“War Against the Panthers”: The Life and Works of Huey P. Newton, Founder of the Black Panther Party
By Hugo Turner
Global Research, September 04, 2016
Dedicated to My Friend and Comrade Marland X aka @CharlieMBrownX
Huey P. Newton was a visionary, a poet, a thinker, a writer, a gangster, but above all a revolutionary. Without his brilliance and daring the Black Panther party would never have been created. 50 Years after it’s creation the Black Panther Party for Self Defense is as relevant as ever because shockingly little has changed except for the worse.
Black life is as cheap as ever, police gun down people at an alarming rate. Much of the country lives in poverty while the ultra-rich get ever richer. In Huey’s time American Imperialism was waging a genocidal war across south-east Asia spanning Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Indonesia. (and other places as well) Today American imperialism is waging an even larger war stretching from central Africa, through southwest Asia(the middle east) , and into Central Asia and even eastern Europe (Ukraine). Police brutality, poverty, war, have only grown worse. In fact the Obama administration oversaw the greatest economic looting of the country in general and the black community in particular in american history. Capitalism is in Crisis, Imperialism is out of control, and once again revolution is in the air. Thus now the year of the 50th anniversary of the foundation of the Black Panther Party on October 15 1966 (Or more likely October 29th) is the perfect time to revive the heroic figure of Huey P. Newton a man who inspired millions with his courageous example.
Huey P. Newton was born in Monroe, Louisiana on February 17, 1942. He was named by his father Walter in Honor of the populist Louisiana governor Huey Long who like Newton was assassinated. Walter Newton his father was born after his black mother who was a servant was raped by her white employer. Walter Newton was a man of courage and integrity who demanded to be treated with respect which was nearly suicidal in the south or anywhere else in America at the time. He was labeled as crazy for standing up to whites which could have gotten him lynched or murdered. Eventually he moved his family west to Oakland California. Huey was the seventh member of the Newton family a powerful symbol in local folk beliefs. His mother Armelia doted on him believing him destined for greatness. His father worked two or three jobs to insure that she would stay home and take care of the kids although money was always tight. In addition Huey’s father was also a minister. Huey spent his early childhood part of this tight knit family rarely coming in contact with the neighborhood kids. Reading his autobiography “Revolutionary Suicide” one is often struck by a certain duality in Huey P. Newton one side of his personality the sweet imaginative introverted side was the product of these early years with his tight knit family.
The other side of Huey’s personality would be born on the mean streets of Oakland and the classrooms of the racist public school system. At first Huey would be bullied and mocked mercilessly by the local kids hated for his light skin and suspected of being a mommas boy. They chased him thru the streets throwing rocks at him shouting “Huey P Wee Wee Wee” until he finally learned to fight back. This is when they “crazy” Huey was born. His brothers Lee Edward who had a reputation as a tough street fighter taught him how to fight. His advice was “look them in the eye and keep advancing” advice Huey would follow throughout his life. Another brother Walter Junior known as Sonny Man who would become a low level hustler also taught him to fight. Sonny Man would be Huey’s mentor on the streets. His other brother Melvin took the opposite approach studying hard in the hopes of somehow finding a good job.
It was Melvin who instilled in Huey a love of poetry and philosophy. Ironically the brilliant Huey Newton would nearly graduate from High School as a complete illiterate. Actually “Revolutionary Suicide” should be required reading for teachers for it’s brilliant analysis of the hostile dynamic between students and teachers especially black students. Racially and class Biased IQ tests become a self fulfilling prophecy. Huey supposedly had an IQ of 74. An adversarial relationship develops between teacher and students and the students show their resistance by refusing to learn and co-operate.
The educational system in reality becomes a branch of the prison system it’s goal is not to teach but to keep the students under surveillance and under control. Thus it was that Huey in spite of his brilliance and thirst for knowledge would almost graduate from school illiterate. Instead of learning anything he would spend his time in constant battles with the teachers and his fellow students. He would bully white students into doing his homework and would use his prodigious memory to disguise the fact he couldn’t read. It was thanks to his brother that he received any book learning at all in the forms of poems which Huey would learn by heart by having his brother Melvin read and re-read them to him.
Perhaps his real education in these years was on the streets. “Crazy” Huey became one of the local tough guys getting into street fights. He also began a career of petty crime with his friends shoplifting and robbing parking meters. Huey would hang out on street corners debating the meaning of life. He learned to love philosophy from hanging around his brother Melvin and listening in on his discussions. His first political consciousness also began to emerge out of a spirit of pure rebellion. When the Cuban Revolution occurred Huey supported it instinctively because his teachers and the media were so loudly condemning it. Watching his father work three jobs but sink ever deeper into debt also raised important questions in Huey. As did the shocking conditions around him which he had once taken for granted the garbage dump that made the only playground uninhabitable because of swarms of rats, hunger and misery everywhere. Slowly he would become more and more concerned with the plight of black people in America.
Thankfully just as Huey had refused to learn to read out of a spirit of rebellion when he decided to follow his brother Melvin’s footsteps by going to college and was told he couldn’t in 10th Grade that same spirit of rebellion made him decide to learn to read to prove he could go to college. Huey claimed he learned to read by going thru Plato’s republic with a dictionary. Which I find a little hard to believe but regardless he would read and reread the book. Falling in love with the “allegory of the cave.” In this story prisoners are kept their whole lives chained inside a cave all they see is a shadowplay projected onto the wall in front of them the shadows are the only reality they see. One day a prisoners chains come loose he wanders out of the cave and after being momentarily blinded by the sun his vision returns and he sees that there is a whole world outside the cave, but when he returns to tell his fellow captives no one believes him. For Huey the story symbolized the ignorance the black community was kept in. He was determined to break their chains and show them that another world was possible. Today one would be tempted to compare the prisoners to those foolish enough to believe the mainstream news on TV or in the paper.
Huey eventually made it to college but he remained divided between the paths taken by his brother Sonny Man the Gangster and his brother Melvin the overachieving student. He was scared of loosing his connection with the “street brothers.” He continued his life of petty crime and decided to study law and criminology so as to be a better criminal. This obsession with the law would later prove extremely useful when Huey founded the black panthers. At the same time once he learned to read he became a lover of books and would hole up somewhere reading the classics. He also became a bit of a ladies man. His friend converted him to the concept of “free love” before it had become popular and Huey had multiple girlfriends who he often lived off of supplementing his income with burglaries and fraud.
