Emory Douglas
Black Panther Minister of Culture 1967–1980
So the Black Panther party was more appealing to my desire. You have to understand too that across the country there were many rebellions going on in the African American community. You had a high concentration of police brutality and disrespect by a predominantly all white police department in the Bay Area and all over the country at that time, except for some of the more concentrated black communities in the south. So what you had was a high level of young black men shot, murdered, ten or twelve or thirteen years old, running from the scene. Perhaps they did a petty crime, running from the scene, shot in the back. No gun found, no weapons involved. This was all across the country, being justified. And people seeing this, talking about it created an atmosphere where there were many rebellions behind these incidents. And so there was this high level of frustration amongst young people, understanding that during that time too you had the student movement going on in the country. The Free Speech Movement here in the Bay Area, also in Latin America you had a lot of student protests going on that you were aware of and what have you. With all of that, and from time to time you’d turn on the TV and on the international news you’d see it, and you’d see it in South Africa. See the water hoses used on protestors. See the tanks in the community. See people being brutalised. Being demonised and characterised as criminals, and anything except being respected as people demanding their human rights. The same things you’re seeing here you’re seeing on the international level. So these things all played into my desire to be part of something, to bring about change like many other young folks at that time.
Within that era, within a world which was so hostile to black people, who were some of the artists who evoked that spirit of rebellion and who were instructive and inspirational to you as a young man trying to speak out and create art that was relevant to your community?
Well basically I began early on in the Black Arts Movement. Going out to San Francisco State and in the community, within that era while in the Black Panther Party there was this amazing political art that was being produced in Cuba by OSPAAL, (Organization In Solidarity With The People Of Africa, Asia And Latin America ) that was my inspiration along with the war resistant poster art being produced in Vietnam, China the Middle East and here in the US.
However, as a young man I came out of a kind of hard core environment, not in the sense of family life, but hanging out on the streets and not going to school and all those things. And so I wasn’t really inspired as a youngster by any particular artists. I liked to draw as a kid, cartoons, comics, stuff like that. But there was one artist whose art I used to see as a youngster all the time, when I stayed at my aunt’s house, his name was Charles White. Every year she’d get this calendar from this insurance company, and it would have his work on this calendar every year. So I kind of admired his work.
© 2008 EMORY DOUGLAS -ARTIST RIGHTS SOCIETY- (ARS)