Paint it black

As Minister of Culture for the Black Panthers, Emory Douglas' revolutionary art was a key part of the push towards black empowerment in America. His legacy has been unduly forgotten – until now.

In the late 1960s, America was not a place to be black. After centuries of slavery and then segregation, with the gunshots that killed prominent black spokesmen, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, still echoing throughout its walls, the ghettoes, in the words of the poet Derek Walcott, had 'the strong clench of the madman, this is gripping the ledge of the unseen, before plunging into the abyss.' Repressed, denied or pushed to one side by the government, the ghetto's unemployed masses were subject to constant surveillance, harassment and patrol. It seemed that nothing short of a revolution could redress the rank imbalance. Juxtaposing the cultural symbols of white America with a new black empowerment, Gil Scott Heron promised, that the revolution 'will put you in the driver's seat' that 'black people will be in the street looking for a brighter day'. As Heron promised, the revolution was never televised, but in the work of Emory Douglas, Cultural Minister and Revolutionary Artist for the Black Panther Party, it was visualized. And did give, as the Panthers promised, 'all power to the people.'

Until recently, the work of Emory Douglas lay largely forgotten. With not even a Wiki to his name, Emory's work was not taught in art schools, and it was not displayed, framed and catalogued, in art galleries across America. But the art gallery was never Emory's domain even when his creativity was at its most fecund point - the ghetto, not the gallery was where people viewed his work. It was pasted on the walls, in storefront windows, on fences, doorways, telephone poles and booths, passing buses, alleyways, gas stations, barber shops, beauty parlours, laundromats, liquor stores, and the very huts of the ghetto itself. It was art of the people and for the people. It was there, like James Baldwin claimed all good art should be, 'to disturb the peace' – to trigger a new consciousness, a new anger at the situation in America and a new hope in the minds of the community. For the first time, it showed poor black people as proud and empowered, ready to carve out a better future for themselves. Then, the ideas he articulated – like equal opportunities for all – were seen as extreme. His task was to make such 'radical' ideas, articulated in the Black Panther's 10-point programme, seem normal and possible. And crucially addressed himself to the oppressed – not the oppressor. He did not illustrate slogans that made requests like 'jobs for all now!' but defiant, self-determining lines like 'They bled your mama, they bled your papa, but he won't bleed me.'

As a 'kid growing up in the early 60s' Emory told me on the phone from his home in California, 'you're seeing a lot of civil rights movements and African Americans having dogs set on them, water hoses, beatings. All these things played into my awareness of wanting to do something – which was highly frustrated.' In the mid sixties, riots had sparked in Detroit, Watts, Harlem, Rochester, New York, Jersey City and Philadelphia, in which mainly black people died. In order to maintain 'law and order' the police had come into the ghettoes, but their methods – which often ignored basic civil rights, and could be little short of brutal - meant they were seen 'just like an occupying force… a military operation. The police came into our community in military formation. They didn't come in to investigate or to help. They came in for information to make sure that they can control and dictate how and what we do.' It was in this context that Emory came to hear 'of some brothers who were in the community patrolling the police - but I didn't know who they were. I'd just heard of them.'

At the time, Emory was a 22-year-old student involved in the Black Arts Movement, who had trained in printing and commercial art. It was when he went to a meeting to discuss bringing Malcolm X's widow to address the community in the Bay Area, that he found out about the involvement of the Black Panthers and recognised the extent of what Huey P. Newton and Bobby Cleaver, the founders of the Black Panther Party, were envisioning for the black community. Not merely self-defence – by any means necessary- but serving 'the interests of the community. They informed and educated the people around the issues… articulating them in a way that even a child knew what we were talking about… survival programmes, alternative education programmes', free breakfast programmes for the children, setting up arts events, clinics 'and dealing with progressive politics.'

His involvement with the Black Panther Party – and its newspaper - quickly followed. 'There was a place called the Black House - a big Victorian house,' Emory recalls, 'Eldridge Cleaver [the acclaimed writer and the Minister of Information of the Black Panthers] used to live upstairs and Marvin X, the poet and playwright, had cultural activity that went on downstairs. People like Sonia Sanchez, Ed Bullen, - all kinds of folk - used to come through there. One evening I came by and there was no activity. Eldridge and Huey and Bobby were downstairs at a table… trying to put together the first issue of the Black Panther, trying to design the masthead and artwork.' Emory said he could improve the paper with some materials he had. 'So I left and came back - it took me about an hour – and they were surprised when I came back.' Deciding to set up the paper as an ongoing concern, the Panthers wanted Emory to direct it and use it to work out the vision of their 10 point programme: 'they wanted a revolutionary art and I would be the revolutionary artist'.

