 Thank you very much This is this is a really fascinating story, so I hope I don't drag it down to the level of something that you know It's a basic terrible presentation of some sort, but it's just it's just it's just rich And it's really an honor to be here at the public library This is the 50th anniversary of the Black Panther Party for self-defense So any of you Panthers that are out there your original Panthers as you know or at least 52 or 53 years old I suppose or maybe Maybe even maybe even a little more So it's a pleasure to do this presentation, which is really only a footnote in the rich history of the Panthers But it also includes some great biography of two really fascinating Photographers and it dabbles in counterculture history as well as a history of photography and the politics of Major San Francisco Museum on December 1st 1968 visitors to the D'Young Museum viewed the final day of a show titled Hade Ashbury 1967 and these were Ruth Merriam-Beruk's photographs of the summer of love from the from the previous year The following Saturday you could walk into that same museum out the D'Young and you could return for the opening day of a photographic assay on the Black Panthers Which was a collaboration between Ruth Merriam-Beruk and her husband Perkel Jones These are two really as everyone knows defining moments the 20th century American cultural history with their epicenters right here in San Francisco in The Bay Area at the same time And as much as Perkel Jones is really the photographer in many respects that's identified with this The whole idea and the thing was orchestrated by Ruth Merriam-Beruk both exhibitions They hate Ashbury photographs and the Panther assay that they did This is a photograph of Ruth Merriam who was born in Germany Her father was a neurosurgeon a distant cousin of Bernard-Beruk one of the richest people in the world Her mother was from an even wealthier Berlin family if that's even possible And although Weimar Germany was relatively hospitable to Jewish intelligency at that time like Ruth Merriam's parents They moved in New York City in the late 1920s because of opportunities as a neurosurgeon Her mother however continued to go back and forth between Berlin to live that libertine lifestyle of 1920s and early 30s Germany And although that early move to the United States protected their immediate family from the rise of Hitler The Nazis nevertheless confiscated the family's immense wealth and that mansion that they lived in Berlin and members of their extended family Perished in the Holocaust Ruth Merriam's father died in New York City while he was being photographed for And photo essay and life magazine and in that probably around 1938 And Ruth was on her own with the trust fund in the in the States She winds up going to the University of Missouri as an undergrad where she experiences anti-Semitism Boarding houses in Columbia, Missouri didn't rent to Jews And so she was like shunted aside and had to find someplace else to live As a grad student she moves to Ohio onto Ohio University where she wanted to mingle her life of writing and photography and so she started to a program in a graduate program in Photography where she receives the very first MFA in photography in the world first one that was ever granted And she decides to do her thesis on Edward Weston Western of course is this giant in photography was Ansel Adams mentor She writes to Weston on the West Coast and he says why don't you come and visit me come and stay with me here in Carmel and you can get information for your MFA thesis She goes out stays with Weston he reduces her to Ansel Adams to imaging Cunningham Dorothea Lang California photographers and artists You know and at the same time Edward is putting to get Weston is putting together these photographs for Show that a big retrospective show his it's gonna happen at the New York Museum of Modern Art and Ruth Merriam poses for Weston and As you can tell from this letter this there's this great correspondence between Weston and Ruth Merriam these love letters Which Ruth kept all those years and this they're all located now at the University of California Santa Cruz And in this one you can see that this relationship grew beyond writer subject and model photographer As the evidence in on this set of letters and it says in this one I Weston writes I would prefer to see you alone or that might be too dangerous. Do you want to chance the couch again? and then on this on the side it says Love and kisses on the tip of your finger in this one you can see this is one of the last of their Correspondence with their love letters and it says, you know Ruth darling sweet AB and that's code for something Which you know if any of you have any ideas what that could be It'd be interesting, but you know he and he says, you know We agreed that 60 20 didn't make sense and I never knew what that meant But their ages Weston was 59 at the time and she was 23 and so that's what they're That's what he's responding to but I'm glad to know that you still have a place for you for me in your heart She learns that Ansel at this time Ansel Adams who she's introduced who is gonna start a photography program at the California School of Fine Arts Which is now the San Francisco Art Institute and she also realizes after being around Weston and being around Adams and all these people that she Really doesn't know that much about photography, you know She's the one who has the only MFA in photography in the world And so she decides to go from Ohio University to California to be enrolled in the program at the Art Institute Which begins in the end? 1946 she studies with Ansel minor white Weston Dorothea Lang was at Modell Imaging and the schools where Aperture magazine is found if any of you know that photography magazine in 1952 when minor white