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How an FBI Poster Became a Black Power Symbol

Images can tell powerful stories. One iconic photograph can symbolize an entire era. But if we expand the frame and examine the moment in which it was taken, a very different story can emerge. In this series of documentary shorts, Harvard University historian Dr. Vincent Brown meets with curators, photographers and other experts to challenge common assumptions about iconic American images.

How an FBI Poster Became a Black Power Symbol

Season 1 Episode 6 | 14m 24s | CC

How did an FBI Wanted poster, intended to make a criminal out of activist and academic Angela Y. Davis, transform her into a symbol of Black Power and liberation? Host Vincent Brown considers the impact of Davis’ image and the ways in which style can be a form of political activism. Professor Davis also shares her own complicated feelings about the image, which have evolved over the past 50 years.

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Major funding for THE BIGGER PICTURE was provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Additional funding was provided by the Anderson Family Charitable Fund, the Tamara L. Harris Foundation, the William Talbott Hillman Foundation, the Phillip and Edith Leonian Foundation, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Additional funding for the digital production of THE BIGGER PICTURE was provided by Chasing the Dream – a public media initiative from The WNET Group, reporting on poverty, opportunity, and justice in America, and supported by The JPB Foundation, The Peter G. Peterson and Joan Ganz Cooney Fund, and Sue and Edgar Wachenheim, III.