Zapantera Negra

An Artistic Encounter Between Black Panthers and Zapatistas

Emory Douglas, Marc James Léger, David Tomas

• Publisher: Common Notions
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781942173274
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Radicalismo

What is the role of revolutionary art in times of distress? When Emory Douglas, former Minister of Culture of the Black Panther Party, accepted an invitation from the art collective EDELO and the Rigo 23 to meet with autonomous Indigenous and Zapatista communities in Chiapas, Mexico, they addressed just this question. Zapantera Negra is the result of their encounter. It unites the bold aesthetics, revolutionary dreams, and dignified declarations of two leading movements that redefine emancipatory politics in the twentieth and twenty-first century.

The artists of the Black Panthers and the Zapatistas were born into a centuries-long struggle against racial capitalism and colonialism, state repression and international war and plunder. Not only did these two movements offer the world an enduring image of freedom and dignified rebellion, they did so with rebellious style, putting culture and aesthetics at the forefront of political life. A powerful elixir of hope and determination, Zapantera Negra provides a galvanizing presentation of interviews, militant artwork, and original documents from these two movements’ struggle for dignity and liberation.

ENCOUNTERS

ZAPANTERA NEGRA DIALOGUES

ZAPATISTA BLACK PANTHER PROJECT, PRESENTATION BY MIA EVE ROLLOW, EMORY DOUGLAS, AND SAÚL KAK. HOSTED BY THE LEONARD & BINA ELLEN ART GALLERY, CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY, JUNE 27, 2014.

Emory Douglas: My name is Emory Douglas, former Minister of Culture of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense from 1966 until 1982. Zapantera Negra is a project I was invited to participate in and was designed to show the aesthetics of both the Zapatista and Black Panther movements. I was invited by EDELO to be a part of Zapantera Negra, which many creative folks have been a part of and so you could say I was a speck of dust in the whole of everything that has taken place.

Mia Eve Rollow: I am blessed to be here and to be part of the Zapantera Negra project. My name is Mia Eve and I am cofounder of EDELO, an experimental artists’ residency in San Cristóbal de las Casas in Chiapas that began in 2009. For several years we had the pleasure of working with amazing people from all paths of life, particularly Zapatista artists, as well as Emory Douglas.

Emory Douglas and Saúl Kak, I Am We [Yo Soy Nosotros], 2012. Created by Emory for EDELO’s inaugural Zapantera Negra exhibition in 2012. Courtesy of EDELO.

Saúl Kak: My name is Saúl Kak. I come from a small community in Chiapas, a few hours away from San Cristóbal de las Casas. I would like to give a hello to everyone and say that I am very grateful for being here. I’m from a millenarian culture called Zoque, the original ones from Mesoamerica. Zoque is born from the shell of the river. This represents the beginning and the infinite. I introduce myself to you in this way because I want to speak about the other people from the land and how they view art and how they fight. For us the land is Mother Earth as well as the jaguar. All of the rivers that have the jaguar give us life. For many centuries my people have been mistreated and persecuted. When someone destroys or exploits Mother Earth it is only for the interests of very few and those people are destroying the life of Mother Earth. For example, when we contaminate Mother Earth, we are cutting off its life. When we hurt someone who is from Mother Earth, we as well are cutting life. In this world, in this life, in this Mother Earth, as well as in this time, there is inequality. Only a few have everything. Those who have everything have been keeping the others down. They have been hurting them and exploiting them and giving them bruises. There comes a time when we need to say that is enough. We need to fight. We need to struggle. It is our Mother that they are hurting, the Mother that they are cutting the life of. For this I am here with you to give you this message from the original Mesoamerican people so that we can dream and create a better world where we can all fit.

EDELO, No Morira La Flor De La Palabra, 2014. Zapatista poems and imagery remixed by EDELO. Courtesy of EDELO.

Mia: When the Zapantera project began we did a small fundraiser. [Mia shows a video. Emory and Mia then comment on slides showing the projects that they worked on in Chiapas.]

Emory: Omar Perez, a great artist from Mexico City, is the one who designed the Zapantera Negra poster for the exhibition. At the beginning of my work with EDELO I was asked to brainstorm ideas for a slogan to be used as a theme that expressed solidarity. At first I said “All Power to the People” and “Each One Teach One,” which were slogans that we used in the Black Panther Party. Then I quoted the poetry book Insights and Poems by Ericka Huggins, a founding member of the Black Panther Party, and from Huey Newton, the cofounder. I mentioned the slogan “I am We,” and they thought that slogan really expressed the connection between the Zapatistas and the Black Panther Party. For the opening night ceremony, EDELO had a shaman and his family perform an amazing offering ceremony for the exhibition. The exhibition theme, “I am We,” was reflected in the displayed embroideries that the several Zapatista Mayan women collectives created by taking and remixing seven of my art images and using Zapatista expressions and interpretations. The “I am We” banner that was displayed as well as all of the amazing Zapatista artwork and the overall body of artistic expression in the exhibition made for a really awesome opening night and exhibit.

