The First Monument

Damien McDuffie is a creative technologist, digital archivist, writer, and artist from Oakland, California.

He developed an app called Black Terminus AR.

Black Terminus is an augmented reality platform and tool that brings Black history and cultural archive to life.

And for the past two years, he's been traveling the world, fostering relationships, unearthing Black public history, and exploring the personal archives of the people that lived that history.

He's partnered with muralists and historic organizations and added augmented reality to their art and their artifacts in hopes of developing and inspiring the next generation of Black creative technologists.

The government has made sure that generations do not know the story of the Panthers.

It is our job.

It is our action.

Former KPIX anchor turned sculptor Dana King is creating a bust of Newton to be displayed on the new street, a street where he was tragically murdered.

But just months before his death, he appeared on the KPIX interview program.

People Are Talking and showed that time never softened his outlook.

The Black Panthers scared people.

Any time the Black man attempts to change the slave image, he will scare while people.

So the Black Panther Party.

I thank you.

Wendy, you said that we scared people.

That means that we were creating a positive black image for ourselves.

Black history is being made this Black History Month and this year 2021.

And I can honestly say it's about damn time.

He did it for love of the people.

He recognized that all power all power is with the people.

3, 2, 1!

Power to the people!

One more!

3, 2, 1!

It is the greatest honor of my professional life as a sculptor to bring him home.

Huey Newton was the rock of West Oakland, and it's only fitting that he come home to West Oakland October 24th to stand in West Oakland as protection.

We followed the artist and sculptor Dana King on her six month journey to mold and install the first official monument dedicated to the co-founder of the Black Panther Party Dr. Huey P. Newton.

Damien went to her home and studio in East Oakland to ask her what it means to bring Huey to life.

It's 2020.

And the fact that there are no monuments, there are no placards.

They are no stones in Oakland, California that memorialize what the Panthers did in this community.

You know, all that people know is what the press put out there and the press maligned The Panthers.

They had no idea of the community programs the Panthers built because the city and the state and the country didn't care and wanted to harm Black people.

Right.

That was the intention, that's the intention still.

It's not to lift us up.

It's to harm us and keep us down.

And so to be able to participate in this unveiling, this this renewal, that's the way I look at it.

It's a renewal and a peeling back of the layers to the truth.

And we're going to start with Huey as the co-founder of the Panthers.

I usually have him covered with another shirt, but ok So this is the picture that I'm working from.

This terrible... We've got clay on it.

Wait wait We gon' get you a good one.

- So it's this right?

The jawline is...

So I need pictures of his side view so I could see how... you know, the shape of his nose, how how big this Adam's apple really was because it looks big to me.

But he had a strong neck.

initially is like, whew, let me just go in the studio and fix my hair.

I mean, seriously, I mean, I know that sounds so crazy and silly, but that's, that's the kind of level I connect with my sculptures on.

Look what I just did.

You can't hurt him So this photograph is really important because, because of the focus of his eyes, I mean, that intensity is going to make its way into my sculpture.

This is a perfect spot.

-You think so?

On this rock too.

-You know what?

We couldn't have created like, in the foundry, a better piece to put him on.

-Really?

No, I don't think so.

So this is, it's so solid, so granite.

-Right.

And we'll drill three holes in here and sink the it's like a piling We'll sink it down about -Uh huh about two feet, maybe two and a half feet and epoxy it and he will sit here.

-It's amazing that this thing was here -I know!

You know, the last time we looked I were like, well, how can we get that out of this rock -How are we gonna get this rock out of here?

And then we can attach a bronze plaque here.

Yeah.

Oh, it's perfect.

And, and it's perfect.

We need nothing else.

There are no monuments anywhere in the world that commemorates this history.

This would be the first piece of art that speaks to that history in their own community at Dr. Huey P. Newton Way at Dr. Huey P. Newton Way.

and Mandela Parkway.

It's perfect.

Five, four, three, two, one!

My mission is to tell the story of Black descendants, because we have a right to see our memories, to be able to touch our memories out in public so that our stories last as long as the material lasts, right?

And bronze lasts hundreds, even thousands of years.

This is a beautiful, beautiful rock.

And it's so fitting that he be memorialized on something so natural, so organic.

Bronze is a material like this stone that can last forever.

It will respond to the weather.

It will respond to the sun.

I'd like you to put hands on Huey when he comes here.

So that he feels the response of the community, so that he sees you, so that he feels you, just like you're going to feel and see him.

I see him already.

Do you?

This sculpture isn't about me.

It's about Huey.

And it's about Fredricka and it's about community.

And, and if it's not right, it's not right.

Like, I don't need anybody looking at him and going yeah, I see him in there, but is that what - it - is?

Yeah, no I don't want that.

I want them to walk up on it and go Huey, how you doing?

How you doing, man?

Missed you.

Good to see you.

I want this work to educate people, to lift people up.

And by people, I mean Black folks.

I want us to see us.

He's going to stand in this space in West Oakland, on Mandela Parkway, long past us.

Long past the next generation and the next generation.

God willing.

Right?

So his story has to translate 100 years out.

What will his story mean?

100 years from now?

I pray, I pray that 100 years from now, people then aren't dealing with the issues that Black folks are dealing with now.

But that's where he's looking is a hundred years from now.

The Panthers weren't just a two decade thing.

They're not of a ten decade thing.

Their mission is eternal.

His hair is his crown.

And he chose how it was going to be uninfluenced by the majority population, uninfluenced by his jailers, uninfluenced by his lawyers, uninfluenced by the people who wanted to write his story for him.

He wasn't having that.

Then he opened his mouth and spoke and you knew exactly, in that moment, who he was, what he stood for, and who he stood for.

And it was all part and parcel of this shift culturally for Black folks to take their image back and to decide on their own how they wanted to present themselves.

And I feel like we can credit the Panthers for that.

Hey you see the imprint of his fro?

This is the beginning.

This is just the beginning.

I am asking you standing here to keep your hand and heart on Huey and to come to this space and commune with him.

Long live the legacy of Minister Huey P. Newton Chairman Fred would say at one of his speeches he'd say "“Ain't no badder motherfucker than Huey P. Newton"” We are so honored to be here.

We are so honored.

So thankful, we are so thankful for that legacy y'all.

A legacy is more important than your life.

-That's right.

A legacy is more important than your life.

You got a certain amount of time to be in this physical shell but a legacy, and the legacy of the Black Panther Party protect it, respect it, and never, never neglect it.

-That's right.

Protect it.

Respect it.

And never neglect it.

Long live Minister Huey P. Newton Today we have touched on the past .

.

We've analyzed as a society.

The suggestion and the demands that we make is that the people have more control over the technological instruments.

If this control is not put into the people's hands and communities of the world then will find that the value system of all of the people in the world, Asia, Africa, Latin America, as well as Europe, will follow the kind of trends that America dictates.

We feel that it's very unsafe for a small group of people to have the control of this instrument that's really close to their spirit.

I have absolutely no power as an individual.

The power is with the people.

I have absolutely no power as an individual.

The power is with the people.

I have absolutely no power as an individual.

The power is with the people.