At the same time his college years were when Huey began to truly become political. He joined a black student reading group the Afro-American Association founded by Donald Warden that studied classics of black history like W. E. B. Dubois’s “Souls of Black Folk” and Black Literature like James Baldwin “The Fire Next Time” Then they would talk late into the night. Amazingly some of Huey’s fellow association members included future Cointelpro tool Ron Karenga then known as Ronald Everett who would found the United Slaves or US that would later wage war on the Panthers on behalf of the FBI and Richard Thorne who had converted Huey to “Free Love” went on to found the sexual freedom league and then changed his name to OM and became a cult leader. The groups founder and leader Donald Warden would attempt to join the political establishment. It was during this period when Huey met future Black Panther Party Co-Founder Bobby Seal. Huey had already known another important future Black Panther Party leader David Hilliard since childhood. The moral of the story is get your friends together and try to start a revolution. It would be a couple years before the party would actually be founded but it would be born out of Huey bouncing Ideas off of Bobby. A major inspiration for both men was the fiery Malcolm X.
Here at last was a fearless voice for black liberation. Huey of course loved the fact that Malcolm X could speak in the language of the “brothers on the block”, being a former gangster and ex con himself. At the same time Malcolm X had so thoroughly self educated himself that he could make a college professor look like an ignorant fool. Above all Malcolm X had a program a plan. Unfortunately he was assassinated before he could truly begin putting his ideas into action.
Another inspiration was Robert F. Williams who like Malcolm X advocated armed self defense. Williams was forced to flee the country to escape the american injustice system. This was also the period when Huey became a socialist. Whenever he explained his vision for the world people accused him of being a socialist. He became curious and began to read up on the topic. Finally when he discovered a four volume version of the works of Mao Tse Tong he became a convert. Mao was the major influence on the ideology of the Black Panthers. He was also a supporter of the Cuban Revolution and almost traveled there himself. Another Major influence was Frantz Fanon.
Anyways you’ll have to read “Revolutionary Suicide” for yourselves if you want to get the full scope of Huey’s activities in this period. He had become thru necessity an expert amateur lawyer at defending himself. Of course this only made the local police and prosecutors even more eager to lock him up. But in the meantime Huey managed to successfully defend himself in a string of court room victories. Eventually however he was convicted after a fight in which he stabbed a man who he believed was reaching for a knife. In the book Huey uses the case as another example of the american injustice system at work since the middle class white jurors were incapable of understanding that he was merely acting in self defense. Odell Lee intended him harm and so Huey Struck first. Huey’s description of prison life and the legal system are invaluable to anyone seeking to understand the american injustice system and the mass incarceration state which have only expanded in size, brutality and racism since Huey’s time. Back then the prison population was majority white for instance today the majority of prisoners are blacks and latinos. Just as with the abolition of slavery the forces of reaction came up with “black codes” to reverse those gains and return to the profitability of unpaid labor, so too following the passage of the civil rights act the war on Drugs followed seeking to reverse those gains. Today America has the largest prison population in the world and conditions in those prisons are far worse then during the Sixties when Huey was imprisoned.
Huey served his time in the Alameda county jail. The guards attempted to break his spirit because of his defiant attitude. They sentenced him to the Soul Breaker a cell with no light and no toilet only a hole in the center of the room. Usually a prisoner would break down and beg to be released after a a day or two. Huey refused to surrender he discovered hidden reserves of strength and discipline. In the sensory deprivation of the prison cell he had a sort of mystical experience. He emerged stronger and more defiant then ever. He felt as if he had been reborn. After 16 days it was the jail that was forced to give up and he was released for the sake of his health. After founding the BPP and then being framed for murder Huey’s discussion of the Soul Breaker during his trial lead to it being abolished another victory.
Huey’s experience in prison only further radicalized him. He was eventually released met up with Bobby Seal again and the two determined to come up with some plan to help the black community. They sent months reading Mao, Lenin, Che, Fidel studying various revolutions. Debating and drinking and arguing. Eventually they decided that while studying these revolutions could give them ideas they couldn’t merely copy them they had to come up with a strategy that fit the Oakland Ghetto of 1966 a very different situation from the Island of Cuba or the huge land of China. This lead to more plans and discussions how best to capture the imagination of the street brothers, how to win the support of the black community. They seized on the idea of armed self defense. Actually initially instead of planning to form their own party they tried to convince the pre-existing groups SSAC a front for RAM the Revolutionary Action Movement to which they belonged to adopt their idea of forming armed patrols to protect the community but everyone thought the idea was crazy and suicidal. In the long run perhaps they would prove correct as the Black Panthers would end up dead or imprisoned. That is Why Huey Titled his Book “Revolutionary Suicide” for to become a revolutionary is to become a doomed man. Finally worried that like so many would be revolutionaries they would get no further then talk they decided to come up with a ten point program and to found their own party. Supposedly they brainstormed the entire ten point program in a single evening. It consisted of ten demands followed by their analysis of the situation behind it. Since they remain as relevant as ever I’ll list all ten demands.
We want freedom. We Want Power to determine the destiny of our Black Community.
We want full employment for our people.
We want an end to the robbery by the CAPITALIST of our Black Community.
We want decent housing fit for shelter of human beings.
We want education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American society. We want education that teaches us our true history and our role in the present day society.
We want all Black men to be exempt from military service.
We want an immediate end to POLICE BRUTALITY and MURDER of Black People.
We want freedom for all Black men held in federal, state, county, and city prisons and jails.
We want all Black People when brought to trial to be tried in court by a jury of their peer group, or people from their Black Communities as defined by the constitution of the United States.
We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice, and peace.
Well I discovered that in reality the ten point program was actually formulated the next year but this is the legend of the founding of the Black Panther party. They also were inspired by the ten point program of Malcolm X. This version is also a revised version of the ten point program which changed somewhat over time. However this is the way the Panthers tell the story Huey and Bobby Come up with the ten point program in a single night. The name and symbol of the Black Panther Party had been floating around before they seized on it. It started with the Lowndes County Freedom Organization in Mississippi. In Watts where there had been a famous uprising in 1965 inspired by Police Brutality Mark Comfort and Curtis Lee Baker had later founded the Community Alert Patrol or CAP as a means of discouraging police brutality by keeping watch over them. They adopted the Black Panther as their symbol putting it on the side of their patrol car. They were thus a sort of Proto-Panther group. Finally Huey and Bobby’s former comrades in RAM also formed a Black Panther Party. In other words in founding the Black Panther Party for Self Defense they were drawing on ideas that were already floating around at the time.
