RECOMMENDED
Accompanying DePaul University Museum’s reflection on the 1968 Democratic convention, the school’s Center for Latino Research has mounted an independent double show with more than eighty photographs highlighting the Young Lords, Black Panthers and the precursors of the Rainbow Coalition, by a bevy of local shooters. A welcome supplement to the Museum’s images of the anti-war movement, the Center reminds us that 1960s activism was broad-based and addressed issues far beyond militarism. The contrast between protest in the parks and revolution in the ‘hoods could not be greater—the blacks and Latinos were tough and styled themselves as a militant, indeed, military movement, as we see most graphically in Hiram Maristany’s black-and-white photo “Formal Introduction of the Young Lords Organization to the Puerto Rican Community” (1969) where macho young men in berets stand on the stage with arms folded flanking a speaker haranguing a crowd of homies. Back in the day, class divergences that surfaced later were subsumed for a moment in a common resistance. (Michael Weinstein)
Through January 9, 2009 at DePaul University Library Haber Lounge, 2350 N. Kenmore, (773)325-7316.