Until the lion has his own historian, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter, or so says an African proverb.

Dante James, an Emmy Award-winning independent filmmaker and Assistant Director of the African American Cultural Center, said he has tried to apply that proverb to his filmmaking.

Last fall, James began talking with David Hilliard, a founding member of the Black Panther Party, and the pair began work on a documentary film about Huey P. Newton and the Black Panther Party.

James said the film will be the first to tell the story of Newton and the Black Panther movement from the perspective of the organization itself.

“He who pays the fiddler has the right to call the tune,” James said. “If you take that and apply it to the story of the Black Panther Party, the people who have the wherewithal and the control of the media are the people who control the images of it.”

The most popular and iconic image of the Black Panther Party is a picture of members of the party marching into the California state legislature armed to protest pending gun legislation which would have made it illegal for them to carry weapons, James said. James said it is unfortunate that many people do not recall similar images of the many children to whom the Party gave free breakfasts or the group’s many voter registration drives.

African American Cultural Center director Sheila Smith McKoy, however, said she does recall those other images.

“The Black Panthers were part of my upbringing, as were other aspects of what we piece together and call the Civil Rights Movement,” said Smith McKoy, who was born in 1958. “We were in a time in our human rights history when the rights of African Americans were not recognized or respected, so people could commit crimes against the population in terms of just day-to-day interactions. But there were also policies in place that led to a situation where there was literally a time for a change. The 1960s was a time of chaos and change.”

Even so, many students may not know what the Black Panther Party stood for, and many others have never heard of Newton.

Lauryn Collier, a junior in animal science and chairperson of the Black Students Board, had never heard of Newton or the Black Panther Party until college.

“The extent of my education in black history from elementary through high school was the standard Black History Month and Martin Luther King Jr.,” Collier said. “It wasn’t until college that I got a completely different perspective on the Civil Rights movement.”

Had it not been for events such as Pan-Afrikan Festival and classes such as Africana studies, Collier said she might have never known.

“Being uninformed or being misinformed is a huge problem, not just at N.C. State but everywhere,” Collier said.

James said misinformation is also prevalent because the United States is still struggling with equality.

“Many people are misinformed because issues of race and class and gender and sexual orientation are still firmly imbedded in American culture,” James said. “It boils down to individuals who need to take a look at themselves. It boils down to government policy that can be discriminatory. It boils down to an economic system and a tighter economy which makes people react in ways that are oftentimes not in the spirit of equality and justice for all Americans.”

Similar to the United States in the ’60s, Smith McKoy said she believes this current decade is also a very critical time.

“There is a great opportunity for change,” said Smith McKoy. “Students are graduating in a time when all things aren’t right. This is a time when they can be engaged with making things right-just like the young people who were engaged in the Black Panther Party and all the other aspects that got us to the level of social justice where we are today.”

According to James, fighting for social justice takes courage and strength. For James, this courage to confront oppressive and exploitative forces was something that Newton and the Black Panthers embodied.

“I would hope that young people can find the courage and the internal fortitude to stand up for what it is that is important to them in the context of making this an equal and just society and demanding that this country live up to its promise of equality and justice for everyone,” James said.

As of now, there is no formal relationship between James’ film and the African American Cultural Center or the University. James is still raising money to fund the film.

For more information, visit James’ Kickstarter page: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1649581507/the-story-of-huey-p-newton-and-the-black-panther-p