When my former colleague Jason Parham reviewed Stanley Nelson’s documentary The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution last September, much of its retrospective content (dating back to the ‘60s) was uncannily relevant, given the growing amplification of dissatisfaction over racial inequality in this country, including but not limited to the routine police killings of unarmed black people. Parham wrote:

“It is a call for black people in this country to unite, to recognize their heritage, to build a sense of community,” activist Stokely Carmichael said in June 1966 upon his release from jail (he had been arrested during the March Against Fear). “It is a call for black people to define their own goals.” Self-determination, Carmichael believed, was the first need of a free people.