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His conviction was overturned in 1970, and he emerged from prison to discover the party had grown well beyond Oakland. While imprisoned, the “Free Huey” campaign helped make him a symbol of racial injustice in the American criminal legal system. Although Newton was himself shot during the encounter and denied being responsible for the officer’s death, he was tried and convicted of voluntary manslaughter in 1968. In 1967, Newton was jailed for the shooting death of an Oakland police officer who had pulled him over. Panthers’ antagonistic relationship with law enforcement has long cast a shadow over its legacy.

#HUEY NEWTON FOR FREE#

The Panthers were known, among other things, for free breakfast programs for schoolchildren and a pioneering sickle cell disease testing program. The party’s Survival Programs were beloved in nearly 70 communities the U.S. Newton and Seale wrote the party’s Ten Point Program, which laid out the party’s beliefs and its demands. And I think he was pretty surprised at how rapidly (the Panthers) grew in exposure, whether it was fame or infamy.”

“But I don’t know that that was his natural inclination, personality-wise. It was only after graduation from high school that his real education began a self-taught reader, he studied the works of W.E.B. Newton struggled with his education, unable to read or write in high school even as he was arrested for petty crimes. His parents, Walter and Armelia Newton, moved the family to Oakland during a wave of the Great Migration, when the promise of work and less overt racial oppression lured thousands of African American families out of the Jim Crow South. The youngest of seven children, Newton was born on Feb. He felt that no one could be on his back, if he stood up. “Huey was maybe the only man I’ve ever known that was a truly free man,” said his older brother, Melvin Newton. His influence on the Black Lives Matter movement is undeniable. said.Still, many love him to this day, venerating him as a man who, with Bobby Seale, sought to unite all Black, impoverished and oppressed people against what they considered America’s racist, capitalistic and unjust interests. Many suspect the FBI, which had the party under surveillance, was involved in Hampton’s death. In attendance Sunday were other Black Panther Party members and their relatives, including Fred Hampton Jr., son of Fred Hampton, the 21-year-old head of the Panther’s Chicago chapter who was killed by police during a raid on his apartment in 1969. “I’m hoping that today in the honoring of this man who was a genius - a brilliant genius who did so much - that we are able to not just celebrate his legacy, live into his legacy, into his program, live into his sacrifice and make it a reality, said Oakland City councilmember, Carol Fife. Newton Day, and carried a somber note, being held at the intersection where Newton was murdered in 1989 at the age of 47 and on the street that now bears his name. The unveiling occurred on what Mayor Libby Schaaf designated Huey P. Newton’s “unwavering commitment to the liberation of all oppressed people.” The sculpture includes a plaque acknowledging Huey P. At the unveiling, its sculptor, Dana King, said “We need to follow the path that has been laid by the Black Panther Party for us to have our freedom.” Newton’s widow, Fredrika Newton, spearheaded the project to create the Dr. “And we continue in a storm.”Ī bronze bust of Huey P. “The panther was born in a storm.” said Melvin Newton, Huey P.

#HUEY NEWTON SERIES#

The event during a wind-swept deluge was one of a series this month to commemorate the Black Panther Party’s 55th anniversary. The party developed services to meet the everyday needs of Black Americans, including a free breakfast program that would become a model for the federal program in schools across the country. The bronze bust of Newton is the first permanent art installation to honor the activist, who started the Panthers with Bobby Seale in 1966 to provide educational, and economic support to the Black community. Newton, who co-founded the Black Panther Party in the city. During an unusually stormy Sunday in West Oakland, about 150 people sang and danced in the rain to celebrate the unveiling of a sculpture honoring Huey P.

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