(Black Panther Party) The Black Panther Black Community News Service, Volume II Number 3, Saturday May 18, 1968. Oakland, Calif.: The Black Panther Party, May 18, 1968. FIRST EDITION. Elephant folio - 17-1/2" x 11-3/8". 28 pp. The Black Panther Black Community News Service was a weekly newspaper published by the Black Panther Party between 1967-1980. Each issue featured a range of articles and op-eds on the activities of the party, Black Power, police brutality, communism, party leadership, etc. The back of most issues featured revolutionary artwork by the graphic artist and Black Panther Minister of Culture, Emory Douglas.
The masthead on the front page of this issue has the slogan "Huey Must Be Set Free" between a photographic portrait of Huey P. Newton and the silhouette of a rifle. Under the masthead are three Black Panther Party logos of the crouching black panther above an illustration of Eldridge Cleave after a photograph and the caption "Soul on Ice" above the headline Remember Malcolm X beside a portrait of Malcolm X after a drawing.
Inside one will find: "Inside White America" illustrated after a photograph of a black man sitting on a bicycle watching as a parade of white supremacists wearing Celtic Cross armbands and with a sign reading "Keep America White," "Jails Are the First Black Concentration Camps," "#1 Affidavit of Eldridge Cleaver, Minister of Information, Black Panther Party, California State Prison, Vacaville, California," "Liberation and Political Assassination," "The Spirit of the Panther Is Stronger Than the Man's Jails," Political ads for Eldridge Cleaver for President, Kathleen Cleaver for Assemblywoman, Huey Newton for Congress and Bobby Seale for State Assemblyman.
The back page features "Revolutionary Literature," a full page advertisement for Black Panther Party books, pamphlets and posters; the paper is age-tanned and folded as issued, with minor rubbing along horizontal fold of front page and minor loss at the intersecting folds of several pages with all paper loss confined to the margins. The condition of the newspaper is VERY GOOD. AN VERY EARLY ISSUE OF THIS INFLUENTIAL UNDERGROUND NEWSPAPER. # 001245