The Black Panther: Black Community News Service (51 Issues, 1967-1976)
Oakland & San Francisco: The Black Panther Party, 1967-1976.
First editions. 51 tabloid issues. Newsprint in tabloid format. Publication sequence as follows: Vol. 1 No. 6; Vol.2, Nos. 5, 18, 20; Vol.3, Nos.1-3, 6, 12, 16, 21-22, 26, 27, 29, 32; Vol.4, Nos. 3-8 (both issues), 9, 12, 14, 18, 25-29; Vol. 5, Nos.1, 9, 10, 12-17, 20; Vol.6, Nos.1, 6, 13-14 (a single issue), 28; Vol.7, Nos. 8, 10; Vol. 8, No. 30; Vol.9, No. 3, 9, 20, 28; Vol.15, No.16. All issues horizontally folded at center, with mild dustiness, light toning and wear to extremities, small edge tears with attendant creases; a handful of issues folded slightly off-center, resulting in short tears and creasing to overhang; three issues with some mild, faint dampstaining; Vol.3, No.3 with some tearing and attendant creasing to lower wrappers; minor scribbling to front wrapper of Vol.8, No.30; a solidly Very Good group overall, without postal markings.
A well-preserved, substantial run of the Black Panther Party's official newspaper, with the issues represented here chiefly from the paper's peak in terms of content, circulation, and overall aesthetic. In terms of content, Huey Newton was acknowledged as the chief theoretician of the Party and its newspaper, though in terms of generating mass-appeal, much of the credit goes to Emory Douglas. "Douglas's work on the Black Panther newspaper and for the party was fearless in content and style. He was the party's Revolutionary Artist, graphic designer, illustrator, political cartoonist, and the master craftsman of its visual identity. His distinctive illustrations styles, cartooning skills, and resourceful collage and image recycling made the paper as explosive visually as it was verbally...Part of Douglas's genius was that he used the visually seductive methods of advertising and subverted them into weapons of the revolution. His images served two purposes: to illustrate conditions that made revolution a reasonable response and to construct a visual mythology of power for people who felt powerless and victimized" (Durant, Sam (ed). Black Panther: The Revolutionary Art of Emory Douglas, pp.95-96).
Unlike issues from the earliest days of the paper and those from the mid-1970's through 1980, the present run is visually stunning and innovative in its design and layout. Supplements (where issued) are present, and nearly every issue features full-page revolutionary artwork by Douglas on the front or rear wrappers. More than a dozen issues feature brightly-illustrated or photomontaged centerfolds (Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Ericka Huggins, et al.), and three issues feature full-sized centerfold posters of Eldridge Cleaver, Alprentice "Bunchy" Carter, and the Revolutionary People's Constitutional Convention. A key publication responsible for shaping African American revolutionary thought in the twentieth century; runs of this size are uncommon in commerce.
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