OKPOP presents “Power to the People: The Black Panther Party and the Civil Rights Movement in Oklahoma” program, Woody Guthrie Center

The 75-minute PBS documentary on the Black Panther Party and its impact on American culture titled The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution will be followed by an hour-long panel discussion about the impact of the group and race relations in America today. The event will feature a small poster exhibit, highlighting Oklahoma civil rights activists who may not be well known.

The Oklahoma City panel will consist of historian Bruce Fisher, journalist Joyce Jackson, and police officer Major Dexter Nelson. The Tulsa panel will feature former Oklahoma State Senator Judy McIntyre and community activist Joyce Williams. The discussion will center on the three choices many African Americans recognized in the struggle for civil rights in the 1960s: follow Martin Luther King Jr. and his philosophy of nonviolence, join or convert to the Nation of Islam and follow Malcom X, or sign up with the Black Panther Party.

“Power to the People: The Black Panther Party and the Civil Rights Movement in Oklahoma” is free and open to the public. The Oklahoma History Center is located at 800 Nazih Zuhdi Drive in Oklahoma City. The Woody Guthrie Center is at 102 East Mathew Brady Street in Tulsa. OKPOP will open in Tulsa in 2020 and is a division of the Oklahoma Historical Society.