As part of an intermittent series of conversations taking place at Beyond Repair entitled Publics and Publication, Emory Douglas (artist and former Minister of Culture for The Black Panther Party) and Sam Gould (Editor of Red76) will discuss the role of the BPP’s newspaper, The Black Panther, as not simply a fixed object existing to move information along, but a very specific device to form a public around the desires and ideals of the Black Panther Party and its orbit.
The conversation will touch on both the practical elements of putting out the paper, but equally as much the theoretical role and value of The Black Panther and how it served as a tool to illustrate distance between individuals, a device that opened up a space of questioning for the reader, pragmatically, within their day. Inasmuch The Black Panther was both a physical object, allowed to travel relatively freely within the world, but just as much a subject, a tool for public-making afforded a nature as complex as its readership.