 Stanley Nelson Jr. is an American film director whose work includes Freedom Riders, Jonestown, The Life and Death of People's Temple, The Murder of Emmett Till, A Place of Our Own, Sweet Honey in the Rock, Raise Your Voice, and Wounded Knee, his latest film, which is playing at the NYC Dock Festival in early November. His latest film, the documentary, entitled The Black Panthers, Vanguards of the Revolution, combines archival footage and interviews with surviving panthers and FBI agents to tell the story of the revolutionary Black organization. It is Stanley Nelson's eighth film to premiere at Sundance. Welcome to the show, Stanley Nelson Jr. Thank you so much. It's so great to be on the show. The Black Panthers, what year were they founded? The Black Panthers were founded in Oakland, California in 1966. And who was the founding voice, the founding member? Well, the panthers were founded by two African American college students at that point, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. They were founded in Oakland as a response to police brutality? Yeah, yeah. I mean, the Oakland police at that point were notorious. They were notoriously brutal, notoriously racist. And Huey Newton and Bobby Seale said, you know, we've got to do something about it. They found that there was a law in California that I think most people want to wear out that you could carry a loaded weapon as long as you carry it in the open. So what they would do was with maybe four or five other people at that point, which was a total membership of the Black Panther Party, they would follow the police and do what they call police in the police. So if the police jumped out at, let's say, a traffic stop or something like that, the panthers would jump out behind the police with their guns, loaded weapons, and stand there at a safe distance away. So they kind of weren't interfering with the police. And then do what they call police, the police, and try to make sure that the police were not engaging in something that the panthers called, you know, brutal actions. Eventually, a police officer died in a shootout and Huey Newton went to jail, hence the free Huey banners that went up all over America. We'll get to that in a second. How successful were the Black Panthers at policing the police? Well, I think that, you know, I think that you have to understand that I think what the panthers are trying to do is make a statement, you know, and they think that that's what, and they did that. I think they're very successful in making that statement. Of course, you know, you have five or six guys and you can't, you know, police, all the police, you're not, you know, any real proportion of traffic stops or police stops. But, you know, you call attention to yourselves. You're saying, you know, look, you know, we got the police have to stop being brutal or we're gonna, we're gonna stop them ourselves. But did they, did they, did they succeed in stopping any police brutality? I don't think they, no, I don't think they, they stopped police brutality. That's pretty obvious with what's going on today. So, so, you know, they, they didn't do that. But I think they did become, you know, so widely known that here we are 50 years later and we're talking about the Black Panthers. I think also what you have to take into account is very quickly the California State Legislature moved to make it illegal to carry guns in the open. Yeah, I want to get to that in a sec, in a second, if you don't mind. When I asked you if the Black Panthers were successful in stopping police brutality, what I meant was, were there any incidents where they were able to stop one act of police brutality? Well, I think that there were no acts of police brutality while they were standing there with their guns loaded guns drawn. So who knows what would have happened if they weren't there. So, you know, I mean, that's just conjecture. But, but I think the police would tend to be less brutal. And maybe that was because they were so concerned with this specter of, of African American standing there with loaded weapons while they went about their business. What do you think the police fear most, a loaded weapon or a loaded cell phone? I think they say they, I think they fear a loaded weapon a lot more than they fear a loaded cell phone. I think we've seen, we've seen over and over again that that they're really not scared of a loaded cell phone because they keep doing, you know, you know, these, these insane, insanely criminal things while people are filming them. So it doesn't seem like they're, they're, they're, they're that scared. They're so used to acting with impunity that I don't think at this point cell phones are very scared of that much. Hopefully they will. Did they ever use one of their weapons on the police? What happened with Huey Newton? Why did he end up going to put? Yeah, no, one of the things that's so amazing about that is that the violence never