Warm, friendly and passionate about the movement, Emory Douglas generously invited CodeZ into his home to discuss the past, present and future of revolutionary art.

LR: So I wanted to ask you about the kinds of images that you drew. [Many people are familiar with] the drawings of the pigs. In thinking about the drawings of everyday black folk that you did and how different they were from what was in the mainstream media, can you talk about …what you wanted those images to convey, how did you develop the facial expressions. Did you draw on actual people?

ED: We had photo files I would use. And then sometimes I would use models, comrades, or what have you, when I had the opportunity. But the whole thing came about when you’d talk and you’d do a drawing and then people would see the drawing and they’d say, “That looks just like my uncle.” (laughter) That looks just like my sister. You know what I mean? So you know you’re on to something. Then you start to realize that what you’re doing is you’re inspiring those who see themselves in those images. You begin to realize that what you’re doing is you’re making them the heroes, you’re putting them on the stage. Making them a part of it. And people used to say, “We bought the paper ‘cause we want to see the artwork on the back.” Or, “We want to tell what direction the Party was going in and what happened is you continue to do those drawings because you knew were into something that was very interconnected to what you were feeling, you know? And what you were trying to express. And for the people to give you that kind of feedback from it encouraged you to continue in that vein.

LR: And I imagine people were putting up the back pages, putting them up on their walls…

ED: Yeah, yeah. What would happen in the early days, before comrades would go out in the morning to sell newspapers, they would take wheat paste [and wheat paste the back pages up]. We had a lot of lampposts and vacant lots and all that and that’s how we came to define the community as the art gallery because of what the comrades used to do. They were inspired and they loved the work themselves. All that played into the work and how it became a part of the community.

LR: Women are so prominent in your drawings and that’s not quite as common to see.

ED: We always in the Black Panther Party said that women were equal, even though there were the [male] faces of the party [Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver] women were equal. We were their other half and they were our other half and we made the whole of the party. … Sisters had always been in the leadership of the party, and had been on the frontlines, had been arrested, had been wounded and all those things. When the raids in LA and in Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, when the NY 21 were arrested and what have you.

…Also just talking with the African Liberation Movements. I remember a discussion that went on with somebody in the party and they were talking about the role of women that played in the African Liberation Movement and how they had a prominent role and what have you. So you were inspired by that also and then seeing the artwork that was coming back through OSPAAAL [Organization of Solidarity with the Peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America, a major source of revolutionary posters during the 1970s] and through the Middle East and Palestine and also China. So you’re always seeing those images that have women, always in the artwork. Viet Nam, all of them had women.

LR: Children are also really prominent in your images. Talk about that a little bit.

ED: You know the children… We always used to use that quote from Mao in the early days, “Children make the revolution.” We had our school, and liberation schools prior to the school itself. And then all of these things again you’re seeing nationally and internationally children being involved in the movement for change, being the foundation for that change, for the future. All that was inspired by everything, all the activities, all the social concerns were a part of the art and how the children became a part of it… The kids were always an inspiration to everyone in the party. That was the main focus of everything.

LR: I know that you trained other artists in the party. Who else would come and do art with you?

ED: Matilaba (Tarika Lewis) was in the early days of the party. She was the first one that I worked with. Then there were others who were inspired by the party…And sometimes their work may not have been so good so I would try and clean it up. There were people in the chapter. And then there were people who came out here from different chapter branches… All of them… They had the skills. Some of them were better artists than I was, but they didn’t know how to put the politics into it. The social content that we were trying to put in the artwork. So that was my thing to show them how to do that. At the same time, I would show them how to cut and paste, how to lay out the paper, b/c they didn’t have those skills. Eventually each one, as it evolved, I’d give them more responsibilities. You’d have to lay out a couple of pages here or maybe do headlines. Or if I had the time, I’d say, “Hey you want to do the back page this week?” And they would do the back page of the paper.

LR: What is your favorite piece of your work?

ED: Well, I have no favorite. I look at all of them that they were relative to the particular time that they were done and if they met the criteria of what they were trying to achieve at the particular time. Not that this one was greater than this. There are some I’m more pleased with than others.

LR: So which ones do you feel fit, it sounds like you have a criteria…

ED: You had the pig drawings but then you can look at some of the pig drawings and say “Oh yeah, I like this pig drawing better than I like the other pig drawings.” But then there were those I did where I put the community on the stage, making them the heroes and I say, “Oh yeah, I like these here.” You see what I’m saying? The same thing going on dealing with the cartoons, the political cartoons, that I did with Nixon and all those other folks. So there are some I’d say that, “Oh yeah, this came off very strong.”

LR: You’ve said that posters were really important to that period and that was what everyone was doing to get their message out. How do you think political art changed after the Panthers and after the Panther newspaper?

ED: Well its changed because you have a whole other dynamics, it’s changed with the dynamics. With the introduction of substance and drugs into the community and what have you. All of those things play into the consciousness of people. Dismantling of social programs. Now you got people scrambling to survive whereas during that period you still have community. Breakdown of that comes when you have COINTELPRO sending out misinformation to people and terrorizing people and the whole bit, psychologically. So you have a whole other dynamic come into play that didn’t even exist in that time the way it exists now… Hip hop, whether it’s positive or negative, they grew up on it. We didn’t have that back then. So you have a whole other mindset of young African Americans and their thinking and outlook because of the fact that…as opposed to now when they’re militant that get a million dollar contract.