What Separated Huey and Bobby from the others was the intensity with which they would carry it out. CAP patrolled the police but were unarmed. They were also in Southern California so while they inspired the Panthers they were not rivals. The rival RAM branch of the Black Panthers carried weapons but purely for show they were always unloaded. Huey and Bobby’s Panthers were armed and prepared to use force to defend themselves. Their first recruit was 15 year old Little Bobby Hutton. Bobby Seale who had served in the air force provided the weapons along with Richard Aoki a Japanese american anti-imperialist who also donated some weapons to the cause. This was another thing that separated the Black Panthers from other black nationalist groups they wanted to work with anyone who wanted to change the system regardless of race and would inspire or work with groups of Latinos (The Brown Berets The young Lords), Asians (The Red Guard), whites (SDS, White Panthers) and Native Americans (AIM). Actually in his youth Bobby Seale was inspired by the example of indigenous resistance to genocidal american imperialism. The Panthers were also inspired by a spirit of revolutionary solidarity with the Vietnamese, the Chinese, The Cubans, and Algerians in their struggles against imperialism. Thus while the Black Panthers sought to mobilize the black community they saw the revolution as only possible with the support of allies both at home and abroad. They were from the start internationalists contrary to popular belief which sees them as a sort of black hate group. Nothing could be further from the truth.
In any case armed and with only a single recruit Huey and Bobby decided to put their plan into action. Huey carried a shot gun in one hand and a lawbook in the other. He had carefully researched California Gun Laws and also discovered that citizens were allowed to monitor police as long as they stayed far enough away not to “interfere” with their carrying out their duties. They drove around until they found a cop and decided to follow him on patrol. The cop got a glimpse of their guns and freaked out. Now he was following the Panthers and Huey managed to lead him to his old college Merrit so their would be an audience for their first confrontation. The cop tried to disarm them but Huey loudly cited the law on private property and knocked the cop down. He chambered his shotgun as the cop cowered in terror in front of the crowd and eventually fled.
The crowd was in awe. This was the first of many patrols. Whenever they found the police arresting someone Huey would read out the law to educate the suspect on their rights then follow the cops to jail and bail the suspect out. Often they would join out of gratitude. In the beginning many were impressed but few dared to join and initially the group received no press coverage. The group first made a name for themselves when they were recruited to guard Malcolm X’s widow Betty Shabazz on her visit to Oakland.
The group had already grown to a dozen or so members and they arrived at the airport fully armed which was actually legal at the time. Huey later got in a major confrontation with the police which impressed author Eldridge Cleaver who decided to join. Cleaver and Newton would later have a major falling out that would split and Cleaver would later join the CIA’s favorite cult the moonies and become an arch conservative raising questions as to wether he had been part of COINTELPRO or even the CIA’s CHAOS program all along. In reality the true history of the sixties needs to be completely re-evaluated in order to discover what was genuine and what was psychological warfare. Whatever the truth Cleaver was a fearless orator and had a lot of connections with white radicals that would help the Panthers expand. By guarding Betty Shabazz the Panthers gained the attention of the underground press.
Another major early episode that helped the group grow was it’s attempt to get justice for the death of Denzil Dowell in Richmond California. The Police claimed he had been shot after robbing a store and leading the police on a foot chase where he jumped fences. In reality Dowell had a bad hip and had trouble walking let alone hopping fences. In fact he had been murdered with his hands up by a cop who had been threatening him for months. There was no evidence that anyone had even broken into the store that night. Dowell had been murdered in cold blood by a cop and the whole thing had been ruled a justifiable homicide as the Panthers discovered after doing their own investigation. First they had arrived to offer their support for the family then they began interviewing the neighborhood learning more about the brutal police and the terrible conditions of the ghetto. They chased off some cops who had come to harass the Dowell family. They gave the family an armed escort into the station sending the police into a panic before finally relenting so the family could get in and talk to the prosecutor. Of course then as today he refused to do anything. A badge is a license to kill especially to kill blacks. Instead the panthers decided to hold an armed demonstration in support of justice for Denzil Dowell. It was a huge success and for the first time a whole community began to embrace the Panthers. in fact at the second Rally the local people decided to emulate the panthers and they arrived armed as well.
Incidentally the Black Panther paper was created to fight for justice for Denzil Dowell. It would eventually grow to a circulation of 100,000 and was read all over the world. Sales of the paper would later fund the Panthers survival programs like the free breakfast for children program which would feed 10,000 children a day by 1969. But that is skipping a bit ahead. The Panthers had taken advantage of knowing the law to found their party. Thus it wasn’t long before the State of California decided to simply change the law making it illegal to bear arms in public. Huey sent Bobby to the state capitol in Sacramento with a bunch of Panthers where they tried to enter fully armed as a protest against Mulford’s “Anti-Panther” Bill. The press accused them of an “invasion” which I found amusing the hypocrisy of american imperialism never ends the panthers merely read a statement they dropped no bombs, fired no artillery, and did not kill anyone. They merely read a statement. But I’ll deal further with Sacramento in my next article.
The Summer of 1967 was known as the summer of rage their were 160 urban rebellions the biggest being Newark and Detroit. Detroit was the biggest urban rebellion of the 20th century with black snipers and arsonists battling police and firemen for days. The country seemed poised on the brink of revolution and Huey’s vision of the world published through the BPP paper in articles like “The Correct Handling of the Revolution” had proven prophetic. That fall in October around a year after the parties foundation an Oakland policeman John Frey decided the only solution was to kill Newton. Huey Newton and Gene Mckinney were pulled over. What actually happened next may never be known. Huey claimed that Frey shot him and then as Huey lost consciousness someone else mysteriously saved his life by gunning down the police. The legend was that Huey himself killed Frey. Perhaps another panther shot the cops after Huey was shot. It could even have been some intelligence agency hoping to frame Newton. If Huey later learned the truth he kept it secret to protect the identity of whoever saved him or alternately to protect himself. Regardless when the smoke cleared Frey was dead his partner was wounded. Huey arrived later that night badly wounded at his friend David Hilliard’s house and was dropped off at the hospital. There the police beat him mercilessly and handcuffed him to the bed in a position that was pure torture for a gunshot victim. Whenever he regained consciousness he was beaten and taunted that he would receive the death penalty.
The authorities hoped to use the incident to destroy the Black Panthers by sentencing it’s brilliant leader to death. Instead the campaign to free Huey went nationwide and the massive publicity it generated saw the Black Panthers go nationwide as well. Huey became a legendary figure thanks in part to the famous photo of him sitting on a wicker throne with a spear in one hand and a rifle in the other. Some joined because they believed Huey had shot it out with the police. Others joined because they believed he was being framed and were horrified by the image of him chained to a hospital bed. His cause was adopted not just by blacks but by every group in the country especially the huge student antiwar movement. Luckily for Huey a brilliant crusading communist lawyer Charles Garry took on his case. Huey would spend years in prison but amazingly would finally be freed thanks to Garry’s skillful defense.