did erupt from the policing of the police. Now, Huey Newton got into a shootout with with a couple of cops because he was stopped late, very late at night one night. Nobody kind of knows what, what really happened and why it happened. But the cop who stopped him was kind of notorious in the black community for his racism and his police brutality. They actually had a cartoon in one of the first pants or papers with that same cop included and this was before the shootout with Huey. The cop who was a notorious racist, was he the one who ended up dead? Yeah, so there were, there are two pants, there are two cops. One of the cops ended up dead. Another cop was shot. Huey was, was, was shot. He wounded very, very badly. He was thought at first that he was going to die. And that's, and he was then put on trial, was in jail for over two years and put on trial for murder. And that's kind of where the free Huey movement started. He was exonerated because of procedural errors, as I understand it, right? Yeah. I mean, he was exonerated. That's, that's put it that way. And for whatever reason, they refused it to try it again. It wasn't tried again. And after just been a couple of years in jail and this huge free Huey movement that erupts all over the country, Huey was freed. Huey was freed. And by then were the black panthers still extant? When Huey was freed, yeah, the black panthers were, were, were, were larger than, than ever. I think that one of the things that, that, that changed for the panthers was the free Huey movement. So, you know, Huey, Huey is in jail in this movement. Yeah, everybody, you know, is chanting free Huey. There's free Huey marches all over the place. Everybody has free Huey buttons. There's, there's free Huey painted on the side of buildings and posters put up. You know, there's an incredible movement of the middle late 60s. I think even, it was so strong that people didn't even exactly know a lot of times who Huey was. You know, what they knew they would say that we had to free Huey. Right. And Marlon Brando, I believe, came to his support, right? Yeah. There were, there were, there were many, many, many famous people who came to were part of the panther, the free Huey movement. I think that's one of the things that, that, that we try to do in the film is to, is to say and show that the panthers, the black panthers weren't this kind of, this kind of, you know, black militant island by, by themselves, but they were, you know, part of all these other movements that were going on at the time. So for a long time, the black panthers were, you know, they're on TV every night. You know, every night you turn on the TV and there they were, you know, they were, you know, on all the talk shows, you know, they, you know, you see the rallies in the film and you see that the audiences are 95% white in some of this, in some of the rallies. So, you know, it is really important that we understand that back then the panthers were much more part of these kind of movements that were going on at the time. Yeah. And when you say these kind of movements, what I especially appreciate in your documentary, The Black Panther's Vanguard of the Revolution, is you put it in the context of the end of imperialism, anti-colonization movements in Africa that were going on around the world. Yeah, I mean, there was a real sense that we're in the middle of this kind of world revolution. You know, you know, China had not been, you know, had had had their, you know, revolution not that long ago. Cuba certainly was, was right, was right there. You know, all these African countries had suddenly, you know, become free. So there was this whole kind of revolutionary fervor that was existing, you know, kind of all over the world. And the panthers were part of that. There was a real feeling, I think, that there was, you know, that we might be in the middle of a revolution right now, you know, not only, you know, in Africa and in other places, but, you know, all over the world and the United States was part of that. One of the things we wanted to try to do in the film was to kind of at least convey that idea of this revolutionary time. Was Huey Newton, was Huey Newton the intellectual backbone or the spiritual backbone of the Black Panthers? I think Huey Newton was probably more the intellectual backbone, but you know, I think the free Huey movement might have been in some ways a spiritual backbone. But, you know, the panthers were really fortunate that in some ways really fortunate to have this kind of, you know, incredibly magnetic, you know, cast of characters, you know. There was Huey, you know, Huey Newton was but beautiful. I mean, he wasn't even half of his beautiful, he was like a movie star, you know. Right. Now, Bobby Seale. And Bobby Seale, Bobby Seale had been an entertainer and everybody loved Bobby. Bobby Seale was a great speaker. He's also an entertainer. He's funny, you know, and then the panthers