San Francisco art exhibit features imagery born from rebellion of Black Panther party in Oakland

By John Ramos

As the Bay Area commemorates Black History Month, the contributions of African Americans to art and culture are celebrated.  But one exhibit opening Thursday in San Francisco features imagery born from the rebellion of the Black Panthers, thanks to a local man who created a whole new form of Revolutionary Art. 

People often associate the civil rights struggle with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. But as he was advocating a dream of equality, another action was taking place in the streets of Oakland: defiance.  

The Black Panthers were about rebellion and pointing out the injustices that occurred daily on the streets of the Black community. 

“Racist police agencies throughout the country are intensifying the terror, brutality, murder and repression of Black people,” said Black Panthers co-founder Bobby Seale in 1967.

So, Seale and co-founder Huey Newton recruited a young man named Emory Douglas to create images that would get that message across in a community newspaper, put out by the Panthers.  

They named the 20-year-old Douglas “Minister of Culture,” and his work, combining freehand graphic art with photos and text clipped from other media, gave the paper a unique look and eventually became an iconic style for the larger protest movement.

“And you had people who were activists, who would disagree with us, but were inspired by what we were doing,” said Douglas. “So, they were doing some of the same things. So, you were transforming.”

On Wednesday, Douglas was at the African American Arts and Culture Complex in San Francisco, where an exhibit called “Emory Douglas: In our lifetime” was about to open to the public the following day.  

The show features some of Douglas’s most iconic images from the pages of The Black Panther newspaper. Some are violent in nature, showing guns pointing at the oppressive establishment, usually portrayed as pigs.  Others showed the poverty that many in the community were having to endure.  

But, still, others showed the more tender side of family life, a mother kissing her young daughter.  Douglas described his work as “on-the-job training” that was never expected to be displayed as fine art.

“I think it only ended up in an art museum because now you had progressive people, liberals and others, who worked in the museums, who can now look at it as a part of American history,” he said.   

Exhibit co-curator Rio Yanez said it is important to reintroduce Douglas’s work to an audience that has changed with gentrification.

“We lost a large segment of the population that was really familiar with his work as a revolutionary artist,” said Yanez.  “And I think that is part of the intent of the show, is to really reconnect this incredible work with folks who live here, with an audience.”

Working quietly in a corner of the museum was Darryl Thompson, an Oakland artist who remembered the Black Panthers in his neighborhood as a kid. He said it means a lot to be asked to replicate a wall-sized version of one of Douglas’ images.

“I’m getting teary-eyed a little bit,” said Thompson, “because I would always see the papers, and it made me more aware of who I was as a young kid.  His artwork told the story of the Panthers, you know?  His artwork told the stories of what was going on at the time.”

Douglas said history will determine the impact of the Black Panthers on the civil rights movement.  But as the man who helped give the movement its look, he said to be inspired by it, is to be informed — and enlightened — by it.

The exhibit is set to open to the public on Thursday at the African American Arts and Culture Complex at 762 Fulton St. in San Francisco.