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Emory Douglas

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Emory Douglas is an American graphic Designer, most notable for designing the back-page illustrations of the Black Panther Newspaper spanning 13 years until the party’s demise. Douglas’ initial experience with art and basic print design at the tender age of 15 in California’s Youth Training School detention facility aroused further training at City College after his release. In 1967, 22-year-old Douglas met Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, and Eldridge Cleaver, founders and leaders of the Black Panther Party shortly after their very first publications of the paper, and joined as Black Panther graphic designer. He sought inspiration from the community he worked closely with, marrying the experiences and efforts of the people he represented, the cause and 10-point program of the party, and the weekly bold assertive graphics worth well over a thousand words. Douglas’ drawings and collages were highly in coordination with the realities of violence inflicted upon black residents of Oakland and black Americans everywhere in the 60’s and 70’s.

 

While the newspaper put pen to paper, Douglas put images to words in the form of black ink trap prints and collages that circulated at a peak rate of 139,000 copies per week. Many of these graphics disseminated reminders of growing pains in his community as well as community programs like free breakfast for children, clinics, and arts events. The vast distribution of his graphics in tandem with the papers into the hands of the party populous allowed the increased visibility of the revolution. His graphic designs indeed were graphic, though mainly antagonizing the police and military in self-defense and rightfully so. As a result of fearing the party as a terrorist group, the FBI cut off resources, unwarranted, and ultimately made the challenge of any further distribution of the newspaper insurmountable.

 

Douglas’ living legacy continues as he dedicates his artwork to social justice today as Artist in Residence at Elam International School of Fine Arts.

 

The Black Panther Party exposed the violence inflicted on black bodies and demanded autonomy for black Americans. Emory Douglas visually matched the tone of the party’s voice and amplified the voices of his inspirers. What was viewed by the police as transgressive art, his illustrations apply to our current circumstances and it took a lot of guts, sensitivity, compassion, and passion to give power to the people.

 


 


Douglas popularized the labeling of cops as pigs with recurrent visual tropes.

 


Land of Plenty. Compacting many messages into one, this image campaign highlights poverty both in literal and representative terms to garner support from party followers for Bobby Seale.












References:

https://www.cityartsmagazine.com/art-revolution/

 

https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/douglas-emory-1943/

 

https://www.aiga.org/visualizing-a-revolution-emory-douglas-and-the-black-panther-new

 

https://laughtoncreatves.com/13-african-american-graphic-designers-part-2/

 

 

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