are joined by Elders Cleaver, who at that time, when Elders Cleaver joined the Panthers, his book, So on Ice, is number one on the, well, not number one, but it's on the top 10 in the New York Times, back to the bestseller list. So, you know, he's this author who's being like, said it all over the country because, you know, he had come out of prison, he has a prisoner, wrote this book of what was called Brilliant Essays. And so, you know, that led to more fame for the Panthers. And he marries Kathleen Cleaver, who's just like, you know, he's kind of the icon of that movement, you know, Big Afro, just an incredibly beautiful woman. So, you know, the Panthers have all these things that all these magnetic personalities have come together and just kind of, you know, the movement takes off. Let me take a few steps back just to review. The Black Panthers were founded in what year? 1966. 1966 in Oakland. Were they ever officially dissolved? Yeah, I think they actually were officially dissolved in something like 1982. 1982 officially? I think so, yeah. The founders were Huey Newton and Bobby Seal. And then when Huey Newton went to prison, Eldridge Cleaver kind of took over the organization. Is that correct? He doesn't take over the organization. I mean, there's no kind of, you know, he becomes probably the most vocal spokesperson of the Panthers. He and Bobby Seal at that point. But again, you know, Eldridge is already famous. You know, the only thing I can compare it to is like, you know, it's like when Muhammad Ali becomes a Black Muslim, everybody's like, oh, wait a minute, here's this guy, heavyweight champ, you know, that now he's a Black Muslim. So who is a Black Muslim? You know, it's that kind of thing. Eldridge Cleaver is this famous writer, you know, who's kind of, you know, on the ascendancy, you know, with his writing. And suddenly he keeps proclaiming himself a Black Panther. So he was like, no way, who are these Black Panthers now? And so it just makes them that much more famous. Huey Newton, was he innocent in your estimation? I have no idea. You know, I mean, all I can say is he was acquitted, you know. I have no idea whether he's guilty or not. He was acquitted. I guess he wasn't guilty. Did Bobby Seal ever go to prison? Bobby Seal was in and out of prison. I mean, one of the things that happened with the Panthers early on is as the California state legislature decides that they're going to pass a law that says you can't carry guns in the open. Before they can do that, the Panthers decide that they're going to go to the capital of Sacramento with their guns, their loaded weapons drawn, you know, which is probably legal. You can't hide them. As long as you carry them in the open, it's legal. So they go to the legislature. And in this kind of crazy mix-up, they end up on the floor of the state legislature while the legislature is in session. And the press just goes wild, okay, about this. The Panthers then, they actually walk out of the legislature. And then some of them are arrested. Bobby Seal was in and out of jail because of that. That's the first thing he goes in and out of jail for. This was just an incredible act, especially in your documentary. It blows me away because I had heard and read about this. What I didn't know is that Governor Ronald Reagan at the time was holding a press conference outside the state capital while the Black Panthers were brandishing guns and holding their own press conference. Yeah, I mean, it's just an incredible scene because because Ronald Reagan is the governor and he's holding a press conference, the press is all there. And then they turn from him because they see all these Black men with guns going into the legislature. So they start following the Panthers. So all this stuff is on film as they kind of go in and everybody's like, what the heck is going on? It's just this crazy thing. And again, this is the thing that kind of puts the Black Panthers on the map nationally because now this is the headline in every paper in the country, you know, on every newscast because there's footage of it. It's like, you know, today in Sacramento and so the pan and everybody's like, who are these guys? And what happens is, I think that that so many people are like, oh my God, you know, they're scared as hell of the Panthers. They want nothing to do with it. But there's other people who are like, who are they? I want to be part of it. As one guy says in the film, I saw them on TV and I wanted to be part of that, whatever that was. And that was, I think the Panthers' brilliant calculation was that they were going to drive some people away. Some people, you know, maybe 80% of the population might say, oh my God, you know, these Negroes with guns, we got to get away from that. But the 20% who are drawn to them was more than enough for the Black Panthers. Yeah. What's also amazing about the guns is that you have clips of white conservatives assuring