In Jail Huey would continue his resistance. He saw clearly the way that prison labor was a new form of slavery and refused to work unless he was paid a fair wage. As a result he spent years in solitary confinement although he was allowed to meet with his family and legal team through which he passed messages to the Panthers. It was while in jail that little Bobby Hutton the first to join the panthers when only 15 became the first to die at only 17 when he and Cleaver got into a shootout with police. It was a major blow to Huey who dedicated his Autobiography “Revolutionary Suicide” to Little Bobby. You’ll have to read the book to discover more about the trial of Huey Newton and his time in Jail. Garry managed to destroy the credibility of the governments witnesses first Huey escaped the death penalty and was convicted of manslaughter as a compromise. Eventually after two more trials that conviction was overturned. Huey was free and was greeted by an adoring crowd of thousands. At a press conference he offered to spend Black Panthers to Vietnam to aid the National Liberation Front or what the americans mistakenly called the Viet Cong.
While he had been away the Party had evolved and grown expanding nationwide. The most important development had been the creation of survival programs. David Hilliard and Bobby Seale had overseen their creation while Huey had prepared their ideological justification. The needs of the poor could not be put off until after the revolution or they would perish. The survival programs were meant to save their lives in the meantime. Huey also realized that by serving the people the party would win the loyalty of the people. In addition many Panthers had already been killed or arrested and Huey wanted to take a less confrontational approach. Eldridge Cleaver saw this as a sellout of the revolution at the very least encouraged by letters he received from COINTELPRO if he wasn’t actually an agent as many suspect. Cleaver and his supporters were thrown out of the party. And the two sides were goaded into open warfare with each other through Cointelpro.
Another development while in prison was Huey’s brilliant new theoretical advance called intercommunalism. A fellow prisoner slipped Huey a magazine one day and as he flipped through it he came across a Ford motor company ad. It said something like “You fly Your Flag We’ll fly ours.” amazingly Huey seized on this seemingly meaningless ad and his mind seemingly leapt decades into the future as he envisioned both the collapse of the Soviet Union and the age of globalization. In other words he saw our world today in which every country has lost it’s independence instead serving the tyranny of the multinational corporations and at the mercy of the free market. What is today called globalization Huey called Reactionary Intercommunalism. The only solution was a revolutionary intercommunalism a global internationalist struggle against imperialism, globalization, and Capitalism. For more on this topic check out a book of Newton’s essays called “To Die For The People.”
Huey put his internationalist vision into practice traveling to China in an effort to beat Nixon there. Year earlier Robert F. Williams had personally explained the plight of blacks in America to Mao and Mao had issued a statement calling for all the peoples of the world to support the struggle for black liberation. Huey timed his visit to beat Nixon to China, and while he didn’t get to meet Mao he did meet Chou-En Lai. Mao was one of Newton’s major inspirations and in China he felt free for the first time. The Chinese offered him political asylum since he had snuck over between his second and third trials but Newton decided he had to face the american injustice system so he could continue the struggle for revolution back in the states. Huey would also live in Cuba after being forced to flee into exile in 1974 when the police tried to frame him for the murder of a prostitute.
Newton ends his Auto-Biography after discussing the split with Cleaver and Reaffirming his commitment to the survival programs. Thus I won’t be able to go much into his final years. Newton began using increasing amounts of cocaine and the fame, the paranoia, the COINTELPRO in the end proved too much for him. He focused his attention on seizing control of Oakland both the political overworld and the criminal underworld. By a miracle he had survived the assassination attempts and the frame ups unlike so many other Black Panthers. 28 Panthers gave their lives and as of 2006 over 40 Panthers were still in Prison. Unfortunately he outlived his time as the revolutionary spirit of the sixties and 70′s began to fade. One of his final achievements was earn a PHD from UC Santa Cruz. He was gunned down by a drug dealer in 1989. When I was growing all my generation heard about him was the occasional phrase “free Huey” from the eternally nostalgic baby boomers. However in the wake of the Rodney king beating the LA uprising, the brief Malcolm X revival they made a movie about him called Panther which is mysteriously unavailable on Netflix. Recently PBS played a documentary called vanguard of the revolution which seemed aimed at erasing the panthers socialist ideology and vilifying their founder Huey P. Newton. Luckily another documentary is in the works aiming to show the true legacy of this complex and inspiring figure.
Reading “Revolutionary Suicide” one could almost be reading about today Poverty, Police Brutality, Mass Incarceration, Poor Education, Capitalism and Imperialism have only grown as problems since Newton’s times. Since 2014 a wave of urban rebellions have swept the country first in Ferguson, then Baltimore, and most recently in Milwaukee. The Young are once again organizing to oppose police brutality and so would do well to study the heroic example of Huey Newton. Nearly thirty years after his death the system is still terrified of Huey which is while they are still trying to poison his memory. At the same time 30 years later he still provides inspiration to all those who dream that a better world is possible.
Sources
My main Source was “Revolutionary Suicide” By Huey P. Newton which I highly recommend and is also an extremely entertaining and exciting read. I also read his collection of Essays “To Die For the People” and His doctoral thesis on the Black Panthers “War against the Panthers” both of which I also Highly recommend. I also read “A Taste of Power: A Black Woman’s Story” By Elaine Brown although I was warned by trusted comrades that she is suspected of being a Cointelpro or a Chaos agent. It is an exciting read although it may have been written to vilify the party and create divisions. Brown of course denies these Accusations. As noted an in depth study of cointelpro and CHAOS are long overdue. I’m Currently reading “Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party” which is highly recommended as the definitive scholarly account. I also recommend you check out some of the many Huey P. Newton interviews and press conferences that have been uploaded to Youtube. I’ve also watched great discussions of David Hilliard’s book “Huey: Spirit of the Panther” on You Tube and I look forward to reading it.
Huey Newton’s War Against the Panthers is available online
http://libcom.org.libcom.org/files/WATP.pdf
I found a PDF copy of The Huey P. Newton Reader which I haven’t had a chance to read yet
https://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/books/hueypnewtonreader.pdf
Mumia Abu Jamal on the genius of Huey P. Newton
https://libya360.wordpress.com/2016/01/18/the-genius-of-huey-p-newton/
Huey’s Brother Melvin Newton on the Early Years of Huey Newton
https://libya360.wordpress.com/2016/08/22/huey-p-newtons-brother-melvin-speaks-on-their-panther-histories/
Carlos Martinez wrote an article mostly made up of excerpts from “Revolutionary Suicide”
http://www.invent-the-future.org/2015/02/huey-newton-revolutionary-suicide/
Danny Haiphong on Huey P. Newton His articles last year helped guide my research this year
https://libya360.wordpress.com/2016/03/08/huey-newton-a-revolutionary-hero/
Danny Haiphong on the PBS Documentary
http://www.blackagendareport.com/in_defense_of_panthers
Global Research, September 04, 2016
Dedicated to My Friend and Comrade Marland X aka @CharlieMBrownX
Huey P. Newton was a visionary, a poet, a thinker, a writer, a gangster, but above all a revolutionary. Without his brilliance and daring the Black Panther party would never have been created. 50 Years after it’s creation the Black Panther Party for Self Defense is as relevant as ever because shockingly little has changed except for the worse.
