Beginning with a montage of 400 years of racial injustice in America, this powerful documentary provides the historical context for the establishment of the ‘60s Civil Rights Movement. Rare clips of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, and other activists transport viewers back to those tumultuous times. Organized by Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton, the Black Panther Party embodied every major element of the Civil Rights Movement which preceded it and inspired the black, brown, yellow, Native American, and women's power movements that followed.

The party struck fear in the hearts of the “establishment,” which viewed it as a terrorist group. Interviews with former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark, CIA officer Philip Agee, and FBI agents Wes Swearingen and Bill Turner detail a shocking “secret domestic war” of assassination, imprisonment, and torture as means of repression. Despite the film’s praises for the Panthers’ early courage and moral idealism, it doesn’t shy away from the difficult, exposing their ultimate collapse due to megalomania, corruption, drugs, and narcissism.

"This video is highly recommended for middle school through adult audiences. "
‒MC Journal: The Journal of Academic Media Librarianship

Best Producer, Historical, Nat'l Black Prog. Consortium, 1998
Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame, 1998
Paul Robeson Award, Newark Black Film Festival, 1997