The Black Panther was the official newspaper of the Black Panther Party started by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale in Oakland, California, in 1967. The newspaper distributed information about the party's activities, and the ideology of the Black Panther Party. The newspaper ran through to 1980 but was most popular from 1968-1972, and at this time sold a hundred thousand copies a week [some sources say [300,000].
The Black Panther Party Newspaper was a critical part of the Party’s consciousness raising programme. The Party maintained a commitment to community service including various "survival programmes" developed by individual chapters.
An important aspect of the paper was its focus on art work, especially with the back covers which were often in the form of a striking poster by Emory Douglas who had joined the party in 1967 having trained in graphic design at San Francisco city college. He worked alongside its editor, the Party’s Minister of Information, Eldridge Cleaver. “Revolutionary Posters” from 1968 were some of Emory’s earliest works for the Party and were available printed and sold separately or as back covers to the newspaper. Issue Vol. IV, No. 8 for January 24th 1970 contains rear cover artwork by Emory and his article ‘Revolutionary Art’. In it Douglas declares “Revolutionary art begins with the program that Huey P. Newton instituted with the Black Panther Party. Revolutionary art, like the Party, is for the whole community and deals with all its problems. It gives the people the correct picture of our struggle whereas the revolutionary ideology gives the people the correct political understanding of our struggle”.
Images from some of these papers below featured in the Tate Britain “Soul of a Nation” [Art in the age of Black Power] exhibition