Mia: Jose Luis is one of the Zapatista artists we work with. He was born in 1994 and so was born into the revolution. He is native to the poetry of resistance and the path to a better world. He and his family are regular residents and have welcomed us into their community.

Emory: On the way to Morelia they wanted me to take a picture of a sign that indicated that this is liberated territory. It says “United Campesinos for the Resistance—This is Occupied Territory—The Autonomous Region.” I asked them what that star represents and they said it means “occupied territory.” Prior to my arrival some of my images had been remixed by Caleb Duarte Piñon and some of his students.

Mia: There are five caracoles in Chiapas. Caracol means snail shell. The Zapatistas name their centers of government—‘Good Government’—the caracol.

Emory: When I went for the first time in 2012 to do the residency I stayed for a short period of time. Both of my visits were maybe two and a half to three months overall, but it had an impact on me that continues to this very day.

These embroideries were created in 2012 by Zapatista women’s embroidery collectives. The project was initiated by EDELO, who invited Lorena Sanchez, a Zapatista embroidery artist from the Municipality of Morelia in Chiapas, to live and work at the EDELO residency for the Zapantera Negra project. After a three-week introduction to the work of Emory Douglas, Sanchez returned to her community to create these works with her family and the collective, interpreting Emory’s works through a colorful Zapatista lens. Caleb Duarte Piñon routinely visited the community for the next six months and later invited Sanchez to EDELO for Emory’s visit and for the inauguration of the Zapantera encounter. The embroideries are interpretations of works that Emory made for The Black Panther newspaper between 1967 and 1972. Photos by Rosika Desnoyers.

Mia: At Morelia different artists participated in this particular encuentro, with people from Chiapas, Mexico City, San Francisco, and different small communities working in all media: 2D, performance, and graphics. They are thinkers and visionaries—just crazy people in general.

Emory: Everywhere I went I saw amazing artwork on buildings. When we went to Morelia we thought we were going there to do some painting, but they sent us to an autonomous Zapatista school to paint a particular structure. We had to bring everything in—paints, sleeping bags, everything we needed. They can’t afford to offer you those things, but they can offer you a lot of compassion and love. We had enough paint to make it look aesthetically pleasing and attractive.

Mia: At that location we weren’t allowed to take any photos of the Zapatistas because they were working with us without their pasamontañas [balaclava] or paliakates [bandana], and more abstractly, because in Chiapas, when you take someone’s picture, the people believe it takes part of their spirit away from them.

Emory: When the youngsters were finished with their responsibilities they would come in and out all night long. In the back there were three youngsters who had a book about Che Guevara and they were talking about how they were going to do a picture. The next day, when we woke up, they had made an amazing picture of Che. Mercy gave them some paper and asked them to jot down their ideas of what they would want to create. One by one, bit by bit, they would come in and contribute something. We ate what they ate: corn in the morning, tortillas, and beans. I was also invited to an Indigenous international conference that they held in Chiapas on December 25, 2012. They asked me to give a twenty-minute presentation on my involvement in the Black Panther Party. My daughter traveled with me and introduced me at the conference.

Zapantera school at Morelia, with Panther and Zapatista mural by Omar Perez (Gran OM). Courtesy of EDELO.

[Presentation of a recorded speech by Emory’s daughter, Meres-Sia Gabriel: I speak these words in solidarity with the Zapatista community—may they please the ancestors. Long before Spain invaded the Americas, with shiploads of enslaved Africans, before America was called America, and Africa was called Africa, when a snail was just a snail and a panther was just an animal, historians write of an ancient Mayan-African relationship, one of trading and exchanging ideas, cultures, goods, and more. Some archaeologists go further. They write that before Mayans and Africans traded, before they were two distinct people, they were one. When I heard that my father would present on the legacy of the Black Panther Party for this symposium, I felt an impulsive reaction to attend, an ancient calling urging me: “Be there! Let your presence be testimony to the ancestors, that your spirit remembers a time before colonization, subjugation, and plantations.” Before Zapatistas took to the mountains in Chiapas, and the Panthers to the streets in the US, before we were revolutionaries, fighting our own distinct battles in different countries, before there was you and I there was we, and we were one.)

Zapantera school at Morelia, with Panther and Zapatista mural by Omar Perez (Gran OM). Courtesy of EDELO.

Emory: On our way to Morelia, we stopped by a Zapatista grocery store where we would eventually create artwork on the exterior façade. Caleb introduced me to the Zapatistas there and made sure that everything was okay for us to come back and do the artwork. When we did go back a little over a year later, in January 2014, we started a mural painting and an installation of a rainbow made from pieces of scrap wood that was installed on the roof of the store along with a cone-like structure created by Mia with some Zapatista dolls attached to it. The themes reflected in the mural artwork were production, culture, health, and education.

