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1 of 10Panthers stand just off stage at a Free Huey rally in Defermery Park, Oakland 1968. Che Brooks (arms folded) was a San Francisco Panther who went to San Quentin State Prison and started the prison chapter.Stephen Shames—Courtesy of Abrams Books -
2 of 10Bobby Seale sells Mao's "Red Book" to raise money at the first San Francisco Peace March against the Vietnam War, Kezar Stadium, April 15, 1967.Stephen Shames—Courtesy of Abrams Books -
3 of 10Angela Davis speaks at a Free Huey Rally in DeFremery Park, Oakland, Nov. 12, 1969.Stephen Shames—Courtesy of Abrams Books -
4 of 10Huey Newton listens to Bob Dylan's album Highway 61 Revisited in his house shortly after his release from prison, Berkeley, August 1970.Stephen Shames—Courtesy of Abrams Books -
5 of 10Free Huey / Free Bobby rally in front of the Federal Building, San Francisco, February 1970.Stephen Shames—Courtesy of Abrams Books -
6 of 10Panthers march through West Philadephia with Khalid Raheem in the lead, 1971.Stephen Shames—Courtesy of Abrams Books -
7 of 10The Lumpen, the Panthers' singing group, performs at the boycott of Bill's Liquors, Oakland, 1971. Clark Bailey, known as Santa Rita, is dancing. Michael Torrence (front) and James Mott (back) are drumming.Stephen Shames—Courtesy of Abrams Books -
8 of 10Gloria Abernathy selling papers at the Mayfair supermarket boycott, Oakland, 1971. Tamara Lacey is in the background holding a poster.Stephen Shames—Courtesy of Abrams Books -
9 of 10Classroom at the Intercommunal Youth Institute, Oakland, 1971.Stephen Shames—Courtesy of Abrams Books -
10 of 10People's Free Food Program, Palo Alto, 1972.Stephen Shames—Courtesy of Abrams Books
It was almost exactly 50 years ago, in October of 1966, that Huey Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. Less than a year had gone by before University of California student Stephen Shames showed up at an anti-war rally and photographed Seale. In the years that followed, the two would develop a tight relationship and Shames would have access to the inner world of the Black Panthers during a turbulent and world-changing time.
The extent of that access is made clear in a forthcoming book from Shames and Seale, Power to the People: The World of the Black Panthers (Abrams), several photographs from which can be seen here. The book, with photographs by Shames and an oral history by Seale and others, traces the rise and impact of the Panthers.
Asked whether he has a favorite of all of those images, Seale tells TIME that the photograph that stands out is one of the first that Shames captured of his work: a picture of him selling Chairman Mao’s “Little Red Book” at a rally in 1967, a tactic the Panthers used to raise money for their organization and the programs they operated.
“We had sold over 3,000 of those books in the spring of 1967. I got them for 20 cents a piece and sold them for a dollar,” Seale recalls. “But what’s great about that story is that we hadn’t even read that book! That’s the killer. That was 1967. I never made that book official reading material [for the Party] until 1968.”
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Dozens of Shames’ photographs, many of which have never before be exhibited, will be on view starting Friday at Steven Kasher Gallery in New York City.
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