[MUSIC - JEAN MICHEL GOBINET, "LINES IN THE SKY"]
EMORY DOUGLAS: I came to San Francisco--
1951.
I was about 7 or 8 years old.
I had asthma and the doctor thought the weather would be
better if I came to San Francisco.
And my mother had a sister here
who lived in Double Rock, which is a public housing.
And that's where I used to hang out quite a bit.
They had a boathouse there.
And the folks in the neighborhood
who lived in the projects, that's where they party,
at boathouse.
It used to be right on the water down right here.
First house we had was down by Laguna and Octavia--
in that area.
And there was the alley street.
Then, a lot of Blacks who couldn't afford,
lived in the narrow streets, the alley.
Now they gentrified- and the whole type
of reverse situation now.
Well, like most kids, you draw, and you play around
with it.
You sketch.
You do kinds of things.
People encourage you by saying how great it is.
"How you doing?"
You like it as a kid.
Whether it is or not, they encourage you in that sense.
About '64 - '65--
around the same time, I went to City College
for commercial art.
Because being in and out of the youth detention center,
they seen I had a desire to be an artist.
When I went and talked to the counselor, the counselor
said you should take up commercial art.
Well, commercial art deals with pre-press production
aspect of putting publications together
and all those things.
So that's how I got my--
only basic training I had was at City College.
All that played into when I came into the Black Panther
Party and I was asked to work on the newspaper.
[MUSIC - LILBLACKKIDS, "OCT.
31ST"]
And this is the Black conscious era when we--
when we were beginning to find our name-- just sign
ourselves as African-American Black, as opposed
to Negro--
the colonial name given to define us.
You had a lot of rebellions, a lot of stuff,
things going on, riots, just like now.
Young Blacks being murdered, always being justified.
So a lot of young folks, like myself,
were trying to figure out what we could do
and how we could get involved.
So one day, a brother named Hank Jones, who
was one of the Panthers, he mentioned to me that there
was a meeting going on
and they wanted to know if I would do the artwork.
So that was my first introduction into the Black Panther
Party.
There was a place called the Black House in San
Francisco.
And Eldridge lived upstairs
and they used to do a lot of the cultural events
downstairs.
While Sonia Sanchez, Ed Bullins--
different playwrights-- Stokely-- all those folks would
come through there.
And it just so happens one night--
day-- I went over there on a Saturday.
And Huey and Bobby was working on the first legal size
sheet of paper.
And I observed him,
and I said, well, "I can get some materials to help you.
I still got materials from City College and stuff."
I said, "I can run home and get him and come back."
When I came back, he said, "Well, we finished.
But you seem to be committed and you can hang around.
We're going to have a paper,"
they said, because the Black community wasn't a reading
community
but they learn through observation and participation.
We want to have a lot of images
so that those who weren't going to read long articles
would get the gist of what was going on
by looking at the photographs and the captions
under the photographs.
So they had this whole vision.
And they said, "You will be the Revolutionary artist
and eventually, you will become the Minister
of Culture."
INTERVIEWER: Do you believe everything that's
in that pamphlet?
EMORY DOUGLAS: The pamphlet speaks for itself.
You know, we had to make up our own production sheets--
to cut and paste--
a lot in the beginning was done with--
headlines was done off with this rub
off type you can buy on sheets.
We had a typewriter with the ball--
with a lot of articles made
were typed on for the first several papers.
It was like a portable operation.
We could pick it up and take it anywhere.
Sometimes we'd have apartments that we rented so we
could spread stuff out, and lay it out, and cut
and paste on those kinds of things.
We used regular scissors, and regular glue--
all that kind of stuff.
You know, makeshift.
[MUSIC - JEAN MICHEL GOBINET, "LINES IN THE SKY"]
It's a visual language.
And it's just a way to communicate.
The art itself-- it's for whom it serves.
It's just a reflection of politics.
We want to tell our story from our perspective.
So the art was a reflection of that in the context
of "in service of the community."
And hearing those issues and concerns, and the pain,
the suffering, and all that--
and you interpret that in your artwork.
You've got to put it into practice.
Like Huey Newton, he had a vision
and they put it into practice.
That's courage.
So they could have been wiped off the map before it got
off the ground.
You can have a vision,
and hypothetically and theoretically,
until you put it in to practice,
then you might have to make adjustments and changes.
So that's the foundation.
And to be inspired by, to be in spirit with going
forward to make it happen.
So you got to do it.
If you don't-- you got to do it.
You got to implement it.
You've got to practice it.
You got to do it.
MAN: Let's talk about all power to the people.
Let me hear you say that.