Zapantera school at Morelia. Painting of Che Guevara by local children. Courtesy of EDELO.

Mia: Zapantera Negra was shown in the Mission Cultural Center in San Francisco in the exhibition Resurfacing. It was a multimedia mapping of the confluence of international reverence for water that connected problem-solving strategies through provocative art from Palestine to Chiapas to the Bay Area.

Emory: We were first invited to San Francisco State. We also presented at the East Side Arts Alliance, which is a multicultural center in Oakland, where we also gave presentations in high schools and at many other locations.

Mia: Creating part of the work was important for Emory. He shared ideas in discussions with young students and different autonomous communities in Chiapas as well, both at EDELO and with various platforms that were created for him in universities, cultural centers, radio stations, and for some short documentaries.

Emory: The Black Panther Party was an urban inner-city organization, fighting for land, justice, peace, and self-determination, whereas the Zapatistas are Indigenous, fighting for self-determination, land, justice, and peace. That’s the historical link between the Black Panther Party and the Zapatistas: the ongoing struggle for self-determination and defining our destinies for ourselves. Out of that comes the inspiration for the artwork. Out of that comes the connection between the aesthetics of both movements. All of those things come into play. Out of that resistance comes the spirit of what we represent.

Audience: Could you say something about how things are going for you in Chiapas? Are you noticing an impact from the projects that you have been undertaking?

Emory: Yes, it’s been having an impact. People always want to know where the project is going and where it’s been displayed. Right now I’m trying to work on some things in Houston, and Caleb has had some responses from Los Angeles. The project is broadening to involve new aspects, for example the cause of Zapatista political prisoners—the former Black Panther Party still has political prisoners—and the question of self-determination. There’s been music created by Manic B, who made a record titled Zapantera. And so it’s involving a lot of young people who have been inspired by it, and through that inspiration there is greater awareness of what’s going on. There’s the excitement of it but at the same time there are those who can be informed, enlightened, and educated. Art is the language we use to communicate with people.

Audience: I’m wondering if there is any concern that the artwork gets looked at as art only and that the cause gets left behind?

Emory: That can happen in some cases, you know. Nothing is absolute, but you have to be vigilant in relation to communicating the message of what it represents symbolically, to make sure that the message stays on point whenever that’s humanly possible. In interviews, for example, you might be able to do that. There are always going to be some aspects of our work that will be looked at in the terms of art for art’s sake.

Audience: But it tends to travel mostly to art centers…

Emory: Well, it travels mostly to community centers. It went to San Francisco State, which is where one of the first ethnic studies departments started, with the first Black Student Union (BSU), and that’s where they had all of the rebellions in the sixties. Many students who came out of there came into the Black Panther Party. A lot of the professors there had the “Each One Teach One” philosophy of the Black Panther Party. They required that those students who carried on the struggle in the BSU and the student unions, who were going to mentor the new ones coming in, continue with the knowledge of the movement. So you have consciousness at the schools with the students who come through these programs. They have a whole reservoir of information there. Each year in the recent past they brought in high school students from all over the area and they had activists come in and give workshops and presentations to the students for the whole day.

Audience: Do you seek out places to present the work or do you get invited? Could you imagine refusing to present in certain places?

Emory: That hasn’t happened yet but it’s always a possibility! [laughs]

Mia: Emory says he’s on Facebook because he likes to imagine that the people who are censoring Facebook can see what he puts up and maybe there’s a chance they will become enlightened. [laughs]

Audience: You’re an optimist?!

Emory: Well, I tell you, when we went to Sacramento on May 2, 1967, to observe the legislature, when they were passing gun laws, because the Panthers were now carrying guns—there is a video of when we were being arrested at a filling station—and the newsmen were asking us questions, but because we had a directive to not respond to the reporters’ questions, I said “Read the flyer, it will tell you what we’re about.” Decades later this same newsman came up to Billy X Jennings, who is an archivist now for the Black Panther Party, and that newsman said that he was enlightened more than he had ever been about the Black Panther Party because he read the literature. He said that if he had never read the literature, at that particular time, he would never have known what the Black Panther Party was about—beyond what they were saying to try to demonize us in the news.

Audience: I can add to that. I feel that in communities that are so underrepresented around the world, especially when they’re struggling for self-determination, like you said, any little bit of awareness that you can extend to the wider community, whether it’s through an art center or something that may seem like it has nothing in common with it—it’s still something that is giving your message a wider reach, because stories like what’s happening with the Zapatistas, in Palestine, and different parts of the world where there’s constant misrepresentation in the media—any little...