profiles

Detail of one of Emory's posters

A generation on from the rise of the movement in America, Emory’s work is hanging on the walls of Urbis in Manchester, and while it may now be the stuff of exhibitions, it has lost none of its political potency.

Emory Douglas

With Emory in town for the launch of the exhibition, BBC Radio Manchester’s Karen Gabay spoke to him about his life and his work, and found a man who still believes passionately in the messages of his art; art which was inspired not only by Emory’s involvement with the Black Panthers, but by his personal experiences of prejudice, which go back to his earliest days.

"As a child, I can recall when I took my first trip to one of my auntie’s in Oklahoma, when we got off the bus in Oklahoma City, we couldn’t sit in the restaurant with the white folks; they had a little hole in the back where the black folks had to eat.

Detail of one of Emory's posters

"And as a young man growing up in San Francisco, you had to wear a dog chain with your name and your age on it or you could be arrested for being out too late."

Emory’s life took a landmark turn when he was sent to prison. On the inside, he filled his time with his art, attending classes to learn the processes of printing and poster making.

Once released, he continued that work, finding himself increasingly involved with the Black Arts movement. That association led to him being asked to produce posters for a visit by Malcolm X’s widow, Betty Shabazz, to a local college and the rest of his story snowballed from there.

"I went to a meeting where there was the mention of some guys wanting to do security. They came to the next meeting and it was Huey Newton and Bobby Seale [founders of the Black Panther Party]. Once they had discussed [their involvement], it was thereafter that I knew that was something I wanted to be a part of."

One of Emory's posters

Emory was deeply involved in the Party, even helping with the direct action campaign – but it was his art, rather his action, that became crucial to the movement.

"When Huey and Bobby saw I was committed to the organisation, they asked me to be the artist for the newspaper. The African American community at the time wasn’t a reading community – that doesn’t mean they didn’t read, they just weren’t a reading community.

"So they would look at the art work and they would get the gist of the article, as opposed to just reading the long article, trying to make it appeal to the audience – they could see through the images what we were trying to convey."

Those images are as powerful today as when Emory first created them, as anyone visiting the exhibition can see.

Detail of one of Emory's posters

For the artist, simply hanging his pictures in a gallery isn’t enough to convey what he means to the people of Manchester, which is why he decided to use his visit to the city to hold masterclasses and, in particular, take his message out to the young people of Moss Side – after all, as Emory points out, the movement was always about young people.

"Most of those in the masterclass are about 13 or 14. The first member of the Black Panther Party, along with Huey and Bobby, was little Bobby Hutton – he was 15 years old. They got permission from his mother to allow him to be part of the party when they initially organised the party."

Bold, passionate and politically charged, there’s no doubt that Emory and his work tell as important a message today as they did when they were first printed.

'Black Panther Emory Douglas and the Art of Revolution' is at Urbis until Sunday 19 April 2009