Selections from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Research Library and Archives
Emory Douglas has been harnessing graphic art as a form of social justice for more than fifty years. Douglas learned graphic design at the City College of San Francisco and later worked as a commercial artist. In 1967, he became the Revolutionary Artist and then Minister of Culture for the Black Panther Party and developed the design of the Black Panther newspaper. There, Douglas began featuring more graphic elements, including his illustrations and collages alongside the paper’s reporting on current events and party ideology. Douglas depicted issues faced by Black Americans that were central to the party’s Ten Point Platform and Program, spotlighting abuse and killing by police, incarceration, the right to self-defense, inequalities of the justice system, and solidarity with social justice organizations and international human rights movements. Using the simple tools of paste-up production, Douglas developed an accessible and provocative visual language that has inspired generations of politically engaged artists throughout the world.