Black Panther: The Revolutionary Art of Emory Douglas

Emory Douglas saw his ‘Rebolutionary’ art as a necessary tool in the fight against his community’s oppressors; his talent as an artist was the weapon that he chose from the arsenal provided by the Black Panther Party. He saw the ghetto as the ‘gallery for the Revolutionary Artist’s drawings’ where one could paste one’s work on walls, in storefront windows, on fences, doorways, telephone poles, beauty parlors etc.

There’s no doubt that the Black Panther Party’s legacy of self-determination shouldn’t be forgotten. Unfortunately the history of the party, like many of the great movements in American history, has largely been forgotten or twisted for satisfactory story-telling, relegated to the ‘back of the bus’ along with many other fellow fighters for freedom and basic equity in class structure.

Much more than stylish gun-slingers, the Black Panthers dedicated themselves to their community. A community that had long been trudged upon by white police, white slum lords, and a relentlessly racist and class-ist government; police brutality and poverty became an expected fact of life that they chose not to live with.

Rather than wait for the equal treatment that they would never see, the Panthers informed the world that they would wait no more. Taking matters, and arms, into their own hands they organized becoming an active element in the communities in which they lived. The party moved beyond asking for, or demanding, help; they began their own programs which extended social services to those in need. Some of those programs included free breakfast for school children, free clothing, the senior program, free health care, free legal aid, free business program, the bussing program, community patrol of police, liberation schools, and loans to welfare mothers.

Knowing that they must rely on themselves to solve the unique inequities that faced their communities, the Panthers educated themselves on the ideologies of Marx and Lenin while keeping themselves open to adaptation of the principle’s of this ‘scientific socialism’. The BPPs attempt to lift their people out of squalor and their candid intransigence was riposted with judicial abuse that left many of the Party’s members in prison, in exile, and/or dead.

The FBI had a field day that encompassed a mélange of harassments of the Party’s members and member’s families; and the police began an overtly racist program of terror involving the systematic degradation of the party’s leaders. In 1969, the police raided many of the party chapters leaving dozens dead and scores incarcerated.

Today’s society has grown so accustomed to the inundation of advertising through billboards and posters that we fail to recognize the subliminal seeds that are being planted. The antithesis to these ads, the political posters that were made abundant in the 1960’s and 1970’s by the anti-Vietnam war movement and the black liberation movement, seem to be a relic of the past. Yet the efficacy and potency of Douglas’s images can still be felt as the war in Vietnam has been replaced by the war in Iraq and the ubiquity of racism holds strong. The history of an entire culture and its legacy has been reduced to one month out of an entire year.

Black Panther: The Revolutionary Art of Emory Douglas was an impressive assemblage of propagandistic posters and paraphernalia from Douglas’s days as Minister of Culture for the Party. The exhibit touted an impressive 150 pieces from Douglas’s oeuvre which were created over the duration of his work, from 1967 to the early 1980’s, with the Panthers. The work is imbued with the spirit of revolution and change inspiring one to take note of the outdated axiom of ‘high’ and ‘low’ class and culture.

I can only hope that at some point we will see that the issue of 'class' is a collective issue that must be recognized as such. As long as we separate ourselves based on race, sex, religious orientation, sexual orientations then we are allowing the method of 'Divide & Conquer' to pervade our lives. The separation of people is a powerful tool; its function serves to undermine the working class and the poor.

A great read on the subject of the BPP is ‘This Side of Glory’ by David Hilliard & Lewis Cole:

http://www.amazon.com/This-Side-Glory-Autobiography-Hilliard/dp/155652384X

Mumia Abu-Jamal interviews Emory Douglas on prison radio:

http://www.prisonradio.org/maj/5_2_04_e_douglas.html