To Protect And Serve? Five Decades of Posters Protesting Police Violence

TO

PROTECT

?

& SERVE

Five Decades of Posters Protesting Police Violence

To Protect & Serve?

Five Decades of Posters Protesting Police Violence was funded by the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts, California Arts Council, City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, with additional support from The Getty Foundation, Los Angeles County Arts Commission, and individual donors.

MIKE KELLEY FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS

Table of Contents

I.

Policing as Political Repression

II.

Civil Rights – Government Wrongs

III.

Immigration

IV.

Racial Profiling / School-to-Prison Pipeline

V.

Militarization of Law Enforcement

VI.

Police Corruption

VII.

Murdered by the State

VIII.

Gender Profiling & Sexual Violence

IX.

International

X.

Organizing Resistance

To Protect & Serve?

Five Decades of Posters Protesting Police Violence The murder of a succession of unarmed African Americans at the hands of police has catapulted the issue of racist police violence and state repression into the national and international spotlight. The shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson; the choking death of Eric Garner while he repeatedly cried, “I can’t breathe”; the brutal “rough ride” death of Freddie Gray, whose voice box was crushed and spine nearly severed while in the custody of Baltimore Police; the senseless killing of 12-year-old Tamir Rice on a Cleveland playground; and the mysterious “suicide” of Sandra Bland in a Texas jailhouse—all have exposed the pervasive brutality and inhumanity faced by

people of color at the hands of police in the United States. Too frequently, other targets include immigrants, the LGBTQ community, the poor, homeless, mentally ill, and political activists.

This is not a new problem. The list of documented abuses by law enforcement is long. The list of unrecorded examples would be much longer. Internationally, the story is often worse—in many instances as a result of US foreign-policy support for governments that repress popular movements.

The current struggles against police violence and state repression by organizations such as Hands Up United and

Black Lives Matter are part of a long history of resistance, which is often documented in graphics produced by the activists, artists, and organizers engaged in these efforts. Posters tell of domestic and international efforts to challenge police brutality, and are one of the most effective tools for revealing these often-hidden or forgotten stories.

militarization of law enforcement, and organizing resistance.

To Protect & Serve? features graphics created during the last 50 years—from Los Angeles to New York, from Mexico to Bangladesh, and from Europe to Africa.

The exhibition includes posters addressing policing as political repression, racial and gender profiling, the schoolto-prison pipeline, immigration raids,

Carol. A Wells

To Protect & Serve? continues the Center for the Study of Political Graphics’ mission to reclaim the power of art to educate, agitate, and inspire people to action.

Founder and Executive Director Center for the Study of Political Graphics

01

Policing as Political Repression

1. I Don’t See an American Dream, I See an American Nightmare Fireworks Graphics Prairie Fire Organizing Committee Offset, 1992 Berkeley, CA

01. Policing as Political Repression

The first poster produced after the acquittals of the police tried in the 1991 beating of Rodney King. [See Poster #8]

To Protect & Serve?

2. Caution!!

Northland Poster Collective Offset, 1990 (reprint of 1851 poster) Minneapolis, MN

01. Policing as Political Repression

Law enforcement in the United States emerged from colonial systems for enforcing slavery. The 1660’s “Slave Codes” defined slavery as the legal, permanent ownership of Africans, and criminalized all forms of resistance.

A watch-system of citizen volunteers (predominantly men) conducted “slave patrols,” which regulated the movements of enslaved and free black people, guarded against slave rebellions, and exercised physical brutality to enforce the slave codes. Slave patrols were the first publicly funded police agencies in the US after the American Revolution. They remained in place during the Civil War and

continued after the 13th Amendment ended slavery.

The 1850 Fugitive Slave Act required police officers everywhere in the country to seek and capture escaped slaves. In response, abolitionists in Boston produced this poster to warn the community. The attitudes developed from the surveillance and policing of enslaved and free people of color continue in the tactics and procedures of most federal and local police agencies in the US.

To Protect & Serve?

3. Battle of City Hall 400 Cops Fight Student Crowd San Francisco Chronicle Offset, 1960 San Francisco, CA

01. Policing as Political Repression

The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) held hearings in San Francisco, May 12-14, 1960, to investigate alleged “communist subversion.” Hundreds of peaceful protesters, mostly college students, formed a picket line around San Francisco City Hall. On the second day, inspired by the recent lunch-counter sit-ins of the civil rights movement, demonstrators sat down and sang, “We shall not be moved.” Without warning, a police riot squad turned fire hoses on the protesters, washing some down the marble staircase; others were dragged down the stairs by their feet, bumping their heads on every step.

Local and national news media called it a “riot” and blamed it on the protesters.

In response, 5,000 people turned out for the final day’s protest.

To Protect & Serve?

4. A Call to the People!

Black Panther Party Silkscreen, 1969 Los Angeles, CA

01. Policing as Political Repression

On December 7, 1969, the Los Angeles Police Department’s Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team conducted a military-style attack on the Los Angeles Black Panther Party offices on Central Avenue—it was the first use of SWAT. The assault was part of a nationally coordinated effort to destroy the Black Panther Party (BPP). The Los Angeles attack occurred two days after Chicago BPP leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark were murdered while sleeping by the FBI and Chicago police. [see poster #42]

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5. LA SWAT Logo Artist Unknown Embroidered Badge, Mid to late 1970s Los Angeles, CA The numbers 41 and 54 on the SWAT logo reference addresses in South Central Los Angeles where two major SWAT actions took place: 41st and Central was the address of the Black Panther Party offices, attacked by SWAT in their 1969 debut. On May 17, 1974, SWAT and the FBI attacked a house on East 54th Street, where members of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA)—responsible for kidnapping newspaper heiress Patty Hearst—were hiding. Six SLA members were killed.

01. Policing as Political Repression

6. Face Reality Campaign for Amnesty & Human Rights for Political Prisoners in the U.S.A. Offset, 1990 Chicago, IL

To Protect & Serve?

7.

Repression Breeds Resistance Artist Unknown Lower cartoon by Ron Cobb Inkworks Press Offset, 1979 Berkeley, CA To expose violation of human rights in the U.S. of Chicano/ Mexicano, Puerto Rican, Black, Native American Peoples - To build national unity of Third World peoples in the U.S. based on the principle of self-determination.

01. Policing as Political Repression

8. One Picture Is Worth Zero Paul Conrad Offset, 1992 Los Angeles, CA On April 29, 1992, civil unrest exploded throughout Los Angeles following the acquittals of the LAPD officers who were videotaped in 1991 beating unarmed African Ameri- can motorist Rodney King. The videotape by George Holliday was frequently shown on television and the acquittals provoked widespread looting and arson. This editorial cartoon by Paul Conrad was published in the LA Times the day after the verdicts. Since then, countless videos of police violence and killings have been made, often refuting police testimony and raising national attention to an ongoing crisis.

To Protect & Serve?

02

Civil Rights Government Wrongs

9. Those Who Make

Peaceful Revolution Impossible, Make Violent Revolution Inevitable Artist Unknown Silkscreen, 1970 Boston, MA

10. Fannie Lou Hamer

The Woman Who Changed the South TABS: Aids for Ending Sexism in School Offset, 1979 Brooklyn, NY

02. Civil Rights - Government Wrongs

Fannie Lou Hamer (1917-1977) was the youngest of 20 children of sharecroppers. Until 1962, at age 44, she was unaware that black people had the right to vote. After hearing leaders of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) call upon black people in Ruleville, Mississippi, to go to the courthouse to register, she courageously volunteered.

On June 9, 1963, Hamer was returning with other activists from a literacy workshop in Charleston, South Carolina. In Winona, Mississippi, the group was arrested on false charges and jailed. The police beat Hamer’s

colleagues. Hamer was put in a cell where police ordered two inmates to beat her using blackjacks. She was held down during the almost fatal beating, which intensified when she started to scream. The beatings left her permanently injured, but she did not give up her efforts to vote. She led the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in an unsuccessful challenge to the segregationist state party at the Democratic National Convention in 1964. Her speech to the convention was a powerful indictment of US democracy under segregation.

To Protect & Serve?

11. Strike – March Student Mobilization Committee Silkscreen, 1970 Boston, MA

02. Civil Rights - Government Wrongs

In April 1970, President Richard M. Nixon escalated the Viet Nam War by ordering US troops into Cambodia, a neutral country. When the invasion was announced, US college campuses erupted in protest. On May 4, 1970, national guardsmen who had been mobilized to prevent rioting during the protests killed four white students at Kent State University in Ohio.

Two days later, two black students were killed at Jackson State College in Mississippi. On May 11, an uprising began in Augusta, Georgia, provoked by the killing of a sixteen-year-old mentally disabled African American jailed

in Augusta. During the riot, six black men were killed, each one shot in the back by police.

There was a significant national response to the Kent State shootings: millions of students went on strike. Hundreds of universities, colleges, high schools, and even middle schools closed throughout the United States. The Kent State shooting further divided the country along political lines.