is the editor and Even though this was a remarkable photo program when you're just seeing that list of people The place was really known for painting It's where Clifford still taught and Richard Debenkorn was a student and then taught right away where David Park was and where Mark Rothko was teaching in two different summers During her first semester at the school Ruth Marion lives in Ansel's house, which is out just It's close to Baker Beach near sea cliff and he had two houses there And so she let she moves in there and lives and minor white is living there as well And this is one of her fellow students who came on the GI bill, which is David Johnson And I think he's really important in this story Even though David probably doesn't realize how important that he was to her because I think it was a very first close Friend that she had was African-American David's story is absolutely fascinating. He was a GI Bill student from Segregated Jim Crow south he grew up in some of the worst poverty you can ever imagine both his parents and his stepmother were in jail for Murder and so he was raised by yet another mother who gave him his last name He joins the Navy at 17 where he's in the segregated Navy at that time. He comes back He's dabbles in photography a little bit and and when he's in high school He and he sees an advertisement for this school that Ansel Adams is gonna start and he writes to him and says, you know what? I'd like to Be in your first program is that possible and Ansel writes back and says sure come on out And then he writes back and says I'm an African-American. He says that's fine. Come on out I'll have minor white meet you at the train station and you can come and live in my house So David was living in this house at the same time as Ruth Marion Baruch and minor white because they realized They needed to get David some better equipment and to bring him up to snuff with the other photographers who were in this program Who are all GI Bill students who had done plenty of photography before then and who um, but David had a sensibility about him Where he just clicked? I was hoping he would be here tonight because David's still alive and he's a real he's a terrific character so he he wrote an autobiography and he talks about Falling in falling down the rabbit hole because all of a sudden he goes from the most poverty-stricken place in the world to living out in sea cliff with Ansel Adams and Ruth Marion Baruch and Ruth Marion Baruch and him connect because both of them had experienced prejudice in their own way Even though Ruth Marion Baruch is the most wealthy person you could ever imagine and and David was probably one of the poorest people You could ever imagine so this program had this crucible of these interesting people Perkel Jones also came to the school at that time. They were both in the first class Perkel is here on the right with Ansel in the dark room He's one of those GI's who came he grew up in Louisiana and southern Indiana Where he witnessed horrific racism his family members were clan members And he they would come home and tell him about lynchings and this bothered Perkel until the end of his life He would cry when these things came up So his witness of racism was from a whole different angle than Ruth Marion's But he understood that this is something that is just absolutely horrific He was thrilled to be in California instead of being back where he was in the Midwest or in the South Perkel and Ruth meet in the photo program Fall in love And then they're married by Ansel up at Yosemite in 1949 at the end at the end of their program Ansel was the one I mean Ansel's an ego maniac right? I mean you can tell from this picture But a wonderful guy who brought in people who challenged him in photography all these other Photographers would kind of look at him you know imaging Cunningham would look at him and frown and think oh Ansel you pipsqueak You don't know anything Dorthy and Lang would look em say you don't know anything about social Activism within photography, but he was strong enough to do to do that for what he did for this program Was he taught technique beauty and really at this love of photography? The intellectual force behind it all was minor white and here He is shown in one of the studios lecturing to the students and he was interested in how students would explore the psychological Implications within photography much the same way as those abstract expressionists were Wrestling with those same ideas after World War two of you know the Holocaust and the atom bomb and two World Wars in their lifetime And then Dorothea Lang who is probably the most important of these instructors for This project for the Black Panther project that Ruth Marion and Perkel do because she's the one who gave them that social Responsibility aesthetic to make sure that they were on that social stance within photography. She'd been a photographer during the Depression era done the FSA photo photographs done this very famous classic photograph of migrant mother After graduating from the program and after they get married Perkel goes on to work with Dorothea Lang on a project to document the building of the Monticello Dam, which forms Lake Berry Essa And so these are photographs from a series that they did that was published in that picture called death of a valley and Perkel's photograph of Dorothea Lang as they're cutting down a tree And then sort of this ecological environmental catastrophe with building this dam and destroying what you know probably mimic Napa Valley or mimicked You know Sonoma Valley in many respects and it's sort of I think it's sort of a highlight As one of the very first artists response into environmental destruction like it was some of the first you know real take a stance for You know the environmental aspect of things by