Black life is as cheap as ever, police gun down people at an alarming rate. Much of the country lives in poverty while the ultra-rich get ever richer. In Huey’s time American Imperialism was waging a genocidal war across south-east Asia spanning Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Indonesia. (and other places as well) Today American imperialism is waging an even larger war stretching from central Africa, through southwest Asia(the middle east) , and into Central Asia and even eastern Europe (Ukraine). Police brutality, poverty, war, have only grown worse. In fact the Obama administration oversaw the greatest economic looting of the country in general and the black community in particular in american history. Capitalism is in Crisis, Imperialism is out of control, and once again revolution is in the air. Thus now the year of the 50th anniversary of the foundation of the Black Panther Party on October 15 1966 (Or more likely October 29th) is the perfect time to revive the heroic figure of Huey P. Newton a man who inspired millions with his courageous example.
Huey P. Newton was born in Monroe, Louisiana on February 17, 1942. He was named by his father Walter in Honor of the populist Louisiana governor Huey Long who like Newton was assassinated. Walter Newton his father was born after his black mother who was a servant was raped by her white employer. Walter Newton was a man of courage and integrity who demanded to be treated with respect which was nearly suicidal in the south or anywhere else in America at the time. He was labeled as crazy for standing up to whites which could have gotten him lynched or murdered. Eventually he moved his family west to Oakland California. Huey was the seventh member of the Newton family a powerful symbol in local folk beliefs. His mother Armelia doted on him believing him destined for greatness. His father worked two or three jobs to insure that she would stay home and take care of the kids although money was always tight. In addition Huey’s father was also a minister. Huey spent his early childhood part of this tight knit family rarely coming in contact with the neighborhood kids. Reading his autobiography “Revolutionary Suicide” one is often struck by a certain duality in Huey P. Newton one side of his personality the sweet imaginative introverted side was the product of these early years with his tight knit family.
The other side of Huey’s personality would be born on the mean streets of Oakland and the classrooms of the racist public school system. At first Huey would be bullied and mocked mercilessly by the local kids hated for his light skin and suspected of being a mommas boy. They chased him thru the streets throwing rocks at him shouting “Huey P Wee Wee Wee” until he finally learned to fight back. This is when they “crazy” Huey was born. His brothers Lee Edward who had a reputation as a tough street fighter taught him how to fight. His advice was “look them in the eye and keep advancing” advice Huey would follow throughout his life. Another brother Walter Junior known as Sonny Man who would become a low level hustler also taught him to fight. Sonny Man would be Huey’s mentor on the streets. His other brother Melvin took the opposite approach studying hard in the hopes of somehow finding a good job.
It was Melvin who instilled in Huey a love of poetry and philosophy. Ironically the brilliant Huey Newton would nearly graduate from High School as a complete illiterate. Actually “Revolutionary Suicide” should be required reading for teachers for it’s brilliant analysis of the hostile dynamic between students and teachers especially black students. Racially and class Biased IQ tests become a self fulfilling prophecy. Huey supposedly had an IQ of 74. An adversarial relationship develops between teacher and students and the students show their resistance by refusing to learn and co-operate.
The educational system in reality becomes a branch of the prison system it’s goal is not to teach but to keep the students under surveillance and under control. Thus it was that Huey in spite of his brilliance and thirst for knowledge would almost graduate from school illiterate. Instead of learning anything he would spend his time in constant battles with the teachers and his fellow students. He would bully white students into doing his homework and would use his prodigious memory to disguise the fact he couldn’t read. It was thanks to his brother that he received any book learning at all in the forms of poems which Huey would learn by heart by having his brother Melvin read and re-read them to him.
Perhaps his real education in these years was on the streets. “Crazy” Huey became one of the local tough guys getting into street fights. He also began a career of petty crime with his friends shoplifting and robbing parking meters. Huey would hang out on street corners debating the meaning of life. He learned to love philosophy from hanging around his brother Melvin and listening in on his discussions. His first political consciousness also began to emerge out of a spirit of pure rebellion. When the Cuban Revolution occurred Huey supported it instinctively because his teachers and the media were so loudly condemning it. Watching his father work three jobs but sink ever deeper into debt also raised important questions in Huey. As did the shocking conditions around him which he had once taken for granted the garbage dump that made the only playground uninhabitable because of swarms of rats, hunger and misery everywhere. Slowly he would become more and more concerned with the plight of black people in America.
Thankfully just as Huey had refused to learn to read out of a spirit of rebellion when he decided to follow his brother Melvin’s footsteps by going to college and was told he couldn’t in 10th Grade that same spirit of rebellion made him decide to learn to read to prove he could go to college. Huey claimed he learned to read by going thru Plato’s republic with a dictionary. Which I find a little hard to believe but regardless he would read and reread the book. Falling in love with the “allegory of the cave.” In this story prisoners are kept their whole lives chained inside a cave all they see is a shadowplay projected onto the wall in front of them the shadows are the only reality they see. One day a prisoners chains come loose he wanders out of the cave and after being momentarily blinded by the sun his vision returns and he sees that there is a whole world outside the cave, but when he returns to tell his fellow captives no one believes him. For Huey the story symbolized the ignorance the black community was kept in. He was determined to break their chains and show them that another world was possible. Today one would be tempted to compare the prisoners to those foolish enough to believe the mainstream news on TV or in the paper.
Huey eventually made it to college but he remained divided between the paths taken by his brother Sonny Man the Gangster and his brother Melvin the overachieving student. He was scared of loosing his connection with the “street brothers.” He continued his life of petty crime and decided to study law and criminology so as to be a better criminal. This obsession with the law would later prove extremely useful when Huey founded the black panthers. At the same time once he learned to read he became a lover of books and would hole up somewhere reading the classics. He also became a bit of a ladies man. His friend converted him to the concept of “free love” before it had become popular and Huey had multiple girlfriends who he often lived off of supplementing his income with burglaries and fraud.