In comparison, the media largely ignored the fatal shootings in Jackson and Augusta.

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12. Our Foreign Policy…

Pandora Productions Photo: Irv White © Connections Offset, 1968 Madison, WI Our foreign policy must always be an extension of this nation’s domestic policy. Our safest guide to what we do abroad is a good look at what we are doing at home.

—Lyndon Baines Johnson

02. Civil Rights - Government Wrongs

13. Justice for

Dolores Huerta Artist Unknown Offset, 1989 San Francisco, CA On September 16, 1988, San Francisco police attacked demonstrators who were protesting Vice-President George H. W. Bush’s statements against the United Farm Workers (UFW) grape boycott. The attack took place outside the St. Francis Hotel, where Bush was speaking at a fundraiser.

Dolores Huerta, vice-president and co-founder of the

UFW, was severely beaten and hospitalized–doctors removed her ruptured spleen and treated two fractured ribs. She was 58 years old. San Francisco Mayor Art Agnos said he doubted that the 5-foot-2inch Huerta, who weighed 110 pounds, resisted police.

“We could see she was being very cooperative,” Agnos said, “We could even read her lips, saying ‘I’m moving.’”

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14. ABMI/Bradford:

End It Here Justice for Janitors Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Offset, 1990 Los Angeles, CA

02. Civil Rights - Government Wrongs

Justice for Janitors (JfJ) is a social movement organization that fights for the rights of janitors across the US and Canada. It was started in 1985 in response to the low wages and minimal healthcare coverage that janitors received. On June 15, 1990, JfJ was holding a peaceful rally to support their right to organize in Century City (West Los Angeles), when the LAPD viciously attacked the immigrant workers and their allies. Dozens were hospitalized and 60 were arrested. The police claim that they were defending themselves was repudiated by TV news footage showing the police clubbing non-violent strikers. Public outrage at the police helped

galvanize support for the strikers, and JfJ in Century City won their union. Three years later the union won a lawsuit, garnering $2.35 million in damages against the LAPD for their unwarranted attack on the rally.

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15. Stop FBI Harassment of Oglala Sioux Indians of Pine Ridge South Dakota Rachael Romero San Francisco Poster Brigade Offset Reproduction of Linocut Original, 1975 San Francisco, CA

02. Civil Rights - Government Wrongs

The Oglala Lakota, one of the tribes that make up the Great Sioux Nation, live on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. On December 29, 1890, the last major attack by the US cavalry on Native Americans took place at Wounded Knee Creek in Pine Ridge.

Known as the Wounded Knee Massacre, 300 Lakota were killed including many women and children.

On February 27, 1973, 200 members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) seized the village of Wounded Knee to draw attention to Sioux grievances.

After 71 days, three deaths—a member of AIM and two FBI agents—and the wounding of many Native Americans, the AIM members surrendered. The murder of AIM member Joe Stuntz Killsright, who was shot in the back at close range,

remains unsolved, as are the deaths of over 60 AIM members murdered between 1972 and 1976.

Four men were charged with the murder of the FBI agents at Wounded Knee: two were acquitted and charges against the third were dropped. Leonard Peltier, the fourth man accused, is still imprisoned.

The Supreme Court refused to review the case despite documents proving that the FBI faked evidence, and agents both perjured themselves in court and coerced witnesses to make false statements against Peltier. Amnesty International, more than 50 members of Congress, and 60 members of the Canadian Parliament were unsuccessful in their appeals for Peltier to receive a new trial. In January 2017, President Barack Obama denied Peltier’s application for clemency.

To Protect & Serve?

16. In Solidarity with Standing Rock Josh Yoder Digital Print, 2016 Brooklyn, NY

The Standing Rock Sioux tribe has opposed the Dakota Access Pipeline since 2014. The pipeline was projected to run from North Dakota to southern Illinois, crossing beneath the Missouri and 02. Civil Rights - Government Wrongs

Mississippi Rivers, and Lake Oahe near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation.

The pipeline is a threat to the region’s clean water and to ancient burial grounds.

In April 2016, Standing Rock Sioux elder LaDonna Brave Bull Allard established a camp as a center for cultural preservation and spiritual resistance to the pipeline; over the summer the camp grew to thousands of people.

In September 2016, construction workers bulldozed a section of land the tribe had identified as sacred ground. When protesters entered the area security guards used attack dogs that bit at least six protesters and one horse. The incident was filmed and viewed by several

million people on YouTube and other social media platforms. In late October, armed soldiers and police with riot gear and military equipment cleared an encampment that was directly in the proposed pipeline’s path. In late November 2016, many new participants joined the protest; fluctuating numbers of protesters remained in the thousands. Police use of water cannons on protesters in freezing weather drew significant media attention.

On February 7, 2017, President Donald Trump authorized the Army Corps of Engineers to proceed, ending its environmental impact assessment and the associated public comment period. The pipeline was completed in April and its first oil was delivered on May 14, 2017.

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17. The World Famous Linda Katehi Anti-Occupy Spray Roque Montez Taller Arte Del Nuevo Amanecer (TANA) Silkscreen, 2012 Davis, CA In November 2011, during nationwide Occupy protests, University of California, Davis police pepper sprayed Occupy protesters who refused to remove their tents from the campus. Eleven protesters received medical treatment, two were hospitalized. Many students demanded that Chancellor Linda Katehi be removed from office.

Katehi paid $175,000 to public relations consultants to eliminate pepper spray references from the internet in order to repair her online image. After 02. Civil Rights - Government Wrongs

of protest and controversy, Katehi resigned as chancellor in 2016, but continued at UC Davis as a distinguished professor with a chancellor’s salary.

18. Push Back Art Hazelwood Silkscreen, 2015 San Francisco, CA Poverty Laws Throughout the US, laws that prohibit sleeping, eating, sitting, and panhandling in public spaces are used to arrest and funnel homeless people into the criminal justice system. Some communities have mobilized to defeat laws that criminalize poverty. In 2012, voters in Berkeley, California, defeated Measure S, which would have prohibited sitting and lying down in public areas.

To Protect & Serve?

19. To Protect and Serve the Rich—Jail the Homeless Mark Vallen Silkscreen, 1987 Los Angeles, CA

02. Civil Rights - Government Wrongs

20. This is What Democracy Looks Like…to the 1% Sandy Sanders Digital print, 2011 Oakland, CA The Occupy movement began on September 17, 2011, in Zucotti Park, in New York City. It started as Occupy Wall Street, focusing on the financial center of the US, and quickly became an international movement.

With the slogan “We are the 99%,” the movement dramatically raised the issue of economic inequality and forced it on the political agenda.

To Protect & Serve?

03

Immigration

21. Immigration

Exploitation Expulsion Prison Atelier Populaire Silkscreen, 1968 Paris, France

03. Immigration

In 1968, massive worldwide demonstrations protested the Viet Nam War, imperialism, consumerism, police violence, and other issues. The largest took place in France, beginning with students in Paris and quickly spreading into factories. 11 million workers—more than 22% of the total population of France at the time— went on strike for two continuous weeks in May.

of Fine Arts) established the Atelier Populaire (the Popular Workshop). In an unprecedented outpouring of political graphic art, they produced hundreds of silkscreen posters, including the one shown here. May 1968 is still regarded as a cultural, social, and moral turning point in the history of France.

University administrators and police forcefully confronted students occupying their universities and workers engaged in wildcat general strikes across France. Art students, faculty, and staff from the École des Beaux Arts (School To Protect & Serve?

22. Stop the Ice Raids Revolutionary Communist Party, USA Offset, 2007 United States This July, the Bush Regime’s head of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, declared that the government crackdown on undocumented immigrants is “gonna get ugly.” “Gonna get ugly” means armed ICE (Immigration and Custom Enforcement) agents carrying out Gestapo raids in workplaces and neighborhoods to arrest and deport immigrants. It means tearing apart of families; terrorizing of entire communities; concentration camps for captured immigrants; armed vigilantes hunting down immigrants like modern-day slave catch03. Immigration

ers; hundreds of people a year losing their ing to cross the border.

23. ICE Ricardo Levins Morales Digital Print, 2012 Minneapolis, MN Defending the Homeland by Suppressing Wages, Dividing Workers & Separating Families.

ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) was formerly known as INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service). The name change took place in 2003, when its functions were transferred to Homeland Security. lives attemptTo Protect & Serve?

04

Racial Profiling / School-to-Prison Pipeline

24. End Stop and Frisk United Healthcare Workers East Offset, 2012 New York, NY

04. Racial Profiling / School-to-Prison Pipeline

Stop-and-frisk is a policing method carried out by the New York Police Department (NYPD) based on “reasonable suspicion” of criminal activity. Others call it racial profiling and an outgrowth of the “broken windows theory” of policing (not allowing small infractions to become larger ones). In 2011, 84% of those stopped by the NYPD were black or Latino yet they only made up 23% and 29% of the general population respectively. Multiple class action suits have been filed in response to this obvious racial profiling. A January 2013 court ruling deemed elements of stop-andfrisk to be a violation of the Fourth Amendment.

