Emory Douglas, untitled (On the Bones of the Oppressors), 1969. Poster, 20 x 13.5 in. Collection of the Oakland Museum of California. All Of Us Or None Archive. Gift of the Rossman Family.
Fifty years ago today, Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton founded the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense to protect the citizens of Oakland, CA, from abuses of the state. Under the protection of the Second Amendment, the created armed citizens’ patrols to monitor police officers and challenge police brutality. “Our position was: If you don’t attack us, there won’t be any violence; if you bring violence to us, we will defend ourselves,” explained Seale, who was inspired by the Black Nationalist philosophy of Malcolm X.
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Following the Great Migration, the demographics Oakland had been transformed by a new generation of African Americans living in a community ruled by de facto segregation. This was a new type of apartheid that hid its hand covertly instituting policies likes redlining that denied services like banking, insurance, healthcare, mortgages, credit cards, and retail to the black community. Combined with high unemployment, underfunded public schools, and substandard housing, a new form of poverty emerged, and the state, under then-Governor Ronald Reagan, sanctioned violence against.
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Emory Douglas, Afro-American Solidarity with the Oppressed People of the World, 1969. Poster, 22.75 x 14.875 in. Collection of the Oakland Museum of California. All Of Us Or None Archive. Gift of the Rossman Family.