The branding and visual identity of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense influenced the aesthetics of black power in what is arguably one of the organization’s enduring legacies. Posters from the late 1960s through the 1970s show members crowned with an Afro, armed with weapons and posing with raised fists, gestures and iconography that have become substitutes in the popular imagination for the values they have married. On view until September 10 at the Poster House in New York, Black Power to Blacks: Branding the Black Panther Party explores the bold graphics and prints that galvanized audiences, spread radical ideas, and offered a vision of revolutionary freedom.
An exhibition in five parts, Black power to blacks moves chronologically and thematically from the founding of the organization by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale in Oakland, California, on October 15, 1996, until its dissolution in the 1980s. Artists such as Emory Douglas, Dorothy Hayes , Danny Lyon and others are featured on topics including police brutality, political campaigning and gender roles. A mock-up of ‘No More Riots Two’s and Three’s’ (circa 1970) by Party Culture Minister Emory Douglas shows the design process for creating one of many images stuck to wheat in black communities.
Curator Es-pranza Humphrey contextualizes that the Panther’s powerful pro-black imagery emerged at a time when racist stereotypes portrayed in 19th- and 20th-century minstrel shows influenced perceptions of black identity. “All New This Season” (circa 1945) and a poster on the right depicting Newton from 1967 are foils for each other, describing the roles of black men in their communities. Unlike the Sambo-like figure on the left, Newton sits with an upright posture and a solemn expression showing the seriousness of the BPP’s agenda.
Humphrey said Hyperallergic that the militant aesthetic was a conscientious decision by the leadership of the organization to inspire and mobilize black people.
“That explains why Black Power is important; black ownership over black identity will propel the movement forward,” Humphrey said. Hyperallergic.
Understanding what the Panthers are up against, Humphrey moves on to Panther’s image. The organization’s logo comes from the Atlanta branch of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which organized the all-black independent political party Lowndes County Freedom Organization (LCFO), also known as the Black Panther Party, in 1965. SNCC Members Ruth Howard and Dorothy Zellner created the LCFO logo, and Lisa Lyons later revised it and designed the version used by the Black Panther Party of Oakland for self-defense.
The SNCC Legacy Project recounts that Howard settled on the Panther as an image of black power and self-determination. “I came with a dove,” Howard said. “No one thought it worked, and someone said I should look at the Clark College crest… That’s where the Panther is from.”
The logo’s story is one of the many ways Humphrey highlights the impact of women on the organization. Other images presented by Humphrey include newspaper front pages depicting Kathleen Cleaver and Angela Davis; the poster “Revolutionary Mother and Child” (1968) by Emory Douglas; and cuts on Afeni Shakurwho is famous represented herself in the Panther 21 trial and was the first to be acquitted plot to bomb police stations and assassinate officers. A document in the gallery shares contributions from 11 influential women in the organization, including Shakur, former leader Elaine Brown and Rosemari Mealy, whom Humphrey interviewed for the exhibit.
“[Mealy] would put on these puppet shows for kids to introduce them to Black Panther Party vocabulary,” Humphrey said.
The exhibition ends with the sight and sounds of freedom. Humphrey discusses the opposition the Panthers have faced and how the organization has succeeded, at times, despite seemingly insurmountable odds. The Haitian Revolution, represented by a poster of the 1938 play by William DuBois Haiti: A Drama of the Black Napoleon, frames the last two sections providing a historical model of a successful black revolution. Here, violent footage of Seale in the electric chair and Seale being tied up again during the Chicago Eight trial shows the Panthers communicating their unfair treatment by the US justice system. Songs from Elaine Brown album Seize the time play on loop through the gallery, aurally presenting the Panthers’ revolutionary vision of black power for all black people.
“I want black people to come here and understand that this is a safe space to embrace black power and what it can look like today,” Humphrey said.
