London’s Amar Gallery opened “Black Panthers & Revolution: Stephen Shames” on May 29. Stephen Shames, photographer of the Black Panther Party, has the largest archive of Panther images in the world. For the first time in London, Shames’ powerful civil rights images of Martin Luther King Jr, Bobby Seale, Huey Newton, Maya Angelou, and Angela Davis, amongst others, are on view.

In 1966, as the largely nonviolent Civil Rights movement swept through America, Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale founded the legendary Black Panther Party in Oakland, California. The party burst onto the scene with a bold vision for social change and the empowerment of African Americans. During the height of the movement, from 1967 to 1973, Shames, who was a student at the University of California, Berkeley, had unprecedented access to the organization.

Shames captured not only its public face—street demonstrations, protests and militant armed posturing—but also, life behind the scenes, from private Party meetings to Bobby Seale at work on his Oakland mayoral campaign.

At a time when racism is on the rise, Amar Gallery hopes this exhibition serves as a reminder that equality has been a struggle for millions often suppressed due to race, gender, or sexuality. Black Panther founder Bobby Seale, who co-authored a book with Shames, said of the tribulations the Black Panthers faced: “They came down on us because we had grassroots, real people’s revolution, complete with the program, complete with the unity, complete with the working coalitions, where we crossed racial lines.” The people’s revolution, programmes and working coalitions were documented by Shames for years, protecting the legacy, history and spirit of the equal rights movement.

London
Amar Gallery
12-14 Witfield Street
W1T 2RF
29 May - 10 August 2025

See also: Comrade Sisters: Women Of The Black Panther Party