gun owners that we're not trying to take away your guns. We're not going after hunters. We just don't think it's reasonable that anybody can have a gun and walk around open carry. It's just, you spin it on its head, the whole gun control conversation that we're having right now. It's fascinating. Yeah, it's just a really funny scene in the film, because I get, now, you know, for the first time, you see, you see Black people, Bob, you see them talking about our, you know, our right to bear weapons, and you see in this white legislature saying, well, wait a minute, you know, we don't want to touch the legitimate hunter, but we can't carry guns, which is really interesting in the times we're living in now. And they did confiscate the guns that day. In your documentary, I didn't realize that they actually did. Yeah, they did confiscate them. I'm not sure what the charge was, since it was thoroughly legal to do what they did, but they did confiscate the guns. And we don't know if they ever got them back. Eldridge Cleaver starts to kind of run the Black Panthers. I don't know if you, I don't know if I would say run the Black Panthers. He doesn't run the Black Panthers, but he is probably at that point the most vocal spokesperson for the Panthers. And part of it is because he's the one that the press is attracted to, you know. They know him. He has a great story. He is this guy who's been years and years and years in prison and writes this great book as the press says, and then comes out and joins this group. And so he becomes kind of the de facto spokesperson for the Panthers. And he ends up in Algeria with his own embassy. It becomes the old North, the old North Vietnamese embassy is where the Black Panthers are housed. And he starts running, this is pre-internet. Yeah, it's a crazy story. I mean, when you put it like that, he, you know, because of somebody else that happens, his bail is revoked because he's out on bail the whole time. Because again, he had been in prison for all these years. He's out on bail. And not bail, what do you call it? Anyway, he's out and he decides, you know, that it's revoked. And he decides he's going to not go back to prison. And he goes and flees to Algeria and sets up the international wing of the Black Panther Party. And they're given an embassy by the North Vietnamese. The North Vietnamese are moving into a bigger embassy until they give the Panthers their old embassy. And it becomes the international wing of the Black Panther Party. And they get a stipend from Algeria. Yeah, I mean, they're kind of, you know, they're very much welcomed in Algeria at that point. And he's running the kind of running the Black Panthers from Algeria, I guess, sending notes through couriers back to America. Now, the Black Panthers spread from Oakland into New York and Chicago. And by 1969, Fred Hampton is assassinated by the FBI or the Chicago police. Yeah, Fred Hampton is the leader in Chicago. He's 20 years old when he becomes the leader of the Illinois chapter. He's 21 when he's murdered by the Chicago police. Well, the Chicago police are pushed into this by the FBI. You know, the FBI so often had informers within the Panther Party. And they would tell local police that the Panthers had guns and the police would raid the Panthers' Panther offices. You know, Fred Hampton, as we do tell in the film, his bodyguard, Fred Hampton's bodyguard, I was an FBI informant. So how well organized were they? By 69, was Eldridge Cleaver in Algeria? By 69? Yeah, Eldridge Cleaver was in Algeria. But I have to say, you know, again, Eldridge Cleaver was not ever the kind of head of the Panther Party. You know, Eldridge Cleaver is again kind of one of the most famous Panthers. But he's not the head. He's in Algeria, Dewey Newton is still in jail. And Bobby Seale is in and out of jail. So, you know, in some ways, there's this kind of, you know, there's this organization that's growing and growing that's growing all over the country, in cities all over the country. But did they have a charter? Did they have some kind of? They had a, they had what's called a central committee. And the central committee was in Oakland. And it was based, you know, it was mainly West Coast Panthers who were on the Central Committee, which became kind of a sticking point later on. But, you know, in some ways, as we talked about in the film, you know, the party just explodes. And, you know, there's people starting chapters all over the place and part of what the Panthers had to do. And it was hard for them to do it. It was have some kind of organization that existed, you know, uniform organization that existed everywhere. That was one of the problems. In the documentary, you talk about the importance of the paper, the newspaper that was put out. It was a moneymaker for the Black Panthers. I know that they printed a newspaper in Chicago. Was there one Black Panther newspaper or were there several? No, there's one