In honor of Black Panther Month, commemorating the October 1966 founding of The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense
An Evening with Emory Douglas
Featuring:
Poetry by Meres-Sia Gabriel
Music by Joan Tarika Lewis
Save a Seat Today!
Free admission. Open to the public.
emorydouglas.eventbrite.com
Thursday, October 26, 2023
5 pm — 8 pm
James Dunn Theatre
Kentfield Campus
Join us for a conversation between Bay Area based Xicanx artist and activist Melanie Cervantes and Emory Douglas as we honor his lifelong commitment to resistance, self-determination, and Black liberation. As the Veteran Revolutionary Artist and Minister of Culture for the Black Panther Party, his images in the Black Panther Newspaper were a clarion call to oppressed and colonized peoples worldwide. His designs have continued to spark resistance, self-determination, and Black liberation.
All Power to the People. Ashe
About Emory Douglas
Emory Douglas was born May 24, 1943, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1951. Douglas attended City College of San Francisco where he majored in commercial art. He was the Revolutionary Artist and Minister of Culture for the Black Panther Party from February 1967 until the early 1980’s. Douglas’s iconic art and design concepts were staples of the front and back pages of the Black Panther Newspaper, communicating the politics of the Black Panther Party and the concerns of the community in an easy to understand, immediate visual form. His art was meant to be an inspiring call to oppressed and colonized peoples. Douglas continues to produce political art that captures the power and urgency of global social justice.
Learn more about Emory Douglas and his art:
libguides.marin.edu/EmoryDouglas
About Melanie Cervantes
Melanie Cervantes (Xicanx) lives in the San Francisco Bay Area where she creates visual art that is inspired by the people around her and her communities’ desire for radical social transformation. In 2007 she co-founded Dignidad Rebelde, a graphic arts collaboration that produces screen prints, political posters and multimedia projects that are grounded in Third World and indigenous movements that build people’s power to transform the conditions of fragmentation, displacement and loss of culture that result from histories of colonialism, patriarchy, genocide, and exploitation.
Melanie has exhibited extensively nationally including at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (San Francisco); National Museum of Mexican Art (Chicago); and Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY) and internationally. Cervantes is the inaugural recipient of the two-year Art In Resistance Fellowship (2019-2020), as well as being recognized as with multiple awards for her work with Dignidad Rebelde.
About Meres-Sia Gabriel
The best-selling author of I Twirl in the Smoke, Meres-Sia, enjoys writing, performing, teaching, and dreaming. She has performed at the experimental artistic space En Donde Era La ONU (EDELO), Universidad de la Tierra in Chiapas, and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. She recently completed a performance series at the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco. Her poetry has been featured in international exhibitions of the Zapantera Negra Project and is currently in the Oakland Museum’s Black Power exhibition. When not writing and performing, she is coaching writers and teaching French. Meres-Sia is honored to be a part of this program celebrating her father’s legacy and the 57th anniversary of the Black Panther Party.
About Joan Tarika Lewis
Ms. Joan Tarika Lewis is a multi-talented Visual Artist, Jazz Violinist, and Genealogist. Ms. Lewis is also an alumni of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense and identified by its founders as the first Woman to join the organization.
Sponsors:
Umoja Equity Institute, Umoja Learning Community, COM Fine Arts Gallery, COM Library, Arts and Humanities Department, Communication Department, Fine Arts Department
Individuals seeking access support or reasonable accommodations to attend campus activities and events may contact the Student Activities and Advocacy Office, (415) 485-9376.
