Biography
Emory Douglas was the Black Panther Party’s minister of culture and the artist responsible for much of its newspaper’s visual language. On April 14, 1970 he and David Hilliard were jailed for contempt after a confrontation with court officers during Bobby Seale’s pretrial proceedings in New Haven. Judge Harold Mulvey withdrew the six-month contempt sentences on April 21, and both men walked out of court after seven days in custody.
In his April 1971 position paper on art for the Black community, Douglas described revolutionary art as a means of addressing food, housing, health and other community needs. The original paper identifies him as the Black Panther Party Minister of Culture and includes an individually captioned portrait.
The committee’s arrest-history exhibit associates Douglas with the May 2, 1967 armed legislative protest in Sacramento and reports a ten-day county-jail term and two years of probation. This adds a reported earlier political-protest disposition; the exhibit does not establish ten days actually served or exact physical admission and release dates, and none are inferred. Its separate April 14, 1970 New Haven contempt entry is already documented in the existing case.
House Internal Security Committee, Black Panther Party hearings, Part 4, PDF pages 343.
