Black Panther

A reformatted and reduced price edition—including a revised and updated introduction by Sam Durant and new text on the artist today by Colette Gaiter--of the first book to show the provocative posters and groundbreaking graphics of the Black Panther Party. The Black Panther Party for Self Defense, formed in the aftermath of the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965, sounded a defiant cry for an end to the institutionalized subjugation of African Americans. The Black Panther newspaper was founded to articulate the party’s message, and artist Emory Douglas became the paper’s art director and later the party’s minister of culture. Douglas’s artistic talents and experience proved a powerful combination: his striking collages of photographs and his own drawings combined to create some of the era’s most iconic images. This landmark book brings together a remarkable lineup of party insiders who detail the crafting of the party’s visual identity.

Emory Douglas was the Minister of Culture for the Black Panther Party from 1967 until its discontinuation in the early 1980s. Colette Gaiter is associate professor of visual communications in the art department at the University of Delaware.  Bobby Seale co-founded the Black Panther Party with Huey Newton. Sam Durant is a Los Angeles–based artist. Danny Glover is an actor, producer, and director. Kathleen Cleaver, attorney, author, and senior lecturer at Yale University and Emory Law School, joined the Black Panther Party in 1967. Amiri Baraka is a writer and political activist.