This poster was created for the Silent March, held in June 2012, when thousands marched to demand an end to the criminalization of their communities. This silent and peaceful procession ended when NYPD officers pushed and corralled protesters for not complying with an order to disperse.

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25. Stop Police Terror Chris Hero & Pam Bayer Silkscreen, 1983 New Orleans, LA

04. Racial Profiling / School-to-Prison Pipeline

A SWAT team killed the four people listed in the poster after a police officer was shot in a dirty drug deal. One of the victims was Sheri Singleton, shown in the poster with her child. Sheri was shot in the eye while in her bathtub.

Pam Bayer and Mary Howell were law partners who sued the New Orleans Police Department in civil court over the killings commemorated in the poster. Mary Howell is a hero in New Orleans and the inspiration for the attorney featured in HBO’s “Treme.”

Confronting mounting criticism, the New Orleans police chief resigned on November 24, 1980. In 1981, seven New Orleans police officers, all white, were indicted by a Federal grand jury after an investigation of numerous charges of police brutality and conspiracy to violate the civil rights of three black men and one white man. The indictments did not include the murders of the people commemorated in the poster.

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26. Alto Arizona / Stop SB1070 Hard Working Suspect Artist Unknown Silkscreen, Circa 2010 United States

04. Racial Profiling / School-to-Prison Pipeline

SB 1070, also known as the Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act, was passed in Arizona in 2010. It was the broadest and strictest measure against undocumented immigrants in years and spurred considerable controversy. In 2012, the US Supreme Court struck down three of its four provisions as violations of the US Constitution.

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27. California: #1 in Prison

Spending #41 in education spending Design Action Collective Freedom Winter Coalition Inkworks Press Offset, 2001 Oakland, CA

Since this poster was produced in 2001, the statistics have worsened. California continues to be #1 in prison spending but fluctuates between 46th and 50th in education spending.

04. Racial Profiling / School-to-Prison Pipeline

The “school-to-prison pipeline” is a disturbing national trend wherein children are pushed out of public schools and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems. Many of these children have learning disabilities or histories of poverty, abuse, or neglect, and would benefit from additional educational and counseling services. Instead, they are isolated, punished, and excluded from educational opportunities.

“Zero-tolerance” policies criminalize minor infractions of school rules. Stationing police in schools lead to students being criminalized for youthful behaviors that should be handled inside the school. Students of color are especially vulnerable to push-out trends and the discriminatory application of discipline.

Prior to challenges and changes, Los Angeles Municipal Code (LAMC) 45.04 imposed a daytime curfew on youth under the age of 18. According to the code, if students were found outside of school from bell to bell without a valid excuse, they could be given a citation of up to $250, plus added court fees. In effect, LAMC 45.05 criminalized both truancy and tardiness and imposed economic punishments on low-income families.

Black and Latino students are disproportionately stopped and cited by the Los Angeles Police Department and Los Angeles School Police Department.

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05

Militarization of Law Enforcement

28. When You’re in Riot Gear, Everything Looks Like a Riot John Emerson, Occuprint Silkscreen, 2012 Brooklyn, NY

05. Militarization of Law Enforcement

29. Kent State University May 4th, 1970 Artist Unknown Offset, Circa 1970 United States [See poster #11]

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30. L.A. ’84 …

Official Olympics Police State Fireworks Graphics Silkscreen, 1984 Los Angeles, CA

05. Militarization of Law Enforcement

This poster directs attention to the intensified militarization of the LAPD and the coordination of many branches of law enforcement, both local and federal, that took place prior to the 1984 Olympics. This was allegedly in response to later discredited reports that Los Angeles faced a threat of terrorist action during the games. But the primary reason was to suppress potential domestic unrest during the Olympics due to poverty, unemployment, and displacement. This hyper-policing accelerated the mass arrest and incarceration of young African American and Latino men such as in the indiscriminate so-called gang sweeps

of 1988’s Operation Hammer that continues to this day. The militarization of law enforcement was never reversed, and the pending 2028 Los Angeles Olympics will provide another opportunity to expand the use of military weapons and tactics against the civilian population.

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31. You Don’t Bomb The People Artist Unknown Offset, Circa 1985 United States

MOVE is a Philadelphia-based black liberation group founded by John Africa (born Vincent Leaphart) in 1972.

The group advocated communal living. Its members frequently engaged 05. Militarization of Law Enforcement

in public demonstrations against racism, police brutality, and other issues.

MOVE was involved in two major conflicts with the Philadelphia Police Department. A standoff in 1978 resultedin the death of one police officer, injuries to several other people, and life sentences for nine MOVE members. In 1985, another standoff ended when a police helicopter dropped a bomb on their row house. The resulting fire killed eleven MOVE members, including five children. The fire burst out of control and destroyed 65 houses in the neighborhood, prompting widespread outrage. This bombing was a qualitative escalation in the use of military force against a civilian population by a police agency.

In 1996, eleven years after the bombing, a jury ordered the city of Philadelphia and two former city officials to pay $1.5 million to a survivor and relatives of two MOVE members who died in the fire. The jury found that the city, the former police commissioner and former fire commissioner used excessive force and violated the MOVE members’ constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure in the 1985 bombing.

El Salvador: In the 1980s, the US government provided training, weapons, and funding to attack the civilian population. This poster protests the US-financed war in El Salvador and condemns the bombing of civilians everywhere.

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32. Protect and Serve or Occupy and Control?

New Priorities Campaign Inkworks Press Offset, Circa 2014 Berkeley, CA

05. Militarization of Law Enforcement

When you equip police like an army, they treat the community like an enemy. We don’t want our police to be an occupation army!

The U.S. did that in Iraq and we know how that turned out.

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06

Police Corruption

33a. Wanted For Murder Harlem Defense Council Progressive Labor Party Offset, 1964 New York, NY Enraged by the fatal shooting of 15-year-old African American James Powell in June 1964, over 4,000 New Yorkers rioted on six consecutive nights. Many carried this poster in what is called the Harlem riot of 1964.

06. Police Corruption

33b. Kent State University

May 4th, 1970 Artist Unknown Offset, Circa 1970 United States William H. Parker was the longest-serving and the most controversial police chief in LA history (1950 to 1966). In attacking the corruption that was rampant within the LAPD, he created a highly militarized organization that was often accused of being brutal and racist. Parker actively recruited white officers from the South in the days of Jim Crow and was mentor to Daryl Gates.

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33c. Wanted for the

murder of Brother Gregory Clark Artist Unknown Offset, Circa late 1960s Los Angeles, CA

06. Police Corruption

Eighteen-year-old African American Gregory Clark was face down on the ground, hands cuffed behind him, when LAPD Officer Warren B. Carlson fatally shot him in the back of the head with a .38 revolver. Carlson had accused Clark and the friend he was with of stealing a late-model Mustang and drinking beer while driving.

They had the registration to prove that they hadn’t stolen the car, and the paper-bag-covered cans were soft drinks.

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33d. Daryliction Of Duty Mickey Wheatley Queer Nation Offset, 1992 Los Angeles, CA

06. Police Corruption

Daryl Gates was a driver and eventually protégé of his boss, Police Chief William Parker [see poster #33b].

Years prior to becoming chief of the Los Angeles Police Department (1978 to 1992), Gates took a hard line, aggressive, paramilitary approach to law enforcement. In 1967, Gates was in charge of the tactical planning for the now-infamous Century City demonstration against the Viet Nam War, where police on motorcycles attacked peaceful protesters with nightsticks. In 1969, Gates oversaw the organizing of the first SWAT unit in the US—it was formed to attack the Black Panther Party. [see poster #4] In 1992, Gates was forced to resign due to the civil unrest which erupted following the acquittals of the police officers who had been

videotaped beating unarmed African American motorist Rodney King. [poster #1 and #8]] As chief, the often-polarizing Gates was asked during an interview with the LA Times on May 8, 1982, about an increase of black suspects dying from the chokehold (when a nightstick was jammed against the neck’s carotid artery stopping blood flow to the brain). Gates responded, ‘’It seems to me that we may be finding that in some blacks when it is applied, the veins or the arteries do not open as fast as they do on normal people.”

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34. Free Geronimo Now! Ramsess United Friends of Geronimo (Pratt) Ji Jaga Silkscreen, 1993 Los Angeles, CA

06. Police Corruption

Geronimo Ji Jaga (1947-2011) —born Elmer Pratt—was a decorated paratrooper in the Viet Nam War. After the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Geronimo became disillusioned with the US and left the service during his second tour of duty.

He soon enrolled at UCLA where he was recruited into the Black Panther Party and became Deputy Minister of Defense. Following the 1969 assassinations on the UCLA campus of Panthers Bunchy Carter and John Huggins, Geronimo became head of the Los Angeles Black Panther Party chapter. Because his military background provided valuable selfdefense training for the Panthers, the FBI program COINTELPRO targeted Geronimo for neutralization.

