Huey P. Newton

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Huey P. Newton

Huey Percy Newton (February 17, 1942 – August 22, 1989) was co-founder and inspirational leader of the Black Panther Party, a militant African-American activist group.

Birth

Newton was born in Monroe, Louisiana, the seventh and youngest child in his family, from Armelia and Walter Newton, a sharecropper and Baptist minister. He was named after Louisiana governor Huey Long. Newton's family moved to Oakland, California when he was one. After completing his secondary education at Oakland Technical High School, Newton still did not know how to read. During the course of self-study, he struggled to read Plato's Republic, which he managed to understand after reading it five times. This success, he told an interviewer, was an 'inspiring point', that launched more efforts to learn from books.

College

He attended Merritt College, earning an Associate of Arts degree and also studied law at Oakland City College and at San Francisco Law School. Newton claimed he 'studied law' to 'become a better burglar'. He was arrested several times for minor offenses while still a teenager, and supported himself in college by burglarizing homes in the Oakland and Berkeley Hills. In 1964, he was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon after stabbing a man at a party, and was sentenced to six months in the Alameda County jail.

Black Panther Party

While at Oakland City College, Newton had become involved in the radical politics strong in the Bay Area. He joined the Afro-American Association, and played a role in getting the first black history course adopted as part of the college's curriculum. He read the works of Frantz Fanon, Malcolm X, Mao Tse-tung, and Che Guevara. It was during his time at Oakland City College that Newton, along with Bobby Seale, organized the Black Panther Party for Self Defense in October 1966, with Seale as chairman and Newton as minister of defense.

Guns

Newton and Seale decided early on that the police 'must