Recalling days of the Panthers

Emory Douglas was a 22-year-old student and aspiring artist at San Francisco's City College when he crossed paths with Black Panther Party organizers on a local college campus.

In an era of civil-rights strife — about a year before the 1968 assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. — the Panther party's revolutionary activism caught his attention.

"When I came in, [the party] still was not a national party," Douglas said. "It was a small domestic organization."

But the movement, started in California's Bay Area by Bobby Seale and others, spread, gaining devotees in Seattle and around the nation.

"There was a high level of frustration because all across the country you saw young black men being shot in the back and killed by police," Douglas said.

He became one of the party's earliest members, and because of his artistic skills was named the party's revolutionary artist. In later years, he was named the party's minister of culture.

He has continued to create art, and he is in Seattle this weekend to help founding members of the party's defunct Seattle chapter commemorate the chapter's 40th anniversary.

Friday night at a reception at Seattle University, Douglas displayed some of his party artwork and sold and autographed copies of his book, "Black Panther: The Revolutionary Art of Emory Douglas."

"I still have that spirit," he said.

Also attending the reception was Seale, the party's co-founder and national chairman, along with brothers Aaron and Elmer Dixon, co-founders of the Seattle chapter. Since the waning of the party in the mid-'70s, Seale has been a mainstay on the college-campus lecture circuit, "continuing the human liberation struggle," he said. He has returned to Seattle several times for local party reunions.

Today, party organizers will participate in public workshops from 3 to 5 p.m. at the Yesler Terrace Community Center, 917 E. Yesler Way. Douglas will present a slide show on the party's history through his art. At 6 p.m., Seale will speak at the center, offering his views on the Black Panther Party legacy.