A topless Huey P. Newton proudly shows off his vinyl copy of Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited; Angela Davis takes a relaxed drag of a cigarette; an imprisoned Bobby Seale holds his head in concentration while receiving a fiery pep talk from a famous visitor—the novelist James Baldwin. These are just a few of the tender moments found through the lens of Stephen Shames, a photographer who has made a habit of capturing revolutionaries from the Black Panther Party—formed by Newton and Seale in 1966—at their most unguarded.

An exhibition, Black Panthers & Revolution: Stephen Shames, which ran at London’s Amar Gallery this summer, pulled back into sharp focus the 78-year-old’s work as a political and student protest photographer. It highlights how Shames framed Black political leaders as something other than the stern martyrs they’re often portrayed as.

Exploring the exhibition felt like a call to protest. In years increasingly defined by attempts at racial division not just in the U.S. but the world over, resurrecting some of the Black Panther Party’s ideals—standing tall in the face of hatred, while helping the homeless and the needy—seems like a solid idea. “I want to keep the spirit of the Panthers alive,” said Shames.

We caught up with the veteran photographer to discuss the power of the Black Panther Party and hear the stories behind some of his candid photographs.

VICE: How did you end up photographing the Black Panthers?
Stephen Shames: My father was a JFK-voting Democrat and worked for the Chicago mayor, Richard M. Daley. He was for the civil rights movement and against the war in Vietnam, but also anti-communist. My mother was a free-flowing bohemian and a poet. We were upper middle class, sure, but I was always exposed to a real range of societal ideas. Around 1966, I quit my job at a plastics factory and went hitchhiking; I bought a cheap camera from a pawn shop in the East Village, and it was love at first sight.

When I was a student at Berkeley in 1967 there were all these demonstrations against the Vietnam War. I started taking photos to document all of the police brutality I was seeing. Max Scherr was the editor of the underground newspaper Berkeley Barb and he asked if I wanted to work for him. I was only 20, but some of the protesters I was photographing getting beaten by the cops were only 13 or 14. This led to me marching against the war in San Francisco, where I also took my first photographs of Bobby Seale, who was selling Mao’s Little Red Book to all the students. He saw me at more and more rallies, and this developed a trust.  

What was it about Seale’s words and the Black Panther Party’s look that resonated so much with you?
It was the way he put women, the homeless, and drug addicts at the very core of the Black Panther Party. He recognized them all as victims of the system and directly empowered them with leadership roles—he knew that was how you built the heart of a movement. I remember Huey and Bobby also spoke up for gay people and how they were being victimized by society. That was very radical for a Black American man to do back in the 1960s.

It felt like the Black Panthers spoke out for everybody that was marginalized, no matter their circumstances. Nowadays, well, a lot of movements are good at protesting, but they do very little on the ground—the Panthers actually got stuff done. If you complained about your greedy landlord, they would protest outside his building the next day. Bobby and Huey understood how to use the media and pop culture as tools. The French Resistance beret and the Black leather jacket with the blue shirt? They knew that creating a uniform like that could feel hip and also revolutionary. I look back at a lot of my old photos and those guys look more like rock stars than political activists.

The Black Panthers very quickly took you into their inner circle. There’s some photos of Newton and Seale laughing and holding up a Bob Dylan vinyl that I love. These intimate images show that as radical as the Black Panthers were, they were also young people making it up as they went along.
Huey and Bobby were best friends and went through a lot together. They were college-educated, and I wanted my portrait to show that beyond all the controversy, they were just these laughing students, putting their youth on pause to go fight against racism.

The Panthers did political education classes on Dylan’s lyrics. I like the shot of Huey holding the Dylan LP, because it represents something much deeper. Maybe history frames the Black Panthers as being a singularly Black movement, but a lot of the staff and inner circle were white. Back then the Panthers, and California more generally, was seeing white and Black culture blend together in this really beautiful way. The Panthers also made an alliance with the Peace and Freedom Party, which was mostly white students and professors.

The shot of Angela Davis smoking captures her humanity, beyond all that charismatic stage presence.
The picture of Angela smoking was taken just after she got out of prison. You could tell she was really savoring her freedom. She was just winding down at the house of one of the donors. I was fortunate, because Bobby trusted me with going to the Panthers’ homes and even their schools, where they raised their children. It resulted in this rare intimacy.

And, what was it like being around James Baldwin?
He was incredibly smart and didn’t hold anything back, not one bit. He said it how it was. I know he and Bobby became lifelong friends. What I like about my photograph is James looks so dapper. You know, maybe white people like to dress down in jeans and T-shirts and pretend they’re poorer than they are. But I love how in Black culture there’s this natural instinct to really dress up and make an effort to show up for your people.

We know the FBI assassinated Fred Hampton of the Black Panthers. Given the members were seen as an enemies of the state, did this not make you nervous photographing them in such a sympathetic light?
I had editors at Newsweek who told me they wanted to use me more on photo assignments, but they “were told not to.” My dad told me the FBI had a file on me; I haven’t read it. What’s crazy is at University of California, Berkeley, there was this dark room that only five students shared and had access to. I found out 20 years later one of the “photographers” in there was really an undercover FBI informant. They infiltrated absolutely everything. But that only made me more determined to photograph the Black Panthers with humanity and respect.

Finally, I wanted to ask about your photo of Martin Luther King speaking at Berkeley in 1967. He’s obviously been made into this mythical figure, but you show him with fist to mouth, almost coughing—why?
He was a hero of mine, but I recognize that heroes are also human. I wanted to show that beyond the charismatic speeches, this was just a man who breathes the same air as you and I. Here he is holding in a nervous cough; a mere mortal. 

Martin famously spoke about seeing the mountain top, and I think he realized early on he was going to get murdered. One of Huey’s books was also called Revolutionary Suicide, which really summarized what a lot of Black activists felt about their life expectancy. But because death was lurking, I knew my photos had to be full of life. The Black Panthers understood you only achieved change through sparking joy and making people feel empowered. You didn’t get change in the world through making people feel depressed, so my photos have always tried to reflect that idea.

See more of Stephen Shames’s work at Instagram.

Follow Thomas Hobbs on X @thobbsjourno