Huey P. Newton

1942-1989

In 1966, Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale founded the left-wing Black Panther Party for Self Defense in Oakland, California. The organization was central to the Black Power movement, making headlines with its controversial rhetoric and militaristic style. Newton faced a number of criminal charges over the years and, at one point, fled to Cuba before returning to the United States and earning his doctorate. Struggling with drug and alcohol addiction in his later years, he was shot to death in August 1989 at age 47.

FULL NAME: Huey Percy Newton
BORN: February 17, 1942
DIED: August 22, 1989
BIRTHPLACE: Monroe, Louisiana
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Aquarius

Huey Percy Newton was born on February 17, 1942, in Monroe, Louisiana. The youngest of seven siblings, he and his family moved to Oakland, California, when Huey was a toddler. Although later stating he was close to his family, the youngster had a difficult time early in life, which was reflected in highly erratic behavior at school and on the streets.

As a teenager, Huey faced multiple suspensions and run-ins with the law. But he began to take his education seriously after his older brother Melvin earned a master’s degree in social work. Although Huey graduated high school in 1959, he was considered barely literate. He nonetheless became his own teacher, learning to read by himself.

In the mid-1960s, Huey decided to pursue his education at Merritt College, during which time he received a months-long prison term for a knife assault, and later attended the University of San Francisco School of Law.

Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton formed the Black Panther Party for Self Defense in 1966.

Merritt College was where Newton met Bobby Seale. The two were briefly involved with political groups at the school before they set out to create one of their own.

Founded in 1966, they called their group the Black Panther Party for Self Defense. Unlike many of the other social and political organizers of the time, they took a more militant stance to the plight of Black communities in America. A famous photograph shows Newton, the group’s minister of defense, holding a gun in one hand and a spear in the other.

The group set forth its political goals in a document entitled the Ten-Point Program, which called for better housing, jobs, and education for Black Americans. It also called for an end to economic exploitation of Black communities, along with military exemption.

The organization wasn’t afraid to punctuate its message with dramatic appearances. For example, to protest a gun bill in 1967, members of the Panthers entered the California Legislature armed. (Newton wasn’t actually present at the demonstration.) The action was a shocking one that made news across the country, and Newton emerged as a leading figure in the Black militant movement.

The Black Panthers wanted to improve life in Black communities and took a stance against police brutality in urban neighborhoods by mostly white cops. Members of the group would go to arrests in progress and watch for abuse. Panthers ultimately clashed with police several times. The party’s treasurer, Bobby Hutton, was killed while still a teenager during one of these conflicts in 1968.

Newton himself was arrested the previous year for allegedly killing an Oakland police officer during a traffic stop. He was later convicted of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to two to 15 years in prison. But public pressure—“Free Huey” became a popular slogan of the day—helped Newton’s cause. He was freed in 1970 after an appeals process deemed that incorrect deliberation procedures had been implemented during the trial.

In the 1970s, Newton aimed to take the Panthers in a new direction that emphasized democratic socialism, community interconnectedness, and services for the poor, including free lunch programs and urban clinics. But the Panthers began to fall apart due to factionalism, with later allegations surfacing that the FBI, under J. Edgar Hoover, was clandestinely involved in the organization’s unraveling. Key members left while Newton and Eldridge Cleaver, the party’s minister of information, split ways.

By mid-decade, Newton faced more criminal charges when he was accused of murdering a 17-year-old sex worker and assaulting a tailor. To avoid prosecution, he fled to Cuba in 1974 but returned to the United States three years later. The murder case was eventually dismissed after two trials ended with deadlocked juries. The tailor’s refusal to testify in court brought an end to the assault charges.

Even with his legal troubles, Newton returned to school, earning his doctorate in social philosophy from the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 1980. In his final years, however, he suffered from major drug and alcohol problems and faced more prison time for weapons possession, financial misappropriations, and parole violations.

The once popular revolutionary died on August 22, 1989, in Oakland, California, after being shot on the street. Newton was 47 years old at his death.

Newton had published a memoir/manifesto Revolutionary Suicide in 1973, with Hugh Pearson later writing the 1994 biography The Shadow of the Panther: Huey Newton and the Price of Black Power in America.

Newton’s story was later depicted in the 1996 one-man play Huey P. Newton, starring Roger Guenveur Smith. A 2002 filmed presentation of the project was created by Spike Lee, and documentarian Stanley Nelson looked at the history of the Panthers in the 2015 movie The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution.

Most recently, Apple TV+ backed a limited series about Newton’s escape to Cuba in 1974 called The Big Cigar. It depicts the fake movie production, backed by real-life producer Bert Schneider, that provided the activist’s cover to leave the United States.

• The first lesson a revolutionary must learn is that he is a doomed man.
• Black Power is giving power to people who have not had power to determine their destiny.
• I do not expect the white media to create positive Black male images.
• We’ve never advocated violence, violence is inflicted upon us. But we do believe in self-defense for ourselves and for black people.

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