Visual Identity Politics and Remix Society

TimelineofHueyRemixed

Huey Remixed 2020: Joan Tarika Lewis

On June 11, 2020, in (presumably) Oakland (CA), USA, a photograph of Joan Tarika Lewis in a rattan chair, made by an unknown author, was published on Instagram, #blackpantherparty.

Caption of the post: “mctc.soda #Repost from design critic @alice.rawsthorn
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Design and Black Lives Matter | 4. As a student at Oakland Technical High School, Joan Lewis was a gifted violinist and dedicated civil rights activist, who co-founded the Black Student Union and organised sit-ins to demand the introduction of a Black Studies course and Black History Club. She forged a rapport with likeminded students at nearby Merritt College, including Bobby Seale and Huey Newton, the co-founders of the Black Panther Party. In 1967, she marched into the Black Panthers’ office in Oakland and insisted on joining. “They made fun of me,” she recalled. “I’m like… ‘You don’t have any sisters in here. What do you mean I can’t join?’ I made them. Why not? Plenty of work for everybody.”
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At sixteen, Lewis became the first female Black Panther. Changing her name to Tarika Matilaba as an homage to her African heritage, she dropped out of high school to focus on the party. She excelled in the political education and weaponry classes that were compulsory for all members, while contributing to the Black Panthers’ design program by assisting Emory Douglas in his work on The Black Panther newspaper, for which she produced over forty illustrations, all credited to “Matilaba”. Many of them featured fellow female Black Panthers, who she depicted in the same fearless, intrepid, gun-toting guise as Douglas’s male subjects, thereby fostering an important part of the movement’s mythology.
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She left the party in 1969 to return to music, eventually founding the Oakland Black String Ensemble. Now known as Joan Tarika Lewis, she has continued her work in using graphic design as a tool of political protest and her commitment to the Black Panther’s community program of running food and educational projects in African American neighbourhoods. Throughout her life, Lewis has remained devoted to pursuing what she sees as her duty “open the eyes of the people, to give them hope, courage, understanding; to teach, guide, and pull the cover off what was going on and what should be done about it.””

https://www.instagram.com/p/CBSnUsEl8v2/