The Black Power Fist is recognized as a symbol of resistance. Muralist Jonathan Innocent,
who created the image, describes his reimagined Black Power Fist this way: “ The image
of a hand reaching up from the ground signifies the birth of Black radical tradition.
It is also an image that conveys the oppressed people of the earth rising to claim
their liberation, and harkens back to the masses which Frantz Fanon calls ‘the wretched of the earth.’” The date palm tree within the open fist recalls the life sustaining attributes of the date palm itself and the Nile River by which it grows. Innocent adds that it is also “an homage
to Haiti, the first [Black] nation to free itself from its colonizers in 1804. A palm
tree is featured prominently in the center of the Haitian flag, symbolizing national
pride.”
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