The Black Panther Party is often associated with armed resistance, but one of the most potent weapons in its outreach to African-Americans in cities across the country was its artwork. In posters, pamphlets and its popular newspaper, The Black Panther, the party’s imagery was guided by the vision of Emory Douglas, its minister of culture. His art came from many sources. As a teenager in San Francisco during the late 1950s and early 1960s, Mr. Douglas found himself incarcerated at the Youth Training School in Ontario, Calif., where he got involved with its printing shop. He went on to study graphic design at San Francisco City College, where he developed a deep interest in the Black Arts Movement, the artistic arm of the Black Power Movement. His particular background, a combination of art, printmaking and activism, eventually attracted the eye of the Black Panther co-founder Bobby Seale, and led to Mr. Douglas’s becoming a central figure in the party. The newspaper’s circulation eventually climbed to over 200,000, making it one of the most popular black newspapers of its day. In the years since the party’s demise, Mr. Douglas’s posters have come to be known as iconic artifacts of their era. | #EmoryDouglas #BlackPantherParty #TheBlackPanther #AllPowerToThePeople #SeizeTheTime (at Oakland, California)