At the same time his college years were when Huey began to truly become political. He joined a black student reading group the Afro-American Association founded by Donald Warden that studied classics of black history like W. E. B. Dubois’s “Souls of Black Folk” and Black Literature like James Baldwin “The Fire Next Time” Then they would talk late into the night. Amazingly some of Huey’s fellow association members included future Cointelpro tool Ron Karenga then known as Ronald Everett who would found the United Slaves or US that would later wage war on the Panthers on behalf of the FBI and Richard Thorne who had converted Huey to “Free Love” went on to found the sexual freedom league and then changed his name to OM and became a cult leader. The groups founder and leader Donald Warden would attempt to join the political establishment. It was during this period when Huey met future Black Panther Party Co-Founder Bobby Seal. Huey had already known another important future Black Panther Party leader David Hilliard since childhood. The moral of the story is get your friends together and try to start a revolution. It would be a couple years before the party would actually be founded but it would be born out of Huey bouncing Ideas off of Bobby. A major inspiration for both men was the fiery Malcolm X.
Here at last was a fearless voice for black liberation. Huey of course loved the fact that Malcolm X could speak in the language of the “brothers on the block”, being a former gangster and ex con himself. At the same time Malcolm X had so thoroughly self educated himself that he could make a college professor look like an ignorant fool. Above all Malcolm X had a program a plan. Unfortunately he was assassinated before he could truly begin putting his ideas into action.
Another inspiration was Robert F. Williams who like Malcolm X advocated armed self defense. Williams was forced to flee the country to escape the american injustice system. This was also the period when Huey became a socialist. Whenever he explained his vision for the world people accused him of being a socialist. He became curious and began to read up on the topic. Finally when he discovered a four volume version of the works of Mao Tse Tong he became a convert. Mao was the major influence on the ideology of the Black Panthers. He was also a supporter of the Cuban Revolution and almost traveled there himself. Another Major influence was Frantz Fanon.
Anyways you’ll have to read “Revolutionary Suicide” for yourselves if you want to get the full scope of Huey’s activities in this period. He had become thru necessity an expert amateur lawyer at defending himself. Of course this only made the local police and prosecutors even more eager to lock him up. But in the meantime Huey managed to successfully defend himself in a string of court room victories. Eventually however he was convicted after a fight in which he stabbed a man who he believed was reaching for a knife. In the book Huey uses the case as another example of the american injustice system at work since the middle class white jurors were incapable of understanding that he was merely acting in self defense. Odell Lee intended him harm and so Huey Struck first. Huey’s description of prison life and the legal system are invaluable to anyone seeking to understand the american injustice system and the mass incarceration state which have only expanded in size, brutality and racism since Huey’s time. Back then the prison population was majority white for instance today the majority of prisoners are blacks and latinos. Just as with the abolition of slavery the forces of reaction came up with “black codes” to reverse those gains and return to the profitability of unpaid labor, so too following the passage of the civil rights act the war on Drugs followed seeking to reverse those gains. Today America has the largest prison population in the world and conditions in those prisons are far worse then during the Sixties when Huey was imprisoned.
Huey served his time in the Alameda county jail. The guards attempted to break his spirit because of his defiant attitude. They sentenced him to the Soul Breaker a cell with no light and no toilet only a hole in the center of the room. Usually a prisoner would break down and beg to be released after a a day or two. Huey refused to surrender he discovered hidden reserves of strength and discipline. In the sensory deprivation of the prison cell he had a sort of mystical experience. He emerged stronger and more defiant then ever. He felt as if he had been reborn. After 16 days it was the jail that was forced to give up and he was released for the sake of his health. After founding the BPP and then being framed for murder Huey’s discussion of the Soul Breaker during his trial lead to it being abolished another victory.
Huey’s experience in prison only further radicalized him. He was eventually released met up with Bobby Seal again and the two determined to come up with some plan to help the black community. They sent months reading Mao, Lenin, Che, Fidel studying various revolutions. Debating and drinking and arguing. Eventually they decided that while studying these revolutions could give them ideas they couldn’t merely copy them they had to come up with a strategy that fit the Oakland Ghetto of 1966 a very different situation from the Island of Cuba or the huge land of China. This lead to more plans and discussions how best to capture the imagination of the street brothers, how to win the support of the black community. They seized on the idea of armed self defense. Actually initially instead of planning to form their own party they tried to convince the pre-existing groups SSAC a front for RAM the Revolutionary Action Movement to which they belonged to adopt their idea of forming armed patrols to protect the community but everyone thought the idea was crazy and suicidal. In the long run perhaps they would prove correct as the Black Panthers would end up dead or imprisoned. That is Why Huey Titled his Book “Revolutionary Suicide” for to become a revolutionary is to become a doomed man. Finally worried that like so many would be revolutionaries they would get no further then talk they decided to come up with a ten point program and to found their own party. Supposedly they brainstormed the entire ten point program in a single evening. It consisted of ten demands followed by their analysis of the situation behind it. Since they remain as relevant as ever I’ll list all ten demands.
We want freedom. We Want Power to determine the destiny of our Black Community.
We want full employment for our people.
We want an end to the robbery by the CAPITALIST of our Black Community.
We want decent housing fit for shelter of human beings.
We want education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American society. We want education that teaches us our true history and our role in the present day society.
We want all Black men to be exempt from military service.
We want an immediate end to POLICE BRUTALITY and MURDER of Black People.
We want freedom for all Black men held in federal, state, county, and city prisons and jails.
We want all Black People when brought to trial to be tried in court by a jury of their peer group, or people from their Black Communities as defined by the constitution of the United States.
We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice, and peace.
Well I discovered that in reality the ten point program was actually formulated the next year but this is the legend of the founding of the Black Panther party. They also were inspired by the ten point program of Malcolm X. This version is also a revised version of the ten point program which changed somewhat over time. However this is the way the Panthers tell the story Huey and Bobby Come up with the ten point program in a single night. The name and symbol of the Black Panther Party had been floating around before they seized on it. It started with the Lowndes County Freedom Organization in Mississippi. In Watts where there had been a famous uprising in 1965 inspired by Police Brutality Mark Comfort and Curtis Lee Baker had later founded the Community Alert Patrol or CAP as a means of discouraging police brutality by keeping watch over them. They adopted the Black Panther as their symbol putting it on the side of their patrol car. They were thus a sort of Proto-Panther group. Finally Huey and Bobby’s former comrades in RAM also formed a Black Panther Party. In other words in founding the Black Panther Party for Self Defense they were drawing on ideas that were already floating around at the time.