artists by Perkel and Dorothea After she left school Ruth Mary Brooke continued photographs She was invited to be in Edward Steichen show family a man Which was one of the most famous photography shows in the 1950s, which you know brought in all sorts of social documentary kinds of photographs One of Ruth Mary's pictures that were in family a man that she took here in San Francisco family man installation in New York at MoMA and Then in the early 1960s She did a series called illusions for sale, which I contend is probably one of the very first feminist responses to women trying to buy beauty or buy a culture or buy You know trying to buy an identity through shopping and consumerism This show was shown at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and had this had a great response from reviewers who thought she had Great respect for all the participants for the women shoppers at the same time You know she was not making fun of these women Perkel and Ruth collaborated on photographs about Walnut Grove, California showing this decaying city that was on the Sacramento River And this is of course the beginning of the 1960s. So you're 60s San Francisco 60s, California. This is the 60s at the Art Institute sunglasses nonchalance nudity in the courtyard and drugs and Rock and roll and The changes in the art world in San Francisco exemplified by Bruce Nauman who was teaching at the Art Institute at that time in the mid to late 60s with this piece called Fountain But the real changes in San Francisco probably were happening over on the other side of town They were political and cultural as evidence in hate Ashbury and at the height of hippied them in the summer of 67 Ruth Mary and Baruch goes to hate Ashbury and starts to photograph She empathized with hippies She figured that they're dropping out was only temporary and that they would truly find their way at some point now This is where people might recognize themselves in some of these images So if you do please speak up if any of you were you know hanging around in Golden Gate Park or Hanging around at Defremery Park in Oakland or wherever The anti-war movement was one of those political ingredients in that cultural aspect of hate Ashbury Love And her timing was perfect You know she was there at the highlight of things and then she was also there at the Wonderfulness of everything and then she was and then everything sort of comes to an end it crashes to an end is illustrated by this Denizen of hate Ashbury who she's on drugs You know for bum trips, you know, these were these were first exhibited these photographs are hers of hate Ashbury first exhibit at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth Where Jack McGregor of the D young museum who was director of the D young museum at the time saw him and he said well We'd love to show those at the D young and she said all right fine We'll schedule time to do it and they were gonna do it in the following fall and fall of 68 and He asked her he asked Ruth matter. What would you do next and she said well? I would love to photograph the Panthers But who would show them and he said well, we'll show them and she said all right you're on we're gonna show these photographs that I'm gonna go do of the Panthers and Her thinking was that she was really upset. She'd been politicized by the early 60s She's been part of the peace and freedom party in in San Francisco in northern California and now in Marin where she lived And she wanted to show that they how maligned the Panthers were in them by the media as you can as is evidence from this headline In the Sacramento being a lot of ways And she wanted to show that they were had been demonized and her and Perkel had become Lefties and much very much anti-war and very much pro-civil rights, and they want to show this other side now This is the D young today, but this is the D young that existed in the 60s and 70s Many of you still remember and it was a very very different time exhibitions and shows were very different than they are now You know they they don't have they didn't somebody asked me at one point who curated that show and you realize nobody curated that show that show Was curated by Ruth Mary and Baruch and Perkel Jones under the direction Jack McGregor and they did it in a heartbeat They did them all very very quickly, you know, it's just a different world within the art community at the time With Jack McGregor's go ahead Ruth Mary and Baruch went to Catherine Kathleen Cleaver who was giving a lecture and in Marin and she asked if it'd be okay if they went and photographed the Panthers She suggested well, you should go talk to Eldridge who was the minister of information for the Panthers She goes over to Oakland talks to him and he has time for him says yeah, you can do it We have we have the rallies in Defremery Park in Oakland. We're having these free Huey rallies So again the timing is absolutely perfect. She's there at the pulse of things right in Oakland at the time Where Huey when Huey Newton is being tried? Picture of Bobby Seale speaking at Defremery Park Ruth Mary and Baruch was a crappy driver And so she had to figure out a way over there and Perkel was the one who drove and she said Perkel You drive me there and he said I'll drive you but I'm taking a camera and so now Perkel's involved with us And so it's a collaboration Outside of Defremery Park. They would protest each day at the Alameda County Courthouse They photographed from July through October of 68 and in this image You see some of the artwork from the Panthers which is done by a photograph that they have of Emory Douglas Who's here on the left who's still around and hopefully will be around San Francisco some to give lectures and stuff and a terrific artist to this day, but Emory was the minister of culture and revolutionary artists