Black pride and revolt: The art of Emory Douglas and the Black Panthers
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Clip: Emory on the power of art in the community (from Artist Studio Visit 2008)
Narration:
The images were called shocking, even dangerous. They showed the people that those in power didn’t want to see. They were the message for a newspaper that was one of the most read publications in the world.
And the images, words, and art were so powerful, so threatening to the status quo, that the U.S. government was actively working to destroy them.
Clip: We were creating a culture of resistance and defiance (from AIGA Medalist interview, 2015)
How did illustrations embolden a community? How did caricatures, portraits, and parody empower a movement and terrify the FBI? And what can we learn from the art of Emory Douglas and the Black Panther newspaper about how to make art as resistance today and tomorrow?
From Rebel Yell Creative, this is The Art of Resistance, a podcast about channeling our rage into creation, and using writing, music, and all kinds of art to resist the status quo.
I’m your host and producer Amy Lee Lillard, and I’m an author, podcaster, and autistic person who’s been obsessing over artists who resisted since I was a kid. And today, I’m looking to make all the weird art, and help others do the same.
(2:15) PART 1: CURFEW
Emory Douglas was raised in San Francisco in the 1950s. It was a time and place that tried to teach him his place.
This is Emory from a 2008 interview in his studio.
Clip: Saw what he knew wasn’t right (from Artist Studio Visit)
After his arrest, the juvenile detention facility had him work in a print shop. After release, he went to City College and learned more about the printing process.
Meanwhile, in the 1950s and early 60s he watched footage of the civil rights protests down South, where police unleashed fire hoses and dogs on peaceful demonstrators. It was powerful, but also disheartening. That’s what white people were willing to do to stop black people from having basic self-determination.
Then in 1966 , Emory learned about a new organization.
Clip: Hearing about the Party (from Artist Studio Visit)
(4:00) PART 2: A BLACK PANTHER
The Black Panthers were not interested in the nonviolence preached by Martin Luther King Jr and others from the civil rights movement. The movement had done little to help Black people outside the south, and barely there. This kind of action couldn’t truly liberate Black people, or even give them power over their own lives.
Instead, the Black Panthers were created on the principle of self-defense. Specifically, they said Black people should take up arms to defend themselves against the police “by any means necessary.”
The founders, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, were in a studio apartment one day in 1967 putting together a newspaper to describe their mission when Emory Douglas stopped by. He told them he had access to printing materials from City College, and could help out. He made some drawings. Huey and Bobby liked what they saw.
Clip: The request from Huey and Bobby (from Artist Studio Visit)
Just a year later, as chapters were popping up all over the country, the Party message shifted. Instead of armed vigilance, the Black Panthers would now focus on social justice, education, and community empowerment.
That meant programs to help low-income communities, like free breakfasts for all school kids – 20,000 children each day. They gave away free clothes and shoes to those kids that needed them. They sponsored schools, legal aid offices, local ambulance service, and health clinics and sickle-cell testing centers in several cities. They organized voter registration drives, and campaigned for prison reform. Eventually, they even ran for office.
This evolved focus also meant education about the systems of oppression that crossed color lines.
Clip: The Party enlightened and informed (from Artist Studio Visit)
This is Chicago Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton from a 1969 event.
Clip: Fred – across color (from Fred Hampton on Revolution And Racism)
They meant what they said. Over the years they built alliances and worked closely with other organizations dedicated to fighting oppression – Latinx, Asian, indigenous, and international anti-colonial revolutionary movements.
In just one example, when the disabled community took over a government building in 1977 to demand equal access to schooling and employment, the officials locked the doors and tried to starve the demonstrators out. One quick phone call from the organizer Judith Heumann, and the Black Panthers showed up with free security and free food for everyone, for weeks.