What Separated Huey and Bobby from the others was the intensity with which they would carry it out. CAP patrolled the police but were unarmed. They were also in Southern California so while they inspired the Panthers they were not rivals. The rival RAM branch of the Black Panthers carried weapons but purely for show they were always unloaded. Huey and Bobby’s Panthers were armed and prepared to use force to defend themselves. Their first recruit was 15 year old Little Bobby Hutton. Bobby Seale who had served in the air force provided the weapons along with Richard Aoki a Japanese american anti-imperialist who also donated some weapons to the cause. This was another thing that separated the Black Panthers from other black nationalist groups they wanted to work with anyone who wanted to change the system regardless of race and would inspire or work with groups of Latinos (The Brown Berets The young Lords), Asians (The Red Guard), whites (SDS, White Panthers) and Native Americans (AIM). Actually in his youth Bobby Seale was inspired by the example of indigenous resistance to genocidal american imperialism. The Panthers were also inspired by a spirit of revolutionary solidarity with the Vietnamese, the Chinese, The Cubans, and Algerians in their struggles against imperialism. Thus while the Black Panthers sought to mobilize the black community they saw the revolution as only possible with the support of allies both at home and abroad. They were from the start internationalists contrary to popular belief which sees them as a sort of black hate group. Nothing could be further from the truth.
In any case armed and with only a single recruit Huey and Bobby decided to put their plan into action. Huey carried a shot gun in one hand and a lawbook in the other. He had carefully researched California Gun Laws and also discovered that citizens were allowed to monitor police as long as they stayed far enough away not to “interfere” with their carrying out their duties. They drove around until they found a cop and decided to follow him on patrol. The cop got a glimpse of their guns and freaked out. Now he was following the Panthers and Huey managed to lead him to his old college Merrit so their would be an audience for their first confrontation. The cop tried to disarm them but Huey loudly cited the law on private property and knocked the cop down. He chambered his shotgun as the cop cowered in terror in front of the crowd and eventually fled.
The crowd was in awe. This was the first of many patrols. Whenever they found the police arresting someone Huey would read out the law to educate the suspect on their rights then follow the cops to jail and bail the suspect out. Often they would join out of gratitude. In the beginning many were impressed but few dared to join and initially the group received no press coverage. The group first made a name for themselves when they were recruited to guard Malcolm X’s widow Betty Shabazz on her visit to Oakland.
The group had already grown to a dozen or so members and they arrived at the airport fully armed which was actually legal at the time. Huey later got in a major confrontation with the police which impressed author Eldridge Cleaver who decided to join. Cleaver and Newton would later have a major falling out that would split and Cleaver would later join the CIA’s favorite cult the moonies and become an arch conservative raising questions as to wether he had been part of COINTELPRO or even the CIA’s CHAOS program all along. In reality the true history of the sixties needs to be completely re-evaluated in order to discover what was genuine and what was psychological warfare. Whatever the truth Cleaver was a fearless orator and had a lot of connections with white radicals that would help the Panthers expand. By guarding Betty Shabazz the Panthers gained the attention of the underground press.
Another major early episode that helped the group grow was it’s attempt to get justice for the death of Denzil Dowell in Richmond California. The Police claimed he had been shot after robbing a store and leading the police on a foot chase where he jumped fences. In reality Dowell had a bad hip and had trouble walking let alone hopping fences. In fact he had been murdered with his hands up by a cop who had been threatening him for months. There was no evidence that anyone had even broken into the store that night. Dowell had been murdered in cold blood by a cop and the whole thing had been ruled a justifiable homicide as the Panthers discovered after doing their own investigation. First they had arrived to offer their support for the family then they began interviewing the neighborhood learning more about the brutal police and the terrible conditions of the ghetto. They chased off some cops who had come to harass the Dowell family. They gave the family an armed escort into the station sending the police into a panic before finally relenting so the family could get in and talk to the prosecutor. Of course then as today he refused to do anything. A badge is a license to kill especially to kill blacks. Instead the panthers decided to hold an armed demonstration in support of justice for Denzil Dowell. It was a huge success and for the first time a whole community began to embrace the Panthers. in fact at the second Rally the local people decided to emulate the panthers and they arrived armed as well.
Incidentally the Black Panther paper was created to fight for justice for Denzil Dowell. It would eventually grow to a circulation of 100,000 and was read all over the world. Sales of the paper would later fund the Panthers survival programs like the free breakfast for children program which would feed 10,000 children a day by 1969. But that is skipping a bit ahead. The Panthers had taken advantage of knowing the law to found their party. Thus it wasn’t long before the State of California decided to simply change the law making it illegal to bear arms in public. Huey sent Bobby to the state capitol in Sacramento with a bunch of Panthers where they tried to enter fully armed as a protest against Mulford’s “Anti-Panther” Bill. The press accused them of an “invasion” which I found amusing the hypocrisy of american imperialism never ends the panthers merely read a statement they dropped no bombs, fired no artillery, and did not kill anyone. They merely read a statement. But I’ll deal further with Sacramento in my next article.
The Summer of 1967 was known as the summer of rage their were 160 urban rebellions the biggest being Newark and Detroit. Detroit was the biggest urban rebellion of the 20th century with black snipers and arsonists battling police and firemen for days. The country seemed poised on the brink of revolution and Huey’s vision of the world published through the BPP paper in articles like “The Correct Handling of the Revolution” had proven prophetic. That fall in October around a year after the parties foundation an Oakland policeman John Frey decided the only solution was to kill Newton. Huey Newton and Gene Mckinney were pulled over. What actually happened next may never be known. Huey claimed that Frey shot him and then as Huey lost consciousness someone else mysteriously saved his life by gunning down the police. The legend was that Huey himself killed Frey. Perhaps another panther shot the cops after Huey was shot. It could even have been some intelligence agency hoping to frame Newton. If Huey later learned the truth he kept it secret to protect the identity of whoever saved him or alternately to protect himself. Regardless when the smoke cleared Frey was dead his partner was wounded. Huey arrived later that night badly wounded at his friend David Hilliard’s house and was dropped off at the hospital. There the police beat him mercilessly and handcuffed him to the bed in a position that was pure torture for a gunshot victim. Whenever he regained consciousness he was beaten and taunted that he would receive the death penalty.
The authorities hoped to use the incident to destroy the Black Panthers by sentencing it’s brilliant leader to death. Instead the campaign to free Huey went nationwide and the massive publicity it generated saw the Black Panthers go nationwide as well. Huey became a legendary figure thanks in part to the famous photo of him sitting on a wicker throne with a spear in one hand and a rifle in the other. Some joined because they believed Huey had shot it out with the police. Others joined because they believed he was being framed and were horrified by the image of him chained to a hospital bed. His cause was adopted not just by blacks but by every group in the country especially the huge student antiwar movement. Luckily for Huey a brilliant crusading communist lawyer Charles Garry took on his case. Huey would spend years in prison but amazingly would finally be freed thanks to Garry’s skillful defense.
