The Stephen Shames Foundation [ZOO Daily]
tephen Shames is a brilliant photojournalist, much of whose work since his stint as the official photographer for the Black Panthers has been in bringing images of street kids to a broad audience. In 2000, he decided to pay to put two Ugandan AIDS orphans in school. By 2003, his Foundation was putting 20 kids in school. Turning over what he started to the Ugandan organization 'Concern For The Future' after only 3 years, Steve describes as 'democracy in action!' Employing some of what he learned with the Panthers - the importance of community programs, and giving people things they really need - Stephen's foundation focuses on education, giving kids skills to help them rise above poverty.more...
Stephen Shames :: Making Sense of History
'In April 1967, Stephen Shames, a college student at the University of California, Berkeley, met the Panthers at a rally to end the war in Vietnam. He was invited to photograph them and continued to do so until 1973. His close friendship with the Black Panthers, and Bobby Seale in particular, gave Shames unusual access to the organization, allowing him to capture not only the public face of the Party - street demonstrations, protests, and militant posturing - but also unscripted behind-the-scenes moments, from private meetings held in the Party headquarters, to Bobby Seale at work on his mayoral campaign in Oakland. The immediacy and intimacy of Shames's photographs offer an uncommonly nuanced portrait of this dynamic social movement, during one of the most tumultuous periods in recent U.S. history.' more...