now on the right is Barbara Easley at the free Huey rally who and I think Barbara easily winds up taking is in charge of the Panthers later on maybe in By 70 or 71 in Oakland This is the obligatory photograph that a librarian chose when they are showing the Panthers because it shows two Panthers Reading a book now there what they're probably reading is and I love this photograph that just the posture and everything It's just so perfect and they're probably reading Mao's Little Red Book, which was on they were weren't they? I mean that was there was a bibliography whole bibliography The Panthers had to read before they could kind of be anointed and that was certainly on their on their bibliography Now that was the Bible of everything Yeah, the Little Red Book and you know Perkel didn't photograph in color ever So you're stuck with it looking like that, but that truly looks like the size of it and that was on their required reading list This is a photograph of Co-found on the far right is co-founder of the Panthers Albert big man Howard who's still live He's not he now lives in Sonoma County Years later big man said that Perkel and Ruth Marion had a great eye for humanity They captured the real love and inspiration of what the Black Panther Party was all about He explained that the Panthers came from the community and went back to the community and that's exactly what he still does up in Sonoma He still is a community activist Working with different groups and with kids and he truly does walk that talk to this day of being you know Within that community and trying to do the things that he was trying to do as a Panther when he was a kid women Panthers Plenty Bobby seal Her intention as was to not only show how you know the other press had demonized them But she wanted to show them as they are you know not the side that the mass media was done You know as it was you know She wanted to tell it like it is as they would say in the day So there are plenty of photographs like this and these are just photographs at these picnics where they truly are Having you know rabble rousing speeches, but at the same time they're in the park with their families You know she said this is what we saw this is what we felt and these are the people and that's how she Responded to critics who said you're not showing any of the violence You aren't showing the violent aspect of the Panthers whatsoever and she you know that wasn't her intention She's not she wasn't she and Perkel were not photojournalists. They weren't documentary photographers They didn't go out looking for that they went out to just immerse themselves and embed themselves in the situation Photograph what was around them and this is what winds up being shown Kid slicing bro slicing bread Peter Coyote saw this photograph who was a member who's of the diggers of the 60s And when he saw this photograph when they were displayed at the Harvey Milk Center He said that is digger bread because he recognized the shape of it from the coffee cans that they would bake these things in And so it shows you this really nice connection a lot of this story really is about the what was the white? Radical role in something like the black liberation movement and Peter Coyote was one of those people who did cross over into that as did Ruth Mary and Perkel Now a lot of this stuff was generated by Huey Newton being in jail This is at one point Charles Geary, who was the attorney for Huey Newton Called Ruth Marion said look if you want to get a photograph of Hue You better do it right now because he's going to be shipped off somewhere soon and you're not going to find him So they went immediately and they spent about an hour with you and they took these sort of iconic photographs of him Right at the end of his trial The Panthers also had things in Marin there was a Marin City branch of the Panthers And so Ruth Marion Perkel also photographed in Marin I think this is of course a Unitarian Church where the Panthers were going to we're doing a Talk in San Rafael and the Marin City Panthers a group of Marin City Panthers in Front and Center with either perk I don't know if that was a Perkel picture or a Ruth Marion picture another picture of Marin City with some of actually that probably has Some of Emory's art in the background Ruth Marion Perkel made all their photographs available to the Black Panther newspaper So when you go through the archives of those newspapers you see these photographs That were done by Ruth Marion Perkel and Eldridge would take a look at him. He'd say God use these things These are these are perfect for that our newspaper And they showed them they would show these to Eldridge and he said Cleaver's response was why do your photos have a feeling that none of the work? I've seen of us by other photographs has so that must have been you know this huge tribute to these two white Photographers who were middle-aged at the time You know think I did it sinks in This is one of my favorite images of all of it. Oh, it's it just shows the gathering But what it really shows is Ruth Marion Baruch It's a photograph of Perkel showing Ruth Marion Baruch taking these pictures and it's great evidence that these are not young fellow traveler SDS radicals who are you know panther? Panther supporters these are old 46 and 53 years old and that was old back then too. I mean you're over 30. I mean that's old 53 46 from Marin County and They're photographing with the panthers and they're embraced by them They're surrounded by people and now they're surrounded by other people and some of those other people with cameras probably are FBI And you think where is that footage? How come that footage has never appeared you realize that footage is probably long gone because it was used for other purposes It was documenting They Perkel and Ruth Marion