In December 1970, Geronimo was arrested and charged with the 1968 robbery and murder of a Santa Monica woman. The FBI withheld 7,000 pages of documents pertaining to his case, and the key witness placing him at the scene of the crime was a paid FBI informant. Since the trial, a number of witnesses, including former FBI agent M. Wesley Swearingen, have stated that Geronimo was in Oakland the day of the shooting. In 1981, Amnesty International acknowledged that Geronimo was a victim of official government repression.

In 1988, Amnesty International unsuccessfully asked California Governor George Deukmejian to order an inquiry into his case. In May 1997,

Judge Everett W. Dickey of Orange County Superior Court, appointed

by Ronald Reagan, threw out the conviction on the grounds that the key government witness was a police informant. In 1999, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office said it would not seek a retrial. Geronimo had served 27 years in prison before being exonerated.

Geronimo ultimately won a $4.5 million civil rights settlement against the FBI and the Los Angeles Police Department. He continued to work on behalf of men and women who are believed to be wrongfully incarcerated.

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35a. COINTELPRO

Cartoon Federal Bureau of Investigation Photocopies, 1969 San Diego, CA

06. Police Corruption

COINTELPRO: Domestic Counter Intelligence Programs (COINTELPROs) were covert operations designed to infiltrate, destabilize, and destroy organizations that law enforcement and government officials considered threats to national security. During the 1960s and 70s, COINTELPRO operations were directed against the Civil Rights movement, Black Panther Party, American Indian Movement, Chicano movement, anti-Viet Nam war organizations, and their leaders.

Its purpose was to cause internal dissent and conflicts with other organizations. The special COINTELPRO “Black Propaganda” division created publications to give organizations a bad public image and published cartoons and letters to promote conflicts between groups. These

efforts accompanied COINTELPRO activities of infiltrating informers, spreading false rumors, fabricating evidence, and police assaults.

In August 1967, the FBI launched a COINTELPRO operation against the Black Panther Party. COINTELPRO was responsible for the death of Panther Fred Hampton [Poster #42], and it exacerbated the conflict between the Panthers and US— a Los Angeles-based organization founded and led by Ron Karenga.

The US organization had frequent confrontations with the Black Panther Party due to differing ideologies: members of US were cultural nationalists, focusing on racial oppression, while the Panthers were revolutionary internationalists,

focusing on struggle against economic class oppression.

Tensions escalated in late 1968 on the UCLA campus as the two groups struggled for control of the Black Student Union. On January 17, 1969, US members murdered Panthers John Huggins and Bunchy Carter. In 1971, three US members were convicted of the killings, although the actual gunmen remained at large.

Many Panthers believe the FBI used Ron Karenga and US as part of their COINTELPRO operations against the Black Panther Party.

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35b. COINTELPRO

Letter Federal Bureau of Investigation Photocopies, 1969 San Diego, CA

36.

Sentenced To Death By Mistake Photo: Loren Santow Center on Wrongful Convictions Offset, 2002 Chicago, IL

06. Police Corruption

Verneal Jimerson (in photo) and Dennis Williams were African American men sent to Death Row for the 1979 murder of a young white couple. In 1996, three Northwestern University journalism students found the real killer, who had been identified to the police at the time of the crime. Police used perjured testimony to win convictions against Williams and Jimerson. Loren Santow photographed Jimerson on March 31, 1997, for a poster called “Nine Lives.” At the time there were nine men on Death Row in Illinois who were later exonerated.

Between 1973 and 2017, 160 people have been exonerated and freed from Death Row.

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37. End Klan Terror Design: David Monkawa & Ron Battle Printing: Carlos Callejo Silkscreen, 1981 Los Angeles, CA

In October 2006, the FBI warned of the potential consequences of white supremacist groups actively infiltrating local and state police agencies.

The FBI report was prompted by a series of scandals involving law enforcement agencies across the country—one of which included a neo-Nazi gang formed by members of the LA County Sheriff’s Department who harassed black and brown communities.

Another involved a Chicago police detective associated with the KKK who physically tortured about 120 black men to force confessions.

Homeland Security issued an intelligence report that warned of the recruitment of military personnel and de-mobilized veterans into

06. Police Corruption

resurgent right-wing extremist and militant white supremacist groups.

That report stated, “lone wolves and small terrorist cells embracing violent right-wing extremist ideology are the most dangerous homegrown terrorism threat in the United States.”

These reports have established that a credible threat to domestic peace and security clearly exists due to the infiltration of violent white supremacists into America’s police departments. Due to the reactions of conservative politicians, little public attention has focused on this alarming problem. While this threat is ignored as a possible cause of murders by police, the death toll from the police actions on the street

continues to mount daily in black, brown, and Native American communities.

The United League of Mississippi (UL) was founded in the 1960s by Alfred “Skip” Robinson to confront the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacy in the heart of the Mississippi Delta. In the 1970s and 80s, the UL had as many as 70,000 members. They used grassroots mobilization and armed self-defense to challenge the Klan in local communities, protest police brutality, and effectively boycott white-owned businesses that discriminated against African Americans.

To Protect & Serve?

38. More Welcome Homes Stephanie Weiner Silkscreen, 2017 Chicago, IL

06. Police Corruption

Robert Almodovar Jr. hugs his Aunt Mary after being released from 23 years behind bars for a crime he didn’t commit. He is one of over 50 cases of frame-ups by crooked cop Detective Reynaldo Guevara.

Chicago, Illinois April 14, 2017.

To Protect & Serve?

39. CRACK the CIA Crack the CIA Coalition Offset, 1997 Los Angeles, CA

06. Police Corruption

In 1996, Gary Webb, a reporter for the San Jose Mercury News, wrote a three-part series that exposed the central role played by the CIA in facilitating the distribution of crack cocaine in African American urban communities. Crack began in Los Angeles and spread to urban black communities throughout the US during the 1980s and 1990s. Webb’s revelations threatened the reputation of the CIA and other covert police and intelligence agencies. They threatened the right-wing agenda of using the war on drugs for the mass incarceration of people of color, and to disqualify racial minorities from social welfare benefits such as public housing and student loans.

In the 1980s, investigative reporter Robert Parry exposed the CIA and Reagan Administration’s illegal scheme of selling weapons to Iran to provide funding to arm the Contra movement against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. Reacting to the corruption and brutality of the Contras, Congress passed the Boland Amendment in 1984, specifically forbidding the CIA or any other US agency from supporting the Contras. There was also a ban on selling arms to Iran because of the seizure of the US Embassy in Tehran by Iranian students outraged by US support of the deposed Shah.

Gary Webb’s investigation exposed the main Contra drug traffickers in the US and their operation in great detail in his investigative reports and his book, Dark Alliance: The CIA, The Contras and the Crack Cocaine Explosion. This drug smuggling into the US fueled the crack epidemic of the 1980s. The profits were used to illegally finance the Contra forces attacking the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. The CIA squashed efforts

by American law-enforcement agents to investigate and prosecute the drug traffickers.

To Protect & Serve?

07

Murdered by the State

40. Joe Hill Carlos Cortez Linocut, 1979 Chicago, IL

07. Murdered by the State

Joe Hill (1879–1915) was a labor leader, songwriter, and cartoonist. Born in Sweden, Hill joined the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or “Wobblies”) in 1910 and participated in organizing and strike actions in California and Mexico. He also became known for his protest songs, especially “The Preacher and the Slave,” which introduced the phrase “pie in the sky.” Arrested for double murder in Salt Lake City and convicted on dubious evidence, he was executed by a firing squad on November 19, 1915, at age 36—despite the IWW’s protest campaign, which enlisted the support of the American Federation of Labor, the Swedish government, and President

Woodrow Wilson. Hill was a victim of authorities and a jury eager to deal a blow to his radical labor union. The night before his death he told IWW leader “Big Bill” Haywood, “Don’t waste any time in mourning. Organize.”

To Protect & Serve?

41. Missing—Call FBI Federal Bureau of Investigation Offset, 1964 Washington, D.C.

07. Murdered by the State

In 1964, civil rights activists came from all over the country to participate in Freedom Summer, a volunteer voter registration campaign in Mississippi. Andrew Goodman and Michael “Mickey” Schwerner from New York City, and James Chaney from Meridian, Mississippi, were driving from a black church in Longdale, Mississippi, fire-bombed by the Ku Klux Klan, where a Freedom School was to have been established.for 44 days, and only in response to a $25,000 reward raised by Dick Gregory with money from Hugh Hefner.

The three were arrested for “speeding” and held for hours. After their release, they were followed by law enforcement—some, if not all, of whom were also members of

the KKK—and murdered. Their bodies were hidden in an earthen dam and were not found for 44 days, and only in response to a $25,000 reward raised by Dick Gregory with money from Hugh Hefner.

Eventually 19 men would be tried. The state of Mississippi refused to prosecute them for murder so they went to trial for violating the civil rights of the three men they murdered. Only seven of the men were convicted with sentences ranging from three to 10 years.

