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While Garry Trudeau was a student at Yale, Bobby Seale, founder of the Black Panther Party, and Ericka Huggins, head of the Party's New Haven chapter, were tried for the murder of Alex Rackley, a 19 year-old member of the Party found dead along a riverbank in Middlefield, Connecticut.
On May 1st, 1970, 15,000 Black Panthers, along with many Yale students, protested the trial. In an interview with the Guardian newspaper, Trudeau recalled, "All hell was taking place, the Black Panthers were on trial, students were shot in the Kent State protests, war was waging on the other side of the globe, it was very hard not to be swept up in all of that."
In 1971, Trudeau introduced Calvin, a campus radical and Black Panther, to the Doonesbury cast of characters.
Connecticut sketch artist and painter Robert Templeton produced 23 drawings of the trial for television news broadcasts. Because the courtroom was closed to artists and photographers, Templeton's sketches were made surreptitiously, without the permission of the court; his drawings are, perhaps, the only visual record of the courtroom during this critical case and are now part of the James Weldon Johnson Collection in the Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
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Drawing of an overview of the courtroom
47.5 x 61.2 cm.
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The foyer to the Connecticut Superior Court, New Haven
45.7 x 61.2 cm.
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Bobby G. Seale with Arnold Markle, State Attorney for the Judicial District of New Haven
24.6 x 20.3 cm. |
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David N. Rosen and Bobby G. Seale
12.1 x 20.2 cm.
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Bobby Seale and Charles R. Garry
12.1 x 20.2 cm.
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Catherine G. Roraback
35.7 x 28.0 cm.
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Overview of the courtroom
35.7 x 28.0 cm.
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Ericka Huggins, Warren Kimbro, Bobby G. Seale and George Sams Jr.
62.4 x 50.3 cm.
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George Sams, Jr., on the witness stand
42 x 35 cm.
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Charles R. Gary standing with hands on table; Bobby Seale; and Gary and Seale seated
56.5 x 75.8 cm.
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Ericka Huggins
65.2 x 48.3 cm.
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Superior court Judge Harold M. Mulvey, court reporters and clerks, and jurors probably including foreman Robert L. Gaythier, as well as Frank J. Dilger and Jennie Jesilavich
47.5 x 61.2 cm.
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Ericka Huggins on the witness stand
48.6 x 42.7 cm.
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Superior Court Judge Harold M. Mulvey
35.7 x 28.0 cm.
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Bobby G. Seale
35.4 x 27.8 cm.
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Ericka Huggins; possibly Warren Kimbro; and two representations of Bobby G. Seale
42 x 35 cm
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Superior Court Judge Harold M. Mulvey
12.1 x 20.2 cm.
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Catherine G. Roraback, Ericka Huggins, and two jurors
12.1 x 20.2 cm.
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Superior Court Judge Harold M. Mulvey
20.4 x 24.8 cm.
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Arnold Markle, State Attorney for the Judicial District of New Haven
24.8 x 20.4 cm.
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Rennie Davis
25.2 x 20.4 cm.
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Cite as: Robert Templeton Drawings and sketches related to the trial of Bobby Seale and Ericka Huggins, New Haven, Connecticut. James Weldon Johnson Collection in the Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University (JWJ MSS 33) |