(8:00) PART 3: REVOLUTIONARY ART
From his starting point in 1967, for twelve+ years, Emory designed all the of the weekly issues. 537 issues in all. He used everything he’d learned about print production, used simple tools like markers, rub-off type, and prefabricated texture materials. To keep costs low, each paper was printed in one or two colors. They worked in people’s bedrooms, and work was done quick and on the cheap.
The resulting images are beautiful, and awful, and enraging, and empowering.
In his book, Black Panther, which is a fantastic collection of his covers and other art, he says he wanted to show the conditions that made revolution reasonable, even necessary. That meant showing people fighting back against slumlords, and people declaring their rights, and yes, even taking up arms. That mean showing the things affecting everyone – capitalism run amuck. Imperialism. Fighting wars started by greedy leaders. Lack of healthcare. Poor education.
Emory also wanted to show pride and hope in blackness. He made covers and posters that talk about thriving while fighting, about bright futures, education, happy people fighting for happiness.
He frequently made covers and posters that showed one catch-all image for the oppressors: the pig.
Clip: The Pig (from Artist Studio Visit)
The art went there. The pig was first one particular officer, then became all those in power. Covers and art showed the LBJ cabinet as pigs that were lynched. It said all power to the people, death to the pigs. It said for every pork chop there is a frying pan.
Here’s Emory from a 2021 interview.
Clip: visual language (from Emory Douglas: Art for the People)
He followed the party credo of “each one teach one” – mentored and managed party members in producing the paper, mentoring and inspiring artists to make art that also appeared in the paper\
Clip: Each one teach one (from Artist Studio Visit)
Emory made the newspaper covers and art inside the pages. He made a full back cover, which was often reprinted separately in full color. These were pasted on buildings, walls, windows, telephone poles in the community. It was art to see yourself in, to see the common struggle in.
And often times it was a reminder of why the fight was necessary.
(12:43) PART 4: COINTELPRO
The leaders and many members of the Black Panthers were arrested, again and again, on trumped up or entirely false charges. Huey Newton, Angela Davis, the New York 21, and Bobby Seale, who had the distinction of being the first to be bound and gagged for demanding self-representation in court.
But it wasn’t just local police driving these arrests. In 1972, a group of activists stole all the files from a local FBI office and sent them to the media. The files showed a decades-long campaign by the FBI to harass, frame, arrest, and take out threats to the country. J. Edgar Hoover and many of his agents had all been members of fraternities with ties to the KKK. So in their eyes any and all black activists were dangerous.
This campaign by the FBI was named COINTELPRO, and it was highly illegal. They tapped phones without warrants, they conducted random searches without cause, they blackmailed with abandon, and they planted agents and assets into organizations.
It’s also one of the reasons the image of the Black Panthers as violent terrorists survives to this day.
The Black Panthers knew this was happening, as did many other organizations that were on the FBI target list. But there was no recourse – when the cops with the most power were defying laws every damn day, who can stop it?
This is Emory from 2023.
Clip: Police attacked office (from Revolutionary Artist Emory Douglas on The Black Panther)
And that amount of power kept growing. In Chicago, the local police were given free rein. They murdered Black Panther leader Fred Hampton with the help of an FBI informant.
The stolen FBI files eventually led to a reckoning for the FBI. But it was temporary – every administration since Reagan has given the FBI, and other agencies, more power to spy, harass, and take out opposition.
This all showed up in the pages of the newspaper. Emory drew covers and posters reminding people that Black Panther leaders were in prison. He drew art to tell the story of Fred Hampton. And maybe most important of all – he showed people that they were right. The powers that be were doing everything they could to keep that power.
(16:45) PART 5: IMPACT
So how do you measure the impact of the Black Panther newspaper and Emory’s art? Especially in the face of massive organized and illegal backlash?
The Black Panther newspaper had some impressive numbers: At its peak, it was read by 400,000 people and had the highest readership of any paper in the U.S.
There’s also other data. The newspaper was distributed around the world, and activists from every kind of community shared Emory’s art to project a spirit of shared struggle.
