Armed with firearms and a law book, back in 1966 Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale boldly patrolled Oakland’s mean streets, confronting the police over their treatment - or mistreatment - of Black people. Insisting on their second amendment right to bear arms and that the so-called “pigs” must obey the letter of the law when interacting with African Americans, their brazen defiance set them on a collision course with the Oakland Police Department, the FBI, the Nixon administration and COINTELPRO (the FBI’s counterinsurgency program designed to splinter the he Black Panthers, the Communist Party, and other social and political movements in the U.S.

As what the New Left called “AmeriKKKa” continues, remarkably, to grapple half a century later with ongoing police brutality against Black people, filmmaker Stanley Nelson’s new movie “The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution” reminds us that it was precisely this excessive use of force by lawless officers of the law that gave birth to what was originally named the Black Panther Party for Self Defense. Nelson’s rousing 116 minute documentary chronicles the war unleashed by local and federal law enforcement against the Panthers, including raids and shootouts in cities across the nation and the gunning down of members, including Little Bobby Hutton in the Bay Area and the charismatic leader Fred Hampton in Chicago.

“Vanguard” is told through exciting news clips and archival footage plus original interviews with BPP stalwarts who somehow managed to survive, such as Kathleen Cleaver, Emory Douglas, Elaine Brown and Ericka Huggins. Other interviewees include the recently deceased Civil Rights activist Julian Bond, defense attorney Gerald Lefcourt plus former SDS leader and Seale’s Chicago 8 co-defendant Tom Hayden. “Vanguard” reveals some of the party’s spectacular stunts, such as marching into the Sacramento State Capitol bearing arms, outraging Gov. Ronald Reagan. We hear that strident rhetoric, with sizzling sixties slogans such as “Off the pig!” and “All power to the people!” And all done in such style. Who could ever forget those cool black leather jackets and berets? Or Douglas’ provocative poster art rendered in posters and? Then there’s the Panthers’ newspaper aimed at inspiring readers to commit radical acts of resistance, but also the revolutionary politics linking the Black liberation struggle to anti-colonial movements around the world and also advocating unity with progressive whites.

Nelson, the chronicler of a cause, also portrays the side of the party motivated by a desire to serve the people: The Panthers’ free breakfast program for poor children (accompanied, admittedly, by heavy doses of indoctrination); the sickle cell anemia screening and awareness, which Nelson reminds us the Panthers pioneered; and Bobby Seale’s quixotic 1973 run in Oakland’s mayoral race, wherein the former political prisoner and eighth member of the Chicago “7” finished second in a nine-person race. (Alas, Seale is not interviewed for “Vanguard,” although the ex-BPP chairman is seen in period footage during the party’s heyday.)