Emory Douglas - Studio Visit

Interview and studio visit with Emory Douglas in his San Francisco home. January 2008. From 1967 until the early 1980s, Emory Douglas oversaw the layout and publication of the Black Panther Newspaper as the Black Panther Party Minister of Culture, and his artwork graced the pages of the paper (which reached a circulation of 400,000 copies per week at its peak). Emory currently lives in San Francisco and continues to lend his talent, voice and vision to the causes in which he believes. As a lead up to his solo show at Babylon Falling, The Long Memory, we talked with Emory about his childhood growing up in the Fillmore district of San Francisco, his involvement with the Black Panther Party, and his artwork. My favorite part of the morning was when Emory showed us his photo album (full of original photos by Pirkle Jones, Stephen Shames, and others), taking the time to relate an anecdote for each photo. Also want to shout out Billy X Jennings from itsabouttimebpp.com for providing us with additional archival photographs from the Panther period and just for generally accommodating my questions about the history of the Panthers. The music you hear in sections of the piece is by The Lumpen, the Black Panther soul/r&b/funk group that Emory managed.