finish taking photographs in 1960 in October 68 And it coincides with the Ruth Marion Baruch's hate Ashbury photographs going up at the D'Yong What it which happens in from October to December? But by this time McGregor head of the D'Yong is starting to get nervous about the upcoming Black Panther show Because he thinks wait a minute This could be dicier than I realized what have I really promised because since the summer of 68 when Ruth Marion was promised this show There were anti-war protests in Chicago if you can conjure up some of that his current the history from that time period you know that Democratic National Convention in Chicago There was Tommy Smith and John Carlos's black power salute in support of black liberation movement at the Mexico City Olympics a Photograph that I've always loved since I was a kid and it dawned on me as a kid even that they had one pair of black gloves Because one guy has the right glove on one guy has a left glove on so they traveled light when they went to Mexico City There was 60 1968 protests at the same time in Chinatown over the city wanting to you know Turning into some sort of tourist Disneyland rather than for the people who lived in Chinatown at the time and Then there was San Francisco State in the fall 68 where there was people went on strikes students went on strike They try to they shut the place down because they want one of their key demands was to start a black studies department at San Francisco State at that time And so the cops closed the place, you know the daily Gator reports it San Francisco State SI Hyakawa and you can tell you know, it's like the song something's happening here what it is ain't exactly clear Um, so he's reluctant McGregor's reluctant to show that to show the panther photographs Yes, I got to take it to City Hall Ruth Miriam Baruch and Perkel were completely upset with this And so they decide to friends tell them take it to the newspaper and so they go to the reporters at the Chronicle I think they went to probably Alfred Frankenstein who is our critic at the time there and other people at the Chronicle the Chronicle then influences people at City Hall and the next thing you know They get a call from Jack McGregor says okay, the show is on because they think it would be more Drastic to not show it if they didn't show it. They thought what the hell would happen then? So we've got to show it and just suck it up and see what's gonna happen Perkel photographs the installation of the show all that was hung by Ruth Miriam and Perkel and Ruth Miriam probably did all the captions for it and all these captions I discovered her at the UC Santa Cruz archives to so you can go through and see these things You see the little pinholes in the me too that were on the wall and a hundred thousand people come to this show It opens on December on December 7th and a hundred thousand people attend this thing It truly is a blockbuster and then it's extended for two weeks into February They were Perkel and Ruth Miriam of course were thrilled at the fact that the tenants was so huge But they were also thrilled with the fact that people were attentive as you can see from these photographs people paid attention They read those the trend they read the descriptions that Ruth Miriam had put on all the photographs And they were thrilled with the fact that African-Americans came to the museum too as well as many Panthers came to see it The New York Times reviewed the exhibition It was reviewed and written up in the Black Panther news Black Panther newspaper and they they reviewed the show and in the characteristic of the time They they wrote that the exit exit exhibit was likely to be the most favorable Communication between the bourgeoisie and the vanguard this year So you think wow they were really reading that bibliography, weren't they they were reading their little red book and stuff And it was perfect. It was and it probably was the case You know it was a good communication between the board's best communication between the bourgeoisie and the vanguard And so um, you know and they commit and the review they commended Perkel and Ruth Miriam for their Enthusiasm and sensitivity and that must have just you know tickled them After the after the show leaves After it comes down at the deong it's the first photo show at the studio museum in Harlem So it goes to New York City After went there went to Dartmouth College, which had sense enough to show it and then it show it then it goes to UC Santa Cruz The studio Museum of Harlem today At the same time in New York City other museums were wrestling with the same thing and the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Art Did a show called Harlem on my mind cultural capital of a black America and it didn't do so well People it did not include the black artists of Harlem. It didn't include any black photographers It didn't include curators who were putting this thing together It was it was just minimal and so people didn't like it some installation shots of this show It was kind of the Smithsonian version. You can see nobody's in the gallery, but they probably should photograph to be forehand You know kind of an oppressive photograph of Malcolm X and So there were reviews of it both these shows were reviewed in a photo magazine And the review was can whitey do a beautiful black picture show and their answer was no Because they had Roy de Carava a preeminent African-American photographer at the time who's out protesting in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art that they didn't include people like him which they should have and So he writes part of this review about how bad the Metropolitan show is and then a woman named Marjorie Mann Was very critical of the Panther show of Ruth Marion Baruch's and Perkel's because she thought it didn't show the