“Mississippi Burning,” a 1988 film loosely based on the murders of the Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner falsified history in a number of ways, including portraying the FBI as the heroes who solved the case.

To Protect & Serve?

42. Fred Hampton 1948-1969 Ricardo Levins Morales Northland Poster Collective Silkscreen, 1999 Minneapolis, MN

Born in Illinois, Fred Hampton (19481969) was a student leader in high 07. Murdered by the State

school and an activist with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In 1968, he joined the Chicago chapter of the Black Panther Party(BPP), and quickly became the Illinois State Chair of the organization. Hampton organized weekly rallies, taught political education classes, attended the Breakfast for Children program daily, and helped establish the Free People’s Clinic on Chicago’s West Side. Fearing Hampton’s eloquence and organizational ability to spread the Panthers’ message, the FBI and Chicago police planned his assassination.

Through an informant who had infiltrated the BPP, the police ob-

tained a floorplan of his apartment.

The same informant gave Hampton a drugged hot chocolate before he went to bed on December 3rd to ensure he wouldn’t wake up. At 4:30 a.m. on December 3, 1969, the FBI raided the apartment, killing Hampton as he slept, and Panther Mark Clark, and wounding four others.

Although a coroner’s jury ruled in 1970 that the deaths were justifiable homicides, a civil lawsuit was later filed on behalf of the survivors and the relatives of Hampton and Clark.

In 1982, a settlement of $1.85 million was reached with the City of Chicago, Cook County, and the federal government, each paying a third to a group of nine plaintiffs.

To Protect & Serve?

43. Guilty of Murder Charles Brittin Community Alert Patrol Offset, 1966 Los Angeles, CA

07. Murdered by the State

The Community Alert Patrol (CAP) began in the Watts neighborhood of South Los Angeles, after the 1965 riots/ uprising. Its goal was to protect the community from police harassment and brutality by following, monitoring, and photographing the police; teaching people their rights; and securing pro bono lawyers for those mistreated and wrongfully arrested.

The Black Panther Party (BPP) was founded a few months later, October 1966, in Oakland, CA. Both groups were formed to witness and prevent abusive police actions in their communities. A key difference was that, unlike the Panthers who openly carried rifles—which was

legal at the time—the CAP carried cameras, not guns. Although this poster includes a black panther, this was not a Black Panther Party poster.

To Protect & Serve?

44.

Why Executed Upon Returning from Vietnam?

Vermont S. Galloway Westside Press Offset, 1970-1971 Los Angeles, CA

07. Murdered by the State

Jerry Lee Amie, a 24-year-old black Viet Nam War veteran and Purple Heart recipient, was shot to death by the LAPD in front of his home on June 20, 1970. He was unarmed.

He was shot 28 times. As part of an attempted cover-up, a toy gun was planted near his body. His death spurred weeks of protests and was national news. Although Police Chief Ed Davis later described Amie’s death as “tragic,” no police were indicted.

To Protect & Serve?

45. Ruben Salazar Los Cinco Silkscreen, 1974 Los Angeles, CA

07. Murdered by the State

Ruben Salazar was a pioneering and award-winning writer and journalist for the Los Angeles Times and KMEX-TV. After covering the national Chicano moratorium march in Los Angeles on August 29, 1970, Salazar and two friends stopped for a beer at the Silver Dollar Bar near Laguna Park. LA County sheriffs surrounded the bar, allegedly looking for a man with a rifle, who had actually been caught hours before. A sheriff’s deputy fired two ten-inch teargas projectiles into the bar, intending to make the occupants leave. All but Salazar left the bar—the missile had torn through his head, killing him instantly.

His body was left there for more than two hours.

abuse, highlighting how local government seemed intent on ignoring all the complaints and violations involving police encounters with Mexican-Americans and African Americans. The LAPD warned him to stop the stories, and he had been receiving death threats. No one was ever tried for his death, even though authorities admitted the tear gas should not have been used.

While sheriffs surrounded the Silver Dollar, police were also attacking the peaceful rally that followed the march, killing three others: Gustav Montag, Lyn Ward, and José (Angel) Diaz.

Shortly before his death, Salazar had been working on a story about police To Protect & Serve?

46. We Demand Justice The Scott/Smith Committee For Justice Offset, Circa 1975 Long Beach, CA

07. Murdered by the State

Betty Duren Scott was a community activist who, with her older brother B. Kwaku Duren, and others, in 1972, founded an alternate elementary school in Long Beach, CA, the Intercommunal Youth Institute (IYI). The first IYI was started by the Black Panther Party in 1971, in Oakland, CA, to give black children a quality education. In 1975, Scott was fatally shot by a California Highway Patrol officer during a routine traffic stop. Following Scott’s death, the IYI dissolved. In the wake of her death, Duren helped found the Coalition Against Police Abuse. [see poster #47]

To Protect & Serve?

47. We Shall Never Forget Gary Phillips and Sheila Minsky Schatz Coalition Against Police Abuse (CAPA) Offset, 1980 Los Angeles, CA

07. Murdered by the State

Eulia May Love, also known as Eula Love, was a 39-year-old recently widowed African American woman who was shot and killed on January 3, 1979, in front of her children, by LAPD officers Edward Hopson, who was black, and Lloyd O’Callaghan, who was white. Love owed $69 on a gas bill. She had been belligerent earlier that day to the meter man who had come to shut off her meter. She had subsequently obtained a money order for $22.09, the minimum she was told she could pay to keep the gas on.

She tried to give the money order to the gas company supervisor who arrived, but he wouldn’t take it. She became more distraught and dished a knife. But rather than de-

escalate the situation, when police arrived they shot her.

After she was downed, with daughters Sheila and Tammy looking on, Hopson walked over to the-still moving Love, put his foot on her neck, and according to her girls said, “Lay down, bitch.” He then handcuffed the dying woman.

To Protect & Serve?

48.

#Say Her Name Walter Cruz Black Lives Matter Digital Print, 2016 New York, NY

In 2014, trans women of color–most of them black–were murdered at a rate greater than one per month in the US. Nine out of 10 trans women of color murdered in 2014 were black. On average, according to a report by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, trans people are not expected to live past 35 years of age.

Forum (AAPF) coined the hashtag #SayHerName in an effort to raise awareness for black female victims of police brutality and/or police indifference to the murders of trans women. The campaign also created a large social media presence alongside existing racial justice campaigns, such as #BlackLivesMatter and #BlackGirlsMatter.

07. Murdered by the State

In February 2015, the African American Policy Forum (AAPF) coined the hashtag #SayHerName in an effort to raise awareness for black female victims of police brutality and/or police indifference to the murders of trans women. The campaign also created a large social media presence alongside existing racial justice campaigns, such as #BlackLivesMatter and #BlackGirlsMatter.

On May 19, 2016, as part of the national #SayHerName day of action, Black Lives Matter put out a call: “We are asking folks to participate in lifting up women and femmes who are no longer with us, and/or those who inspire us in our everyday lives.” A poster template on the BLM website, along with versions of the

poster featuring the portraits of women who lost their lives at the hands of state violence, encouraged participants to use the template to honor someone meaningful to them, and/or display one of the premade portraits, to tell the stories of those “whose lives were taken from us and also of those who are fighting and thriving in the face of adversity.” This project is part of a multimedia campaign and platform, “Who Will Survive In America? x #SayHerName.”

As explained on the official #BlackLivesMatter Organization website: “The Organization was founded by Patrisse Cullors, Opal Tometi, and Alicia Garza. #BlackLivesMatter is an online forum intended to build connections between Black people and To Protect & Serve?

to facilitate the types of connections necessary to encourage social action and engagement.”

Grassroots movements like #SayHerName are essential for building public awareness. The media often contribute to the erasure of victims from the public, or the sensational characterization of victims within narratives of shock and awe.

On March 21, 2012, 22-year-old Rekia Boyd was shot and killed by Chicago Police Department officer Dante Servin, who opened fire on a group of unarmed youth hanging out in West Chicago’s Douglas Park. Rekia died the following day when she was taken off life support. It took a total of 617 days (one year, eight months and one 07. Murdered by the State

week) after Rekia’s murder for involuntary manslaughter charges to be filed against Servin. For four years, the Boyd family and Rekia’s community advocated for Servin to be held accountable.

May 19, 2016, was not only the day of national organizing around #SayHerName; it also marks the day that Rekia’s murderer had finally been scheduled to begin his termination proceedings. These hearings never took place, however, because two days prior, on May 17, 2016, Dante Servin resigned. Upon resignation, Servin became eligible for a pension on his 50th birthday. His salary as of December 31, 2015, was $97,044.

Sandra Bland was pulled over for “failing to signal a lane change” on July 10, 2015, by Texas state trooper Brian Encinia. Partial dashcam and witness footage of the traffic stop shows the exchange escalate from verbal to physical, as Encinia is seen forcing Bland out of her car and threatening to tase her. Sandra is heard screaming in pain.