Black Panther paper. I'm not sure if there was a separate paper in Chicago, but, you know, the Black Panther paper was where there was one paper that the Black Panthers had that was distributed all over the country. It made enough money to support the activities of the Black Panthers. Well, partially. I mean, there were, you know, fundraisers. They, they, you know, got donations from, from, you know, different people. But the paper was one of the study streams of income. One of the things that we learn in the documentary is that the wonderful Mr. J. Edgar Hoover, and I use Mr. advisedly, felt that the Black Panthers were the biggest threat to America, bigger than the mafia, bigger than communism. Yeah. I mean, he said publicly that the Panthers were the greatest internal threat to the security of the United States. That was his statement. And I think, you know, what that did was that it really, you know, unleashed not only the FBI, but law enforcement, you know, local law enforcement, because of the FBI director says, okay, this is the, the greatest threat to America, you know, and, and you're a cop in Chicago, Detroit, you know, Houston, New York, New Haven, anywhere. And there's a panther, a panther chapter there. Well, you're going to, you know, give them at the very least a much more scrutiny than, than they had before. Head of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover understood that the biggest issue in the 60s, bigger than Vietnam, was race. And it was something that the weather underground, the white SDS students, Bill Ayers, Mark Rudd, Bernadine Dorn, they also believed that the revolution was not about Vietnam. It was about race. Both the FBI and the Weather Underground knew that it was about race. And the Weather Underground believed that in order for the revolution to take hold, it had to be led by a charismatic African American. That's one of the misconceptions about the 60s. The fuel of the 60s we're beginning to learn was all about race. Bill Ayers is still alive. Bernadine Dorn is still alive. Mark Rudd from the Weather Underground also still alive. A lot of the Weather Underground is still alive. Let's go over the lives of the African American leaders of the Black Panther. We know that Mr. Hampton is dead. Huey Newton, is he still alive? No, he's dead. How did Huey Newton die? Huey Newton died in a drug-related shooting on the streets of Oakland. Was it questionable? Do we know if? I'm not sure of the exact circumstance. Bobby Seale? Bobby Seale is still alive. And what is Bobby Seale doing now? Bobby Seale is still an activist, still in Oakland, doing well. Okay, Eldridge Cleaver? Eldridge Cleaver died of, I think, was a heart attack. I have been told that one of the offshoots of the Black Panthers has been either the Bloods or the Crips. Is that disinformation? I'm not sure. There was a TV documentary done that kind of linked the Panthers to the Crips and things like that, or that the vacuum left when the Panthers kind of collapsed led to the Crips. I'm not sure about any of that again. Our film really, really tackles the years from 1966 to 1973, kind of the heyday of the Panthers. And the Panthers went through kind of a 10-year slow, slow death after that. And so we really don't cover all of that. The Black Panthers were feeding children. They were part of the community. Do we know how many people were killed by the Black Panthers, if any? No, I just have no idea how you can figure that one out. I don't think that either. So I just don't know. I think there were 28 Panthers who were killed. 28 Panthers were killed, but do we know? So, you know, I mean, it wasn't an official Panther policy to kill anybody. Now that Panthers, individual Panthers actually kill people? Probably, yeah. But, you know, who knows? J. Edgar Hoover said they were the biggest threat to our national security. So you would think we'd have a number of the exact number? Yeah, I don't think that J. Edgar Hoover felt like he had to back stuff up. Yeah, that is, yes. Stanley Nelson Jr. is an American film director. His latest film, The Black Panther's Vanguard of the Revolution, is playing in theaters near you. And I would assume it's coming either to HBO or PBS or something. It'll be on PBS in February 23rd. We just got the date. But we really encourage people to come see it in the theater. Yes, nothing better than seeing a documentary in the theater. What is your next project? It looks like you're on a three-part series about the African Americans. Yeah, we're actually making a film right now on historic Black colleges and universities. They're different from the Panthers, but in historic Black colleges and universities, how they change the course of the United States. And then after that, we're going to film on the slave trade and the business of slavery. I hope you come back. Yeah, I would love to do it. Thank you. It's really, you know, great talking to you. Great, thank you.