Emory did not disappoint. At its peak in 1970, The Black Panther had a weekly circulation of 139,000 (although some estimate it was, in fact, as high as 400,000) – and Emory's work was reprinted and pasted up across the African American community; his colour, back page posters were everywhere, raising the new consciousness. But with the success of The Black Panther there came ever-escalating attempts by the government to shut it down. Also in 1970, J Edgar Hoover, then the director of the FBI, declared the Panthers 'the greatest threat to U.S. security.' In his role as revolutionary artist, the Cointelpro [Counter Intelligence Programme] kept Emory under constant surveillance. The FBI contaminated print facilities, 'enlisted Teamsters to refuse shipments' and even convinced United Airlines to cancel the paper's bulk mail rate discounts. Emory, like the other Panthers, was often subject to government harassment and search without warrant. In 1969 alone, 27 Black Panthers were killed by police and at least 749 arrested.

Perhaps Emory's most enduring legacy to American culture is how he drove home the association between 'policemen' and 'pigs'. As the poet Sonia Sanchez wrote – in a poem which Emory was to illustrate - 'A policeman/ is a pig… and/ until he stops/killing blk/people/ cracking open their heads/ remember. The policeman/is a pig. (oink/oink).' 'Huey and Bobby had defined police as pigs.' Emory recalls, and his job, as revolutionary artist, was to make this flesh. Starting out illustrating a simple pig, which would bear the badge number of whichever policemen were 'harassing and intimidating the people', Emory developed it into a pig stood up on two hooves, dressed in police uniform with his badge, his gun, his snout and his tail: 'And so it was thereafter that it began to take off as a symbol in the community – symbolic of the oppression – and it transcended the community itself and it went national.'

Always internationalist in outlook, the Panthers provoked yet more controversy, when they stood united against the Vietnam war –even offering to send Panthers to fight for the Vietcong: 'We were opposed to the war in Vietnam just like many people today are opposed to the war in Iraq.' Emory explains, 'The Vietnamese never called us nigger. They never put waterhose on us. They never had dogs bite us. They weren't the ones who… denied us all the privileges of the white American … so they weren't the enemy. The enemy was within the country itself.'

After its early successes in the late 60s and early 70s, the Black Panther Party went into a decline. With Eldridge Cleaver and other Panthers in exile, and Huey P. Newton and yet more Panthers in jail or f`cing trial, Cointelpro did its best to exploit the 'internal contradictions' within the party. As Emory explains, 'You have to understand that we were very young and you could say sometimes we were very arrogant – but also [we] had the insight and ability' to adapt. But as time went on, with increasing sabotage, infiltration and the spread of misinformation, the Cointelpro whose 'primary dynamic' was to destroy the Black Panther Party was 'exploiting our weaknesses'. The Black Panther Party and its paper was finally disbanded in 1979/80. Since that time, not all the Panthers have gone on to as happy an afterlife as Emory – who has two grown up children and is now becoming much sought after in art circles, to talk about and exhibit his work. 'Huey', (who was shot dead, apparently by a drug dealer, in 1989), he sighs, 'Is the symbol of tragedy and is demonised… [But] it's a disease when you talk about addiction to drugs. At the same time the Black Panthers came about… it was a time in this country when there was experimentation going on with drugs. LSD, marijuana - you had all those things going on during that period. And at the same time you had a lot of ideas. So it was a recreation but at the same time it was an addiction – and addiction can create chaos and turmoil.'

When I ask if he has any nostalgia for the times he lived through – for the time when he made a real difference – he replies, 'No, not nostalgia -because you have to deal with the now. It wouldn't do anything but frustrate you to get caught up in what was. What was, is just a memory.' But in his art, the power of his drawings provokes more than a memory – they hit you with a blunt thud even now. For those who were never there, they can communicate pure pride and joy. The Black Panther party may have disbanded, its newspaper may have ceased to print – but for 13 years Emory's work really did give 'All power to the people'.