After reviewing the dashcam footage, Encinia was placed on administrative leave for failing to follow proper traffic stop procedures. Encinia had arrested Sandra under the charge of “assaulting a public servant.” She was taken to Waller County Jail and placed in a cell alone, because she was deemed a “high risk to others.” On the third day of her incarceration, she was found dead. No one was indicted on criminal charges related to her death.

Joyce Curnell was brought into South Carolina’s Charleston County Jail on July 21, 2015. She had been found by law enforcement at a hospital emergency room where she was seeking care for a stomach illness.

Officers arrested her for a bench warrant over the theft of some candy and beer in 2011. Within one day of incarceration, Joyce died from gastroenteritis. The New York Times reported that Joyce’s death occurred in the same month, July 2015, as the deaths of four other black women in police custody.

To Protect & Serve?

49a. Manuel Ramos

Murdered By A Cop Young Lords Party Photocopy, Circa 1969 Chicago, IL

07. Murdered by the State

Manuel Ramos, a 20-year-old member of the Young Lords Organization in Chicago, was shot and killed by a police officer on May 4, 1969. The Chicago Police Department attempted to cover up his murder, including trying to plant a weapon into evidence and claiming in the media that a police officer had been critically wounded in the incident. Both claims were soon exposed as lies.

To Protect & Serve?

49b. In Memory of

Arturo Jiménez David Monkawa Photocopy, Circa 1991 Los Angeles, CA

On August 3, 1991, 19-year-old Arturo Jiménez was killed by LA County Sheriff’s deputies at the Ramona Gardens Housing Project in East Los Angeles. After two weeks of trial and eyewitness testimony, Sheriff Sherman Block agreed to pay Jiménez’s mother a $450,000 settlement.

The case was very high profile due to the police riots that followed the killing, and a wave of shootings of minorities by sheriffs that summer. Jiménez’s death and three other shootings led the LA County Board of Supervisors to appoint James G. Kolts, a highly respected retired Superior Court judge and former prosecutor, to conduct a review of the Sheriff’s Department based on public outrage and mounting allegations of excessive force.

The Kolts Report was initiated inter alia due to what Judge Kolts described as

07. Murdered by the State

“four controversial shootings of minorities by LASD deputies in August, 1991, [that] added a measure of urgency.”

The death of Arturo Jiménez was the first of those four shootings. In the final report Judge Kolts concluded, “my staff and I found deeply disturbing evidence of excessive force and lax discipline.” He also described the deputy’s conduct in the Jimenez case as” “among the most disturbing behavior we came across in our investigation involved [the Gang Enforcement Team], and perhaps the most troubling of all is what occurred in Ramona Gardens in August of 1991.”

LASD claimed that the killing of Jiménez was entirely justified as the officer was trying to protect his life and that of his partner, who had been

knocked unconscious by the PCPcharged suspect. The defendant, deputy Jason Mann, refuted the first unsupported aspect of the claim himself. He testified, in deposition and at trial, that the killing was not to protect his life because he was not in fear of his life at the time of the discharge of his weapon.

The second unsupported statement was the claim that the partner had been knocked unconscious. The partner told investigators that on the night of the shooting he was standing when the shooting began, that he had not been hit until after he heard the first shots, that someone other than the deceased hit him with their fist, and that he had not been knocked unconscious the entire night.

To Protect & Serve?

49c. Justice for Anastasio El Mac Justseeds CultureStrike Silkscreen, 2012 Los Angeles, CA

07. Murdered by the State

Anastasio Hernandez Rojas and his brother were caught entering the US illegally on May 28, 2010.

After being handcuffed, beaten, and tasered, he stopped breathing and died two days later. In addition to a heart attack, the San Diego coroner’s office recorded: “several loose teeth; bruising to his chest, stomach, hips, knees, back, lips, head and eyelids; five broken ribs; and a damaged spine.” It classified Anastasio’s death as a homicide.

the debate over law enforcement’s use of force. In February 2017, the US government agreed to pay Anastsio’s estate $1 million to settle a lawsuit. No criminal charges were brought against the officers involved.

As the violent encounter was witnessed by many people on both sides of the border and some of it was recorded on cellphone video, the case became a flashpoint in To Protect & Serve?

49d. I Am Andy López

and My Life Matters Melanie Cervantes Roberto Fuentes Dignidad Rebelde Silkscreen, 2013 Oakland, CA On October 22, 2013, 13-year-old Andy López was fatally shot by Sonoma County sheriff’s deputy Erick Gelhaus, in Santa Rosa, CA. He had been walking through a vacant lot carrying an airsoft gun that was designed to resemble an AK-47 07. Murdered by the State

assault rifle. Gelhaus opened fire on Lopez, presumably mistaking the airsoft gun for a real firearm. The shooting prompted many protests in Santa Rosa, and throughout California, but no charges were filed against Gelhaus.

On November 4, 2013, the Lopez family filed a federal civil rights lawsuit at the US District Court.

On July 1, 2015, the FBI announced no criminal charges would be filed against Gelhaus, due to lack of evidence to prove that he violated López’s civil rights.

49e. I Had A Dream Too

Elijah Childs Black Lives Matter Digital Print, Circa 2015 Boston, MA Twelve-year-old Tamir Rice was fatally shot by a Cleveland police officer while playing in a park with a toy gun.

The officer was at first suspended. He was fired in May 2017—not for the shooting, but for having lied on his employment application in 2013.

To Protect & Serve?

49f. Justice for

Kenneth Harding Jr. Jon-Paul Bail Offset, 2012 Oakland, CA On July 16, 2011, 19-yearold Kenneth Harding Jr. was murdered by San Francisco police for allegedly failing to pay a $2.00 transit fare.

50a. Oscar Grant Vazta Stencil, 2014 Los Angeles, CA

07. Murdered by the State

Oscar Grant III was a 22-year-old African American man who was fatally shot in the early morning hours of New Year’s Day 2009 by Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) Police officer Johannes Mehserle in Oakland, CA. Mehserle and another officer had restrained Grant, forcing him to lie face down, and Mehserle drew his pistol and shot Grant in the back. Grant was unarmed. The events were captured on multiple official and private digital video and cell phone cameras. Owners disseminated their footage to media outlets and to various websites, where it was

watched millions of times.

Both peaceful and violent protests took place in the days following.Both peaceful and violent protests took place in the days following.

On January 30, 2010, Alameda County prosecutors charged Mehserle with murder for the shooting. He resigned his position and pleaded not guilty. On July 8, 2010, Mehserle, who claimed he’d mistaken his pistol for his Taser, was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and not guilty of second-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter.

To Protect & Serve?

50b. Michael Brown Vazta Stencil, 2014 Los Angeles, CA Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, was shot and killed on August 9, 2014, by Darren Wilson, a white police officer, in Ferguson, MO, a suburb of St. Louis. The shooting prompted protests that roiled the area—and the nation—for weeks. On November 24, the St. Louis County prosecutor announced that a grand jury decided not to indict Wilson. The announcement set off another wave of protests.

07. Murdered by the State

50c. Ezell Ford Vazta Stencil, 2014 Los Angeles, CA Ezell Ford, a 25-year-old African American man with mental disabilities, died from multiple gunshot wounds after he was shot by Los Angeles Police Department officers in the Florence neighborhood of South Los Angeles on August 11, 2014. Ford’s shooting triggered multiple demonstrations and a lawsuit by Ford’s family.

No criminal charges were filed against the officers.

To Protect & Serve?

08

Gender Profiling & Sexual Violence

51. Plunged Dread Scott Refuse & Resist!

Artists Network Offset, 1997 Brooklyn, NY Abner Louima, a 30-year-old Haitian, was assaulted, brutalized, and forcibly sodomized with a broken-off broom handle by officers of the New York City Police Department after he was arrested outside a Brooklyn nightclub in 1997.

Louima won $8.7 million in settlements with the city and the police union—the largest police brutality settlement in the city’s history.

08. Gender Profiling & Sexual Violence

52.

Joanne Little New American Movement (NAM) Offset, early 1970s Los Angeles, CA In 1974, Joanne Little, an African American woman serving time in North Carolina for a break-in, killed the 62-yearold white prison guard who sexually assaulted her. The ensuing trial became a cause célèbre of the civil rights, feminist, and anti-death penalty movements. In 1975, Little was the first woman in US history to be acquitted using the defense that she used deadly force to resist sexual assault.

To Protect & Serve?

53.

Sexual Extortion Is a Crime Not a Sentence Mary McGahren Digital Print, 2006 Boston, MA

08. Gender Profiling & Sexual Violence

Despite international human rights laws and provisions in the US Constitution forbidding the use of cruel and unusual punishment and/ or torture, sexual abuse and assault of female inmates by male guards runs rampant in US jails and prisons. Coercion, threats, and retaliation, coupled with an imbalance of power and loopholes in a deeply flawed legal system, prevents many of their complaints from being substantiated. Help stop the torture of female prisoners by supporting efforts to bring a voice to these and other women suffering abuse.

