All Power to the People

All Power to the People

In the early 1970s, Ringgold produced several posters using cut-and-pasted paper in red, green, and black --that is, the colors of the Pan-African flag. Two of these posters were intended to be reproduced and sold in support of the Committee to Defend the Panthers, a mostly white group fundraising for the legal fees of Black Panther Party members. Ringgold’s first design presents a black, mask-like face flanked by two profile silhouettes and encircled by the organization’s name. The Committee refused Ringgold’s poster because it displayed the group’s address, potentially endangering its members. Ringgold’s second design, which featured an armed, African American family, was also rejected by the Committee. “I was never able to please them,” Ringgold said. “...I think they did not understand that political art is art.” The posters nonetheless demonstrate Ringgold’s expert skill in uniting figure and text, a hallmark of the visual art of the Black Arts Movement. The designs were recently resurrected as serigraphs printed by Driskell Center director Curlee Raven Holton, Ringgold’s master printer.

Faith Ringgold

2022 (original 1970)

Serigraph

Collection of Curlee R. Holton