violin aspect of that Now at the same time that this show is being criticized in New York at the meth Harlem on my mind Perkel and Ruth Marion show was up at the Harlem Studio Museum of Harlem, and that's not criticized at all by the black community So you think God you're two white photographers in a black Venue and that is completely accepted in this review Perkel realized that Marjorie Mann was gonna do this in the review And so they had this disclaimer and says a regretful note on learning that Marjorie Mann It was gonna review the Black Panther show exhibit Perkel Jones phone to forbid us to publish any of the photograph Ruth Marion's photographs or Perkel's photographs in the magazine And he said Perkel said in his own way, and I don't know if anyone here Susanna knows Perkel, but in his own way. He said We don't think she's a very good critic and that's how that's how Perkel that was it You know Perkel one gonna elaborate and so that was it and so the people at the photo magazine were upset that this one's Gonna happen and so they took instead of they couldn't show this photograph Which is what they wanted to show and so they did a drawing and they did this instead said here's the here's the photo Here's essentially After this the Panthers were you know a couple years after this show the Panthers were destabilized by the early 1970s a few years after the young exhibition the Nixon Administration with John Mitchell as Attorney General as you some of you may have remembered joined J. Edgar Hoover's FBI's counterintelligence program and Local police to infiltrate and harass and attack Panthers across the country as you know as well as anybody And they jailed them. They you know they Panthers essentially either went into X a lot of went into exile. They went to jail. They were killed or they killed each other They set them up in some respects where they thought people were infiltrators and they set them up And they'd wind up killing each other in some respects Numerous times the FBI would visit Perkle and Ruth Merring in Mill Valley They'd go over this house that was way up in the top of Mount Tam this beautiful house And they pestered them about what kind of correspondence they'd receive or what kind of you know knowledge They might have a Panthers The Vanguard was published by Beacon Press in 1923 and they showed the photographs many of the 123 photographs that were shown in at the Dion Perkle winds up teaching for a second time at the Art Institute beginning in 1972 where he teaches until the mid 1990s There's Perkle on the roof of the school and he takes a cue from Ruth Marion And he does his own photographic series on hippies this time the counterculture vagabonds that lived at gate five on the houseboats at Sausalito if there's anybody here from Sausalito and lived on gate five some of those photographs from that time period and He embeds himself with that situation. I mean look how crazy that looks and One of the people who lived at gate five at that time was David Johnson. So Perkle crossed paths with David again Ruth Merring continued to photograph the Panthers. She photographed. She goes to San Quentin and she photographs George Jackson and Fleet a drum going at San Quentin prison Ruth Merring died in 1997 a collection of her poetry was published in 2002 which gives a whole lot of clues into her early life her relationship with her mother her severe bouts with the depression her shock treatment that she had in the 1950s up at Napa State and What she would call her conspicuous pain? And and she alluded to Edward Weston in some of those poems Perkle's long overdue appreciation culminated in a monograph that was published by aperture aperture in 2001 and then the Black Panther photographs were republished by Gray Bull Press in 2002 in this book And then in 2013 the Perkle-Jones Trust published this book Black Power flower power Which is a great tribute to Ruth Merring and Baruch who was involved with both those projects and Copies of it are here actually tonight if anybody's interested in taking a look at or purchasing it from the people who brought them And then you come up to today Forgive me. I'm a librarian. So I have the license to read it any kind of presentation. I think but The next couple of photographs here are by a current San Francisco Art Institute student and his name is wassum Abu-Durai and it's of the it's of this current world doing the same thing that Perkle-Jones did and Ruth Merring Baruch did these are two on Black Lives Matter people at the Oakland Airport who are reading off a List of names and I I think things are better now But I I know There's a whole lot more that needs to be done and you can tell that from some a couple of these images You know Trayvon Martin Oscar Grant Michael Brown here at Garner Tamir Rice Walter Scott Freddie Gray Sandra Bland Samia de Bois Mario Woods Ferguson Baltimore North Charleston Staten Island Walker County, Texas Cincinnati Oakland San Francisco You know these are real people in real places and there's some fictitious Places that sure needs a lot of change to like you know the Academy Awards in some respects too So, you know, it's not like everything has ended But you know and there's no there's no I don't think there's any great need really to Exactly replicate historic models of resistance But it is a valuable exercise to look back at these elders for guidance I think in lots of ways whether it's the community grassroots efforts of the Black Panther Party for self-defense or Whether it's the role of whites attached to those struggles for justice epitomized by Perkel Jones and Ruth Merriam Baruch and By people today doing those kinds of things So thank you for coming to the San Francisco Public Library and their books back here and I appreciate you sitting through all those And a question