LR: How do you feel about your art moving from the pages of the panther newspaper, from the community as art gallery to formal art galleries and into art books?

ED: (sigh) Well I mean if it’s educational, if it demonstrates what the Party was about through the art, then that’s a positive. From that perspective. It’s not like I’m trying to get into galleries and that kind of stuff. You have a lot of progressive thinking folks who are working at these galleries who want the work for their audience. You had 3500 people who came to the opening [of “Black Panther: Rank and File”] here in San Francisco. And since then I’ve been down there a couple times giving presentations, slide presentations for their audience. It still gives them education for those who don’t know or have some questions about the history.

LR: The function for you of your work has not changed then. It’s still about political education.

ED: Yes.

LR: So what do you say to up and coming artists, politically conscious artists who are working now?

ED: You have to stay in touch with the issues. For instance, for myself, I have a list I work off of sometimes.

LR: And the list is ideas that you’re working through?

ED: HIV/AIDS, homelessness, prison industrial complex, all of those things. I do other things but I always come back to those things I’m working on. So it would be good to them that if they see things they’re inspired by to make a list and to include it into work that they’re doing. And not to be discouraged. Most times there’s no money involved. They got to do it out of love, unconditional love. They got to do it because they want to share their expressions, their feelings about social concerns.

And turn it into a real art form. Make it into an art form. They used to try to say this was propaganda. It wasn’t art. We even had that discussion some in the Black Arts Movement, whether it was real art or not. But it was a real art form. It’s just wasn’t mainstream. It was social commentary.

LR: What is revolutionary art today?

ED: Overcoming obstacles. I mean then, now, in the future. Once you achieve a certain success, or establish a certain criteria as it relates to concerns then you have to implement that thing. And once you implement it it’s revolutionary. So it’s about overcoming obstacles, it’s dealing with change, the process of change. And giving people some insight into the issues that we’re dealing with. Racism. Racism is a rampant thing. In a way, it’s been almost mainstreamed now, to justify it. Apologists for it. These are things that perhaps can be thought out. How can you express that so people can see that? They may be thinking about it but they don’t see it visually.

But then again what you had then we had organizations. But now you got electronic media where you can access and reach millions of people in that way. But the actual out- there organization that we did during that period when the art was art of consciousness it was… You know you were out there, you had that connection, actual physical connection. So it’s a great difference now than then in a lot of ways. Because lots of people put their stuff on electronic media for people to look at. They get inspired, they’re moved they do something.

But that’s the same thing too with people all over the world who got to our work and stuff, and said they were admirers of our work even though they had never met me or any other folks. They liked the paper or what have you. So I guess it’s still an extension of that.

LR: I thought one of the most interesting pieces at the “Black Panther: Rank and File” exhibit [which brought together Douglas’s work, and photographs and other Panther documents with contemporary art inspired by the history and legacy of the BPP] was the Soul Salon 10 installation. [he installation included a large bottle filled with empty liquor bottles and depicted the overabundance of liquor stores and lack of fresh food in the ghetto.] Doing that work of saying, “This is what’s happening in West Oakland now, and here’s what we need to be paying attention to.” I thought that was very good.

ED: One thing I was going to mention to them, what they didn’t put in the bottle, what they missed: they made the bottle look too clean. And then at the same time they didn’t put anybody in the bottle, or any actual people laying out, people begging. No dilapidated houses. They had some images in there but they didn’t have a couple of images that would bring all those other images together. But the effort was there.

LR: I can see that. Now thinking about your pieces, there’s that balance between the stern and determined face of the everyday black person in these really dilapidated surroundings. And having to have that balance basically of dignity in really undignified conditions.

ED: Right. It’s always trying to keep that determination in those images while at the same time showing the conditions, the issues themselves.

LR: Because otherwise it can be so… what’s the word I’m looking for?

ED: Depressing?

LR: Yes, depressing [both laughter] You get hopeless.

ED: There had to be hope. And that was always the question: How do you put hope into this? How do you bring attention to the suffering? How do you say something about the suffering? There has to be something there more than just the suffering even if it’s the statement that’s being said, that’s written with the suffering. I think I did one picture with this little child… suffering but it says “Save the Children.” The statement connects it to what needs to be done, to the challenge, to overcoming the obstacle.

LR: The text, the words, are really important for driving people, for what people need to be doing and to be paying attention to as well…It seems that photography was kind of limited in the Panther party, its uses. That there were photographs and photographers. But that there were ways in which you could say more through art.

ED: It was a combination. Because if you look at the front pages we always, for the most part, as the paper grew, there was a lot of photography… It was an integration of creative design elements along with the photography, to enhance the photography or the image, the artwork of the photograph itself. That’s what I was inspired to do, in the image, the photograph that was being used. Whatever the design element was, composition-wise or add other elements to it to give it an impact.

So in that sense, yeah. But in the paper our idea was to have a lot of photographs. But that always didn’t work out a lot of times. We wanted to have a lot of photographs. We felt that at that time the black community wasn’t a reading community but learned through observation and participation. So we’d read the captions under the picture or look at the picture and they could get the gist of what was going on but they wouldn’t really read the story and stuff like that. I think that also impacted our perspective. Then it was to tell a story through the art itself. You know, cutting through the chase. Like sometimes you have a lot of art that even though it’s brilliant, it’s for the intellect to look through, break it down and deal with all the different symbolism. Whereas this art cut through the chase, just comes to the point of what we were talking about. And that was something that people used say, and I would listen to that. I would always try to keep that in mind when working too.