Many of us have heard these three words: Black Panther Party. Some know the Party's history as a movement for the social, political, economic, and spiritual justice of Black and Indigenous people of color – but to this day, few know the story of the backbone of the Party: the women. While these remarkable women of all ages and diverse backgrounds were regularly making headlines agitating, protesting, and organizing, they were also building communities and enacting social justice. Comrade Sisters is their story.

Join the California History Section in a discussion featuring co-authors Stephen Shames and Ericka Huggins of the newly released book, Comrade Sisters: Women of the Black Panther Party. This panel is joined by former Black Panther Party member M. Gayle Asali Dickson and moderated by Susan D. Anderson, History Curator and Program Manager at the California African American Museum.

Presented by California History Speaker Series

Speaker Bios

Stephen Shames uses photography to raise awareness of social issues, with a particular focus on child poverty and race. His award-winning photographs are in the permanent collections of 40 major museums, including: Museum of Modern Art (MoMA); Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery; Smithsonian National Museum of African-American History and Culture. Steve is author of 15 monographs including: Power to the People: The World of the Black Panthers (Abrams 2016); Outside the Dream, Pursuing the Dream, The Black Panthers (Aperture); Free Angela, We Are America, I Like You Too, Some People (Quiddity, 2021). He received numerous awards including the Kodak Crystal Eagle Award for Impact in Photojournalism for Outside the Dream. American Photo named Steve one of the 15 Most Underrated Photographers. PBS named Hine, Wolcott, and Shames as photographers whose work promotes social change.

Ericka Huggins is an educator, Black Panther Party member, former political prisoner, human rights advocate, and poet. For 50 years, Ericka has used her life experiences in service to community. From 1973-1981, she was director of the Black Panther Party’s Oakland Community School. From 1990-2004 Ericka managed HIV/AIDS Volunteer and Education programs. She also supported innovative mindfulness programs for women and youth in schools, jails and prisons. From 2003 – 2015, she was also a professor at Peralta Community College District and California State Universities- East Bay and San Francisco. Ericka is a Racial Equity Learning Lab facilitator for WORLD TRUST Educational Services. She curates conversations focused on the individual and collective work of becoming equitable in all areas of our daily lives. Additionally, she facilitates workshops on the benefit of self-care in sustaining social change.

Gayle “Asali” Dickson is not only an artist, but also an ordained minister and a former member of the Black Panther Party from 1970-1976. During the art and culture Renaissance on the West Coast in the late 1960s the name Asali was given to her. Her Vintage Art drawings consists mostly of women and children surviving within a system of Patriarchy. Her era in the Party was about using the vote as a survival tool; and of Oakland becoming a Base of Operation to implement the vision of survival pending total change to a social structure that cares for its citizens. Today, Gayle’s focus has not changed except to add to her body of work, stories from the Bible, Spiritual musings and lessons from the environment. Her art today is for healing, self-awareness, memory and understanding.

Susan D. Anderson is History Curator and Program Manager at the California African American Museum (CAAM) in Los Angeles, a member of the editorial board of California History journal, and a member of the Council of Friends of the Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley. She previously worked as a curator and director at the California Historical Society in San Francisco, the African American Museum & Library at Oakland, UCLA Library Special Collections, and USC Libraries. She has organized numerous exhibitions, appeared in media interviews, acted as advisor on public humanities projects, and published and lectured widely with an emphasis on California’s hidden African American past. Susan’s book, Nostalgia for a Trumpet: Poems of Memory and History, was published by Northwestern University Press. She is completing volume one of African Americans and the California Dream for Heyday Books.