To Protect & Serve?

54.

Ciudad Juárez 300 Mujeres Muertas 500 Mujeres Desaparecidas Alejandro Magallanes Digital Print, 2003 México City, México

08. Gender Profiling & Sexual Violence

Ciudad Juárez 300 Dead Women 500 Disappeared Women

factories or maquiladoras, built along the border.

How many more must die while the cynical authorities ignore them? The dead women of Juarez demand justice

After years of official apathy and police incompetence toward solving and ending these brutal murders, a group of graphic designers from Mexico City invited colleagues to express their concern and outrage by designing posters around the slogan The Women of Juárez Demand Justice! / ¡Las Muertas de Juárez Demandan Justicia! This poster is one of 60 large-format digital images that traveled throughout Mexico, educating about the murders and forcing the authorities to become involved.

Since 1993, hundreds of women in the Mexican bordertown of Juárez have been kidnapped, raped, murdered, and grotesquely maimed. Many are convinced that members of the government, police, and drug cartels are all involved, and that the violence is connected with the North American Free Trade Agreement. NAFTA went into effect January 1, 1994, and many young women came from small towns in order to work in the

To Protect & Serve?

55. Stop Police

Brutality and Entrapment of Homosexuals!

Tony DeRosa Gay Liberation Front Silkscreen, Circa 1970 Los Angeles, CA

08. Gender Profiling & Sexual Violence

56.

Stop Police Brutality Against Women Of Color & Trans People of Color!

Cristy C. Road Incite!

Digital Print, 2008 Brooklyn, NY Police Brutality Includes: • Racial Profiling • Sexual Violence & Sexual Harassment • “Quality of Life” & “Zero Tolerance” Policing • Physical Abuse • Gender/Sex Policing • War on Drugs • Immigration Raids

• Border Patrol • Attacking & Arresting Domestic Violence Survivors • Strip & Cavity Searches• Policing Motherhood • Militarization of Communities of Color in the U.S. & Abroad Let’s Organize Safe & Sustainable Communities! to resist sexual assault.

To Protect & Serve?

09

International

57. Police Attacking

Students, Paris 1968 Atelier Populaire Offset, 1968 Paris, France [see poster #21]

09. International

58.

Tlatelolco—Acuerdate del ‘68 Tlatelolco—Remember ‘68 Jesus Barraza Dignidad Rebelde Silkscreen, 2001 Oakland, CA Sparked by a series of brutal police actions, university and secondary school students organized rallies, marches, petitions, and calls for a national strike during the summer and fall of 1968.

Demonstrations took place in the Zocalo (Mexico City’s main plaza) and other locations. The Plaza of the Three Cultures in Mexico City—also known as the Plaza of Tlatelolco—was the scene of To Protect & Serve?

violent clashes between students and police throughout the summer.

Student demands included investigation of government abuses, release of all political prisoners, abolition of the special riot police, an end to the military occupation of all schools, and government compensation for students killed and wounded in conflicts with the police and army. The students also protested the enormous cost of the Olympics, saying that these resources should have been used to alleviate the poverty rampant throughout Mexico.

The government was concerned about growing popular support for 09. International

the students and felt pressured to end the protests before the Olympic Games, which were slated to begin on October 12.

On October 2, 1968, approximately 10,000 people—primarily students but also workers and bystanders— gathered for a demonstration at the Plaza of Tlatelco. After an hour of speeches, the Plaza was suddenly surrounded by police and military troops armed with bazookas, tanks, and machine guns; government sharp-shooters were on the neighboring roofs. Before the demonstrators could react, the soldiers fired into the crowd. Machine guns strafed the speakers’ platform as students were counseling the crowd

to leave quickly and quietly. Some, including young children, were trampled in the ensuing panic.

While the exact number of deaths is unknown, between 300 and 400 people were killed and hundreds wounded.

The shooting continued for several hours. In addition to the student leaders and a number of journalists, the casualties included disproportionate numbers of children and old people who had been unable to flee the Plaza. Survivors were dragged away and more than 1,300 people were arrested—some of whom were tortured and/or “disappeared” and presumed dead. President Diaz Ordaz’s regime attempted to cover-up the massacre, claiming that only four were killed. After years of cover-up, the government eventually admitted to 37 deaths.

To Protect & Serve?

59. Soweto - Crimes

Against Humanity Birgit Walker American Committee on Africa Offset, 1977 New York, NY

09. International

In June 1976, several thousand school children in the South Africa township of Soweto marched against a new policy requiring that Afrikaans become the medium of instruction instead of English. The students protested that this policy would deprive them of fluency in an international language. As the students marched from one school to another to gather more participants, the police opened fire without any warning.

The resulting uprising lasted several months, and workers joined the students in protests against the regime.

It was finally put down by force, with over 1,000 killed. Many young people fled the country and joined the resistance in exile.

This poster is based on what has become an iconic photo by Sam Nzima, showing a dying 12-year-old Hector Pieterson, the youngest victim of the Soweto Massacre, being carried by a friend, Mbuyisa Makhubo.

Movies such as “Cry Freedom” and “Dry White Season” have depicted the incident, but show the police giving repeated warnings to disperse.

The directors have stated that they felt Americans and Europeans would simply not believe that the police fired on children without warning.

To Protect & Serve?

60. Bloody Sunday Artist Unknown Silkscreen, Circa 1996 Derry, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom

On January 30, 1972, in Derry, Northern Ireland, British soldiers shot 28 unarmed civilians during a peaceful protest march against internment.

Fourteen people died. Many were shot while fleeing from the soldiers and some were shot while trying to help the wounded. Other protesters were injured by rubber bullets or batons, and two were run down by army vehicles.

Two investigations were held by the British government. The 1972 report was widely criticized as a “whitewash” after largely clearing the soldiers and British authorities of blame. Another inquiry began in 1998, and lasted 12 years. The Saville report was made public in 2010,

09. International

and concluded that the killings were both “unjustified” and “unjustifiable.”

It found that all of those shot were unarmed, that none were posing a serious threat, that no bombs were thrown, and that soldiers “knowingly put forward false accounts to justify their firing.” After the publication of the report, British Prime Minister David Cameron made a formal apology on behalf of the United Kingdom.

Following this, police began a murder investigation into the killings.

Bloody Sunday was one of the most significant events of the long and violent conflict between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, euphemistically called “the Troubles,” because a large number of civilian

citizens were killed by forces of the state, in full view of the public and the press. It was the largest number of people killed in a single shooting incident during the conflict. Bloody Sunday increased Catholic and Irish nationalist hostility towards the British Army and exacerbated the conflict. Support for the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) rose and there was a surge of recruitment into the organization, especially locally. This poster announces one of the annual marches that continue to be held to commemorate Bloody Sunday.

To Protect & Serve?

61. Groeten uit de

Nieuwemarkt / Greetings from the New Market (Central Amsterdam) Artist Unknown Offset, Circa 1976 Amsterdam, Netherlands

09. International

62.

20 Years of Struggle Against Misery, Exploitation and Repression Red Sun Press Mouvman Peyizan Papay Offset, 1993 Boston, MA The Tonton Macoute was a special operations unit within the Haitian paramilitary force created in 1959 by dictator François “Papa Doc” Duvalier.

Their purpose was to commit systematic violence and human rights abuses in order to suppress political opposition.

They were responsible for over 100,000 murders and unknown numbers of rapes and torture during the Duvalier family reign. The Tontons Macoutes remained active for more than a decade after the presidency of “Papa Doc” Duvalier’s son, Baby Doc Duvalier, ended in 1986.

To Protect & Serve?

63. You Cannot

Bury the Truth Katarzyna Saskia Helińska Digital Print, 2015 Designed: Poland Printed: Mexico

09. International

On September 26, 2014, student teachers from the Escuela Normal Rural de Ayotzinapa in the Mexican state of Guerrero boarded buses toward the town of Iguala, where they planned to protest a political event hosted by the mayor and his wife. As the students arrived in Iguala, the buses were stopped by local police. While details of the violent confrontation remain unclear, the police eventually opened fire, killing six and wounding 25. Another 43 student teachers were herded into police vehicles—and never seen again. The families of the missing students—with

the support of the international community—continue to search for the truth.

To Protect & Serve?

64. Let Us Live Like a

Normal Being TIRTHO Labiba Yasmin Surjamukhi Shisu Sangha Offset, Circa 1992 Bangladesh

09. International

Bangladeshi soldiers are shown involved in the sexual trafficking of children.

A 12-year-old girl made the drawing.

Sex trafficking is a growing international crisis, and in many countries law enforcement directly participates. Some of the most egregious cases involve the United Nations peacekeeping forces, also known as the Blue Helmets, working in Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean. In 2017, the Associated Press uncovered at least 2,000 allegations of

sexual abuse and exploitation carried out by the Blue Helmets since 2005. The crimes committed against defenseless civilians by the “peacekeepers” sent to protect them from harm include raping women and children, running underground brothels and child sex rings, and forcing refugees to provide sex for food. The U.N. lacks legal jurisdiction over its peacekeeping forces and must rely on member states to prosecute crimes by the troops they supply. As this rarely happens, the abuses continue.

