Black History Month: The Revolutionary Minds That Molded and Led The Black Panther Party

Huey P. Newton

Originally from Louisiana, Newton was a student at Merritt College in Oakland where he became involved in politics in the Bay Area. He also joined the Afro-American Association and became a member of Phi beta Sigma Fraternity. He was a fan of the works of Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Frantz Fanon, Malcolm X, Mao Zedong and Che Guevara. It was during his time at Merritt that he met and befriended fellow Merritt student Bobby Seale, with whom he created the Black Panther Party for Self Defense.

Newton was convicted of voluntary manslaughter for the death of John Frey, an Oakland police officer who stopped Newton on the morning of October 1967 in an attempt to disarm and discourage the Panther patrols. A shootout ensued that killed Frey and wounded Newton and a another Oakland police officer. But after two mistrials, the case against Newton was dropped. He was also charged with the murder of a 17-year-old prostitute in 1974. Newton fled to Cuba to avoid prosecution but returned to the states in 1977 to stand trial. He was acquitted of assault in 1978 but convicted on two counts of firearm possession.

Newton was killed at the age of 47 in August 1989 by a Black Guerrilla Family member, a prison gang that followed Marxist revolutionary idealism.