Huey P. Newton Enthroned-Iconic Image of Black Power

Abstract

Centralized Symbol of the Leadership of Black People in the CommunityA young man seated in a large wicker chair, sometimes called a peacock chair, grips the long nose of a shotgun with one hand, while from his other a decisive spear pierces into air above the woven, fan-back mandala. Zebra skin below and ancient-looking African shields to each side complete the exotic attributes, with contemporary militancy fastidiously modeled in beret and black leather by the African-American subject (Figure 1).This photographic poster, fulsome with signifies ranging from high art to popular culture summons to mind the late 1960s as perhaps no other. Here was Huey P. Newton, a founder of the Black Panther Party, issuing the call to arms and appealing for support. His direct gaze and forward posture, although challenging, were sincere, hinting vulnerability even. Reminiscent of European artistic traditions for authoritative portrayals of deities and rulers-Christ in majesty, or Napoleon enthroned, the mise-en-scene also flirts with mythology of the nonwest-tinsel town meets National Geographic. The image was and remains among the most iconic in American culture, inspiring reverence and evoking nostalgia, embodying the ideology of Black Power and self-determination with a compelling immediacy.Bobby Seale, cofounder with Newton of the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California, once called the photograph a centralized of the leadership of black people in the community (Seize the Time 181). More than just astute composition of figure and symbols, here was a performed embodiment of dogmatic beliefs, usurping the apparatus of authority to reveal and confront it. As a symbol of.. .leadership, the image gained potency through provenance. Why was it made? Where was it exhibited? How was it regarded, and by whom? More recently Nikhil Pal Singh describes Black Panther self-presentation as an insurgent form of visibility, a literalminded and deadly serious guerrilla theater in which militant sloganeering, bodily display and spectacular actions simultaneously signified their possession and real lack of power (83).This intriguing poster was one of several photographic portraits of Newton, Seale, and later Eldridge Cleaver, Erica Huggins, Elaine Brown, and other Panthers used often in public relations campaigns. Much can be learned about this group and these individuals by querying how they envisioned themselves. By analyzing Black Panther portraits for content and historical precedents and tracing the venues and audiences of their display, one can better understand the politics of 1960s social history. What role did photographs and posters, this one in particular, play in the course of events surrounding the formation of the Black Panther Party on the West Coast and the expansion of their Black Power political ideology nationwide? (Figure 2)Black Panther Party for SelfDefenseMuch has been written about Huey P. Newton and the Black Panther Party (BPP) he cofounded with Bobby Seale in October 1966. As his brace of weaponry indicates, one might aptly conclude they were staunch defenders of the second amendment right to bear arms. Newton and Seale were fellow collegians at Merritt Junior College in Oakland, California, and had been acquainted since 1962. A short ten-minute drive from the University of California in Berkeley, birthplace of the Free Speech Movement and a vanguard in anti-Vietnam War protests, Merritt, too, witnessed student activism in the 1960s. While there, Newton and Seale were on the Soul Students Advisory Council and in other political-minded campus groups. Yet, they grew increasingly frustrated with the endless discussions about inequality and oppression that seemed to go nowhere (Seale Seize the Time 13, 25). What ultimately impelled them into action was the over-zealous manner in which Oakland police protected and served the affluent, property-owning, mostly European American residents of the Piedmont and Montclair hillsides by maintaining a constant repressive surveillance over poorer African Americans living in rented housing on the flatlands below. …