To Protect & Serve?

65. En Chile 2800 Presos

Politicos Desaparecidos Comite Chileno de Derechos Humanos para America Offset, 1977 Mexico 2800 Disappeared Political Prisoners in Chile Act of Solidarity Year of the Disappeared On September 11, 1973, the democratically elected socialist government of Salvador Allende was overthrown in a coup planned and funded by the US. During the brutal military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, over 20,000 Chileans were killed or disappeared, and an estimated one million went into exile.

09. International

66.

No Más Agresion!

No More Aggression!

Francisco Moreno Capdevila Offset, 1968 Mexico Poster made to protest the 1968 massacre in the Plaza de Tlateloco. [see poster #58]

To Protect & Serve?

10

Organizing Resistance

67. Report Police Crimes Doug Minkler Silkscreen, 1982 Richmond, CA

Shootings, beatings, insulting words, false arrests, illegal entries and searches, sexual assaults and any acts you suspect are wrong.

10. Organizing Resistance

68.

It Stops With Cops Michael D’ Antuono Offset, Circa 2015 New York, NY

To Protect & Serve?

69. 1980 National

Chicano Moratorium March & Rally Carlos Callejo Silkscreen, 1980 Los Angeles, CA

70. Free Jasmine

Prosecute Killer Cops Not Organizers and Protesters Walter Cruz Black Lives Matter Digital Print, Circa 2017 New York, NY

10. Organizing Resistance

In 2016, Jasmine Richards, a Black Lives Matter activist from Southern California, was sentenced in a Los Angeles court to 90 days in jail and three years’ probation after being convictted under a 1933 California Penal Code that stated: “The taking by means of a riot of any person from the lawful custody of any peace officer is a lynching.”

While there were no allegations of violence and no injuries suffered, the peaceful gathering of 15-20 children, mothers, and community members for a peace march in Pasadena was dubbed a “riot” by the prosecutor—a necessary element to the “lynching” charge.

The arrest and jailing of a young black female activist on charges of felony lynching sparked a firestorm of controversy. Nearly 82,000 people signed an online letter of support for Richards, and during the sentencing hearing nearly 200 people gathered outside the courthouse to show their support for her, chanting “Free Jasmine Now.” Criticizing the verdict, State Sen. Holly Mitchell (D-Los Angeles) stated, “Sadly, this case is likely to contribute to the notion that justice is selectively enforced.”

To Protect & Serve?

71. Public Hearings

On the FBI Richard Hoover Offset, 1977 New York, NY

10. Organizing Resistance

The American Indian Movement (AIM) formed in 1968 to address sovereignty, treaty issues, spirituality, leadership, police harassment, and racism against Native Americans. It was a primary target of the FBI’s COINTELPRO [see poster #35]. Following the 1973 confrontation between AIM and the FBI at Wounded Knee [see poster #15], the Native American Solidarity Committee formed to bring together the non-native activists and organizations working for indigenous people’s rights. The New York Citizens Review Commission on the FBI was

one of these groups, and in 1977 organized public hearings and a march to the FBI’s New York offices to protest the government’s treatment of Native Americans.

To Protect & Serve?

72.

No Impunity for Killer Cops Jon-Paul Bail Political Gridlock Silkscreen, 2014 Oakland, CA Eric Garner, 43-year-old African American, died after a New York City Police officer put him in a headlock or chokehold for 15 to 20 seconds while arresting him on suspicion of selling single cigarettes in 2014. Garner repeated “I can’t breathe” eleven times while lying face down on the sidewalk before he lost consciousness.

Hundreds of demonstrations

10. Organizing Resistance

Hundreds of demonstrations against general police brutality took place, using Garner as a focal point. In 2015, an out-of-court settlement was announced in which the City of New York would pay the Garner family $5.9 million, but the final settlement, reached in 2017, was $4 million.

73.

Aim for Justice, Not at People Dave Loewenstein Stencil, 2017 Lawrence, KS

To Protect & Serve?

74. Solidarity

With Ferguson Dignidad Rebelde Inkworks Press Digital Print, 2014 Berkeley, CA [see poster #50b]

75. End Police Brutality Alicia Nauta Silkscreen, 2015 Ontario, Canada

10. Organizing Resistance

Three flags, three slogans, but all with the same demand: End Police Brutality.

The top statement is, unfortunately, timeless, and has been used whenever police abuse takes place. The other two can be connected with specific moments in time.

No Justice No Peace has been in use since the 1970s or ‘80s, but became the primary slogan associated with the 1992 civil unrest following the acquittals of the police officers who were videotaped beating Rodney King, an unarmed African American, a year earlier. (see poster #33d)

The Black Lives Matter movement began in 2013, after George Zimmerman was acquitted of fatally shooting Trayvon Martin. It became nationally recognized following the 2014 deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner in New York City. It is now an international movement— and involvement in Black Lives Matter can be found from the UK to Australia and Canada, where this poster was made.

To Protect & Serve?

Acknowledgements To Protect & Serve? Five Decades of Posters Protesting Police Violence was an extraordinary collaborative effort.

First and foremost, we thank the artists, cultural workers, activists, and organizations who produced the posters. Special thanks to everyone who saved the posters and donated them to CSPG so that future generations might learn from these powerful graphics. people of color at the hands of police in the United States. Too frequently, other targets include immigrants, the LGBTQ community, the poor, homeless, mentally ill, and political activists.

Atelier Populaire Jon-Paul Bail Jesus Barraza Robert Birch Black Lives Matter Scott Braley Jan Brewer Barbara & Charles Brittin Carlos Callejo Francisco Moreno Capdevila Melanie Cervantes Elijah Childs Los Cinco Eva Cockcroft Paul Conrad Carlos Cortez Walter Cruz CultureStrike Lincoln Cushing Michael D’Antuono Tony DeRosa Design Action Collective Dignidad Rebelde

El Mac Emerson Fireworks Graphics Roberto Fuentes Vermont S. Galloway Stephen Gargan Martha & Leon Goldin Nora Hamilton Art Hazelwood Katarzyna Saskia Helińska Chris Hero Richard Hoover Inkworks Press Justseeds David Kunzle Mike Lee Walter Lippmann Dave Loewenstein Alejandro Magallanes Daniel Alonso Teresa Magaña Jill & Michael McCain Mary McGahren

Mark Rogovin Michelle Melin-Rogovin Doug Minkler Sheila Minsky Schatz David Monkawa Roque Montez Ricardo Levins Morales Alicia Nauta Northland Poster Collective Occuprint Mary Patten Roz Payne Peace Center Candace Peterson-Kahn Gary Phillips Rudy Pisani Queer Nation Ramsess Red Sun Press Bruce Reifel Cristy C. Road Favianna Rodriguez Rachael Romero

Millie Rosenstein Michael Rossman Salsedo Press San Francisco Poster Brigade Sandy Sanders Ellie & Jerome Schnitzer Dread Scott Kathie Sheldon & Steve Tarzynski Mary Sutton Taller Artes del Nuevo Amanecer Carol Thompson Mark Vallen Frans van Lier Vazta Birgit Walker Stephanie Weiner Mickey Wheatley Ann Wright Labiba Yasmin Josh Yoder

Thank you to CSPG’s interns, volunteers, and staff who are tireless in cataloguing, researching, writing, and editing: Mario Almaraz, Sherry Anapol, Daniel Alonso, Jonathan Arndt, Kevin Cervantes, Elizabeth Egel, Linda Esquivel, Gladys Garcia, Theodore T. Hajjar, Susan Henry, Nader Hotait, Lisa Kahn, Kate Kausch, Jessica Martinez, Lee Moonan, Yansi Murga, Olivia North, Kevin Pouldar, Alejandro Santander, Joseph Spir, Greg Verini, and Alyssa Young.

Special thanks to Lead Curator Carol A. Wells Community Curatorial Committee Erika Barbosa Cynthia Anderson-Barker Joanne Berlin Jorge Gonzalez Nancy Halpern Ibrahim Kwazi Nkrumah Samuel Paz Gary Phillips Catalogue Design Carl Guo Digital Catalogue Design Daniel Alonso Getty Intern

Translations Armida Corral Alejandra Gaeta Lee Moonan CSPG Staff Carol A. Wells Founder and Executive Director Alejandra Gaeta Archivist Emily Sulzer Archivist Jerri Allyn Office and Social Media Manager

All reasonable attempts have been made to obtain permission for images reproduced in this catalogue. Please address any oversights to:

Center for the Study of Political Graphics 3916 Sepulveda Boulevard Suite 103, Culver City, CA 90230 www.politicalgraphics.org © 2018 Center for the Study of Political Graphics All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be used or reproduced in any manner without permission.