Black Panther posters [NRR]
Bapt
2,503 Posts
Bambouche maybe, someone else... do you sometimes see Black Panther posters in your town?I mean, is it something still findable? A friend, a bookseller (the same book collectro who sold me some BPP magazines) is selling around 10/12 posters, in very good condition, some black & white, some in color. I'm thinking of buying one... bla... bla... Just want to know if this is as rare as he said. I trust him but I don't know if it's also a raer in your part of the world.Drop the knowledge.Peace.
Comments
those magazines are at flea markets regularly though...
I would be interested in buying some--could you put me in touch with your friend? Maybe PM me his contact information?
i dont know if i got rid of my double but you can have it if i do. ill check when i get home and if its there ill bring it to the show. its VG but plays better than that.
Sorry it's taken me a bit to answer. Today was busy, and I wanted to refer to a few books before I answered, so I could give you a better idea of what to expect. As you may know, I used to work for an attorney who represented the Panthers, and I "inherited" a rather large collection of Panther-related texts. Just yesterday I got a copy of the Huey Newton Speaks LP, making my Panther-related audio collection damn near complete.
It being the 40 year anniversary of the Panthers, there is quite a bit of information and ephemera that's resurfaced. Most notably, there is an exhibition of photography by Stephen Shames up right now in New York. We went to see it a few weeks ago. It's quite moving. I was tempted to charge $4000 on my credit card for a vintage print of the Lumpen playing at Bobby Hutton Park. The only thing that stopped me was the looming costs of the next few records we're releasing. The photos in the exhibit destroyed me. Shames was a teenager when he took the photos and everything about them show the innocence of snapshots but bear the weight of their historical significance. Speaking of posters, look at those behind Bobby:
The posters you're offered are probably the work of Emory Douglas, the Art Director and Minister of Culture of the Black Panther Party. (Sometimes referred to as "The Norman Rockwell for the poor and oppressed".) His work is distinct; heavy lines, recurring characters, collage (often employing photographs, newspaper clippings and appropriated text), and they are always signed "Emory." Should be pretty easy to distinguish.
There is a great book that was released last year: BLACK PANTHER: The Revolutionary Art of Emory Douglas. It's a great collection of his work for the newspaper, and shows some of the posters. The story of his life is interesting, especially since he is one of the more humble Party members. He's worked quietly for years on cases for political prisoners, giving lectures at colleges and various art houses. It's worth picking up. His art is very engaging and this book does a good job relaying that.
Douglas joined the Party in 1967 after meeting Huey Newton and Bobby Seale at a rally. He studied commercial art at the city college in San Francisco and worked at a print shop. When he joined the Panthers he was doing artistic work for Black Arts Movement. He started with the Panthers tohelp give the newspaper a facelift. He designed the masthead and soon took over artistic control of the paper. The cover was usually a Douglas collage, and the back cover was always reserved for a "poster" by Douglas.
After taking control of the artwork for the Party, he was designated "Revolutionary Artist" as well as Minister of Culture and Art Director of the newspaper. Douglas also did many cartoons, organized exhibits and popularized many of the slogans of the Party ("Off The Pigs," "Power to the People," "Seize the Time," etc.).
He designed a series of revolutionary greeting cards ("Revolution in our Lifetime") with Eldridge Cleaver's face on them. He illustrated the cover of Home Coming by Sonia Sanchez.
As others said, the newspapers are around and easy to get. You can check completed items on eBay to get a sense of what they sell for. I don't know if this helps determine a value for a poster, but it's somewhat relative. The Black Panther newspaper was no small run affair. It was a weekly paper that Douglas directed from '67 through '79/'80. An FBI headquarters memo to a Chicago field office estimate the circulation at 139,000 in May of 1970. Douglas himself estimates the paper's peak circulation at the same time around 400,000. I would trust Douglas' estimate over that of the FBI.
If you figure they were able to print an average of 200,000 newspapers a week, than there must have been at least a few thousand (if not 50,000) posters printed for any given image. Of those, how many remain?
As far as rarity goes, I would think that posters for specific campaigns--such as "Free Huey," "Free Bobby," "Free the Chicago 8"--would have been printed in large quantities. Also, there were a series of Douglas posters available through the newspaper (clip and send). I imagine there was a good stock of those.
I suppose other posters, such as those memorializing singular events (e.g. "Pan African Cultural Festival in Algiers") rather than larger campaigns, would have smaller runs and be more obscure.
Here's a list of the posters I know of:
1967: Black guerrilla with machine gun accompanied by Che Guevera quote
1967: H. Rap Brown (holding a match)
1968: "Solidarity with the African American People" (Produced for OSPAAAL Cuba)
as well as another untitled poster (two mothers holding machine guns while breastfeeding)
1969: "Afro-American solidarity with the oppressed People of the world"
1970: The Lumpen - First Major San Francisco Appearance (Douglas was the manager of the band and coordinated their appearances, designed their handbills and posters, etc.)
1970: Revolutionary People's Constitutional Convention" (15,000 people gathered in DC)
1971: "David Hilliard Railroaded to Prison"
Other posters:
-The Huey Newton wicker chair joint (the most popular)
- Free Bobby
- Free Huey
- Free the Connecticut Panthers
- Free the New York 21
- Elaine Brown performance
As well as several posters memorializing Panthers killed by police, such as the "You can jail a revolutionary but you can't jail the revolution" poster for the Fred Hampton rally in Chicago.
There are also other popular Panther slogans that originally appeared on the back cover of the paper and were later printed as posters:
- "Don't Support the Greedy - Support the Needy"
- Free Breakfast Program
- Oink Oink - Bang Bang - Off the Pigs!
and probably dozens more...
Good luck. And, obviously, if there's extras, I am interested. Let me know.
!Bam
p.s. Here's a panel from the September 28, 1968 issue of Black Panther advertising the posters available for $1:
Wow, thanks for the tip--I just ordered a copy.
I also recommend this recently-published collection of Shames' photographs:
i have a beater copy of this for cheap, if anyone's interested.
It only has a bit of shelf wear.
May Day, 1970 New Haven, CT
My girlfriend spoke to some NH residents who were around for this. Supposedly there are some BP artifacts floating around New Haven, but I haven't seen any in my limited search.
Word. I once saw three posters collected by someone's father out of post offices: H. Rap Brown, Angela Davis and Elridge Cleaver.
Izm707 = Leroi Jones/Amiri Baraka???
D***y was selling those? I rarely get over there anymore...
(Clean out your inbox, holmes)
Getting it framed soon.
[color:pink] (With any luck I can convince my old boss, who defended Cleaver, to cough up the Cock Sock prototype (you remember this, right?) for use in a shadowbox to make the cypher complete!) [/color]
[color:pink] Whenever you get that cock sock, send me a pic, I'd make a poster and stick it on the walls of Paris... looping the loop...[/color]
who's your old boss?
my roommate's dad defended Eldridge Cleaver.
and he recently hired me and him to clean out HELLA old schitt from the basement of their law office.