemingly contraposed fronts: grassroots community organizing and the widespread dissemination of their ideas via media.  One of the most interesting chapters in Rhodes book is Servants of the People: The Black Panthers as National and Global Icons, which described how the Black Panther Party influenced subaltern nationalist groups, and Marxist revolutionary factions around the world.  Their ideas were influential, but so was their quasi-military all-black fashion and their mix of Marxist jargon and street talk.  The BPP were so influential because they were so successful in entering the realm of media, as Rhodes points out.

A final short note about Rhodes book.  A survey of her bibliography (which is divided into types of materials) shows a large number of books about the Black Panthers published in the decade before her own book's time of publication.  Rhode's book is relevant as the Panthers have entered another phase of media portrayals - representation in academic literature.