But maybe the most impactful thing we can take as creators? The Black Panthers conceived of a Revolutionary Artist as a key role and critical part of the revolution. They saw the power of art, and new how art, politics, and life are all inseparable. Especially in the face of oppression.
Huey, Bobby, Emory, and all the Black Panthers knew art could power structural, lasting change. Simply by showing the community, encouraging pride, and telling everyone to seize their time here. To take the power back for themselves.
And they inspired generations.
Clip: Emory on inspiration (from Artist Studio Visit)
(18:56) CONCLUSION:
What can we learn from Emory Douglas? What can we do as creative people in this fucked-up world?
Because we are all creative. We can all finds ways to resist.
I want to leave us with this quote from Emory in his Position Paper No1 On Revolutionary Art, published in 1970.
Revolutionary Art is an art that flows from the people. It must be a whole and living part of the people’s lives, their daily struggle to survive….The Revolutionary Artist’s talents are just one of the weapons he uses in the struggle. His art becomes a tool for liberation…the ghetto itself is the gallery for the Revolutionary Artist’s drawings. His work is pasted on the walls of the ghetto, in storefront windows, fences, doorways, alleyways, gas stations, and laundromats. This way the Revolutionary Artist educates the people as they go through their daily routine, from day to day, week to week, and month to month. This way the Revolutionary Artist cuts through the smokescreens of the oppressor and creates brand new images of Revolutionary action for the total community.
Art is resistance. It’s a weapon, a tool, an entire course of learning. But more than anything, it’s truth that can cut through the bullshit. Art doesn’t have to be fancy, or product-driven, or determined by gatekeepers.
So here’s what we do from here:
We tell our stories, in our way. We get creative and get weird, and work beyond the parameters we think box us in.
We create revolutionary art to reach the people who need to see it and hear it.
And we don’t think of this as short term. Even if we get a new administration in 2028, even if we miraculously come out of this terrifying, tyrannical moment, there is so much to fight against and for. This is a long-term commitment to making art for a better world.
OUTRO
The Art of Resistance is a podcast from Rebel Yell Creative, which is creative consulting, courses and community for good work, good art, and good people. We help community groups, small businesses and creative individuals dedicated to intersectionality and resistance build, create, and resist.
If you’re a creative looking to make art as resistance, subscribe at rebelyellcreative.com.
And if you have a story about making art as resistance that we should feature on the show, one from the past, or one from today, send us a note! Find the link in the show notes.
This is Amy Lee Lillard, and I wrote, narrated, and produced this show. Check the show notes for all sources, and some great additional reading and watching.
I’ll see you next time.
SOURCES AND FURTHER READING
Black Panther: The Revolutionary Art of Emory Douglas, Emory Douglas (with essays by Sam Durant, Collette Gaiter, Amiri Baraka)
Position Paper No1 on Revolutionary Art, Emory Douglas
The Art of Protest,
Being Heumann, Judith Heumann
“The ‘Do Not File’ File,” SNAFU with Ed Helms Podcast
“The Black Arts Movement,” Black Past
“The Black Panther Party: Challenging Police and Promoting Social Change.” Smithsonian National Museum for African American History and Culture.
“Emory Douglas,” MOMA.
Emory Douglas: Art for the People: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2021)
Revolutionary Artist Emory Douglas on The Black Panther | Under the Cover: Artforum, 2023.
Emory Douglas: 2015 AIGA Medalist: AIGAdesign 2025.
Emory Douglas - Artist Studio Visit: Babylon Falling, 2008
Emory Douglas: The Black Panther Artist | Artbound | PBS SoCal, 2021.
Fred Hampton on Revolution And Racism.
The Art of Resistance Podcast is about channeling our rage into creation, and using writing, music, and all kinds of art to resist the status quo. Season 1 includes episodes on Emory Douglas, Riot Grrrl, Gran Fury, Samizdat, Chicana Artivistas, and more. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.