Dana Chandler gives a gallery talk in “Afro-American Artists: New York and Boston,” 1970

A man stands in front of a large painting of a many and speaks about it to a rapt audience.

Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists records (M042). Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections, Boston, Massachusetts. Box 26, Folder 3. All artwork pictured © Dana C. Chandler Jr.

Dana Chandler gives a gallery talk on his portrait of Bobby Seale, the national chairman of the Black Panther Party who was on trial in New Haven, Connecticut, at the time. Under Chandler’s arm is the small head of his then six-year-old daughter, Dahna. In 2021 she recalled that the MFA “did not feel like a space that was welcoming. To be honest, most spaces that were white dominated did not feel like welcoming spaces to me, and the Museum of Fine Arts at the time was not an exception to that rule.”