In Jail Huey would continue his resistance. He saw clearly the way that prison labor was a new form of slavery and refused to work unless he was paid a fair wage. As a result he spent years in solitary confinement although he was allowed to meet with his family and legal team through which he passed messages to the Panthers. It was while in jail that little Bobby Hutton the first to join the panthers when only 15 became the first to die at only 17 when he and Cleaver got into a shootout with police. It was a major blow to Huey who dedicated his Autobiography “Revolutionary Suicide” to Little Bobby. You’ll have to read the book to discover more about the trial of Huey Newton and his time in Jail. Garry managed to destroy the credibility of the governments witnesses first Huey escaped the death penalty and was convicted of manslaughter as a compromise. Eventually after two more trials that conviction was overturned. Huey was free and was greeted by an adoring crowd of thousands. At a press conference he offered to spend Black Panthers to Vietnam to aid the National Liberation Front or what the americans mistakenly called the Viet Cong.
While he had been away the Party had evolved and grown expanding nationwide. The most important development had been the creation of survival programs. David Hilliard and Bobby Seale had overseen their creation while Huey had prepared their ideological justification. The needs of the poor could not be put off until after the revolution or they would perish. The survival programs were meant to save their lives in the meantime. Huey also realized that by serving the people the party would win the loyalty of the people. In addition many Panthers had already been killed or arrested and Huey wanted to take a less confrontational approach. Eldridge Cleaver saw this as a sellout of the revolution at the very least encouraged by letters he received from COINTELPRO if he wasn’t actually an agent as many suspect. Cleaver and his supporters were thrown out of the party. And the two sides were goaded into open warfare with each other through Cointelpro.
Another development while in prison was Huey’s brilliant new theoretical advance called intercommunalism. A fellow prisoner slipped Huey a magazine one day and as he flipped through it he came across a Ford motor company ad. It said something like “You fly Your Flag We’ll fly ours.” amazingly Huey seized on this seemingly meaningless ad and his mind seemingly leapt decades into the future as he envisioned both the collapse of the Soviet Union and the age of globalization. In other words he saw our world today in which every country has lost it’s independence instead serving the tyranny of the multinational corporations and at the mercy of the free market. What is today called globalization Huey called Reactionary Intercommunalism. The only solution was a revolutionary intercommunalism a global internationalist struggle against imperialism, globalization, and Capitalism. For more on this topic check out a book of Newton’s essays called “To Die For The People.”
Huey put his internationalist vision into practice traveling to China in an effort to beat Nixon there. Year earlier Robert F. Williams had personally explained the plight of blacks in America to Mao and Mao had issued a statement calling for all the peoples of the world to support the struggle for black liberation. Huey timed his visit to beat Nixon to China, and while he didn’t get to meet Mao he did meet Chou-En Lai. Mao was one of Newton’s major inspirations and in China he felt free for the first time. The Chinese offered him political asylum since he had snuck over between his second and third trials but Newton decided he had to face the american injustice system so he could continue the struggle for revolution back in the states. Huey would also live in Cuba after being forced to flee into exile in 1974 when the police tried to frame him for the murder of a prostitute.
Newton ends his Auto-Biography after discussing the split with Cleaver and Reaffirming his commitment to the survival programs. Thus I won’t be able to go much into his final years. Newton began using increasing amounts of cocaine and the fame, the paranoia, the COINTELPRO in the end proved too much for him. He focused his attention on seizing control of Oakland both the political overworld and the criminal underworld. By a miracle he had survived the assassination attempts and the frame ups unlike so many other Black Panthers. 28 Panthers gave their lives and as of 2006 over 40 Panthers were still in Prison. Unfortunately he outlived his time as the revolutionary spirit of the sixties and 70′s began to fade. One of his final achievements was earn a PHD from UC Santa Cruz. He was gunned down by a drug dealer in 1989. When I was growing all my generation heard about him was the occasional phrase “free Huey” from the eternally nostalgic baby boomers. However in the wake of the Rodney king beating the LA uprising, the brief Malcolm X revival they made a movie about him called Panther which is mysteriously unavailable on Netflix. Recently PBS played a documentary called vanguard of the revolution which seemed aimed at erasing the panthers socialist ideology and vilifying their founder Huey P. Newton. Luckily another documentary is in the works aiming to show the true legacy of this complex and inspiring figure.
Reading “Revolutionary Suicide” one could almost be reading about today Poverty, Police Brutality, Mass Incarceration, Poor Education, Capitalism and Imperialism have only grown as problems since Newton’s times. Since 2014 a wave of urban rebellions have swept the country first in Ferguson, then Baltimore, and most recently in Milwaukee. The Young are once again organizing to oppose police brutality and so would do well to study the heroic example of Huey Newton. Nearly thirty years after his death the system is still terrified of Huey which is while they are still trying to poison his memory. At the same time 30 years later he still provides inspiration to all those who dream that a better world is possible.
Sources
My main Source was “Revolutionary Suicide” By Huey P. Newton which I highly recommend and is also an extremely entertaining and exciting read. I also read his collection of Essays “To Die For the People” and His doctoral thesis on the Black Panthers “War against the Panthers” both of which I also Highly recommend. I also read “A Taste of Power: A Black Woman’s Story” By Elaine Brown although I was warned by trusted comrades that she is suspected of being a Cointelpro or a Chaos agent. It is an exciting read although it may have been written to vilify the party and create divisions. Brown of course denies these Accusations. As noted an in depth study of cointelpro and CHAOS are long overdue. I’m Currently reading “Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party” which is highly recommended as the definitive scholarly account. I also recommend you check out some of the many Huey P. Newton interviews and press conferences that have been uploaded to Youtube. I’ve also watched great discussions of David Hilliard’s book “Huey: Spirit of the Panther” on You Tube and I look forward to reading it.
Huey Newton’s War Against the Panthers is available online
http://libcom.org.libcom.org/files/WATP.pdf
I found a PDF copy of The Huey P. Newton Reader which I haven’t had a chance to read yet
https://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/books/hueypnewtonreader.pdf
Mumia Abu Jamal on the genius of Huey P. Newton
https://libya360.wordpress.com/2016/01/18/the-genius-of-huey-p-newton/
Huey’s Brother Melvin Newton on the Early Years of Huey Newton
https://libya360.wordpress.com/2016/08/22/huey-p-newtons-brother-melvin-speaks-on-their-panther-histories/
Carlos Martinez wrote an article mostly made up of excerpts from “Revolutionary Suicide”
http://www.invent-the-future.org/2015/02/huey-newton-revolutionary-suicide/
Danny Haiphong on Huey P. Newton His articles last year helped guide my research this year
https://libya360.wordpress.com/2016/03/08/huey-newton-a-revolutionary-hero/
Danny Haiphong on the PBS Documentary
http://www.blackagendareport.com/in_defense_of_panthers
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