EVENTS
Visit our events page frequently for updates and new information on current and future events to come.
It’s that time again, we’re gearing up for the 12th Annual Black Panther Film Festival starting Friday, October 9th, 2020! This year is obviously very different because of the pandemic crisis. However, the fight continues and the show must go on. Therefore, our festival year will be held virtually online.
Please see the below poster for all the info, we appreciate your participation and support. For more information please contact us here.
12th Annual Black Panther Party Film Festival!
The purpose of the festival is to give a true education of the ’60s, {The Black Panther Party was destroyed by COINTELPRO} and our Political Prisoners who have been held captive in US prisons for decades, some in solitary confinement for 25 years and more, because of COINTELPRO. Proceeds from our festivals are used for commissary for our Political Prisoners and aid to their families when needed and the funeral and bereavement funds for families of fallen Comrades.
“We who believe in freedom cannot rest” ✊🏿
Excerpt from an interview with Jilchristina Vest
JR Valrey: What does the Black Panther Party mean to you and why does it deserve to be remembered, celebrated, and studied?
Jilchristina Vest: The Black Panther Party was an amazing organization of young revolutionaries that came together to serve the people, body, and soul; to protect, uplift, and inspire Black people and communities in Oakland, and subsequently all poor, and oppressed people across the globe. They were revolutionaries, in that they said, if the police aren’t going to protect us, we will protect ourselves. If the government is not going to feed us, we will feed ourselves. If the schools aren’t going to educate us, we will educate ourselves. This had not happened since before desegregation. Based on this ethos and the 10 Point Platform, they were deemed terrorists and a threat to the American way of life. Why? Because the American way of life is white supremacy and the oppression of Black, and poor people. To go against this turns you into an enemy of the state, hence J. Edgar Hoover and Cointelpro (a series of covert and illegal projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting American political organizations) and the destruction of the Black Panther Party. They ‘deserve’ to be remembered, celebrated, and studied because they are people that fought and died, fighting for the liberation of Black, poor, and oppressed people. They earned their place in American and world history, and most definitely Oakland’s history.