In 1958 I started 7th grade. Mr. Conrad, who taught industrial arts, had converted a closet into a dark room and offered us photography classes after school. I was hooked. Saved up my cutting grass money and bought a Yashica Twin Lens Reflect camera. While I really loved shooting–at school they called me the “picture man”–working in the dark room was where I shined.

The Sixties was much more than simply another decade. So much happened. For example: 1965, Malcolm is assassinated. 1968, King is assassinated. Sit-ins and school take-overs. Nothing was ever the same afterwards. The bland, establishment blanket was ripped apart. Viet Nam. And then came Black Power and the seventies.

Jim Hinton was a filmmaker. Only recently have some of his work from that period been digitized and made available. One of the many short films he made focused on the then burgeoning Black Power movement. People born after 2000 were not even around when America was literally on fire. Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time was more than a snappy book title.

When the New Yorker magazine presented an 8-minute video overview of that period I was overjoyed. Entitled “An Unseen Body Of Work Shows A Different Side Of Black Power” this is an exquisite gem, a video time capsule that brings to life a bygone albeit timeless era. Hinton’s films offer us a peek at what we looked like making history.

The people. The places. Events. I knew them. Had been to “New Ark” (which is how LeRoi Jones spelled Newark, New Jersey back in the day). What Hinton filmed is some of what I experienced. And now it’s available for my grandchildren and their peers to see. Indeed, this is a gift to and for the whole world.

I give thanks for the work of Jim Hinton.

Harambee! Harambee! Harambee! Harambee! Harambee! Harambee! Harambee!