"Black Power * Flower Power" - A Photography Exhibition

"Black Power * Flower Power" chronicles the cultural transformation of the 60s through a historically significant black-and-white photography collection by artists Pirkle Jones and Ruth-Marion Baruch, noted documentary photographers and former Marin residents. The collection comprises two major bodies of work: "Black Panthers, 1968," and "Haight-Ashbury, 1967."

The collaboration between husband and wife photography team, Jones and Baruch, strikingly capture the early days of the Black Panther Party in the Bay Area through their street-style photography. The exhibition features a sampling of their original silver gelatin prints which narrate the evolution of the American social, political and cultural life, a period of charged social consciousness and action. The photos reveal the moral character, dignity and strength of the Panthers while affirming the universal themes of family, commitment and hope for the future. The exhibit also features five photos of Baruch's much larger collection rendering the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco during the Summer of Love which depicts flower adorned youth and antiwar sentiments of the 60's counterculture movement.

In honor of Black History Month, the (Cesar Chavez Student Center and Associated Students Inc) Art Gallery in collaboration with the Richard Oakes Multicultural Center, and the Pirkle Jones Foundation, feature primarily the Black Panther photographs from this famous collection. Photographs are courtesy of the Pirkle Jones Foundation and with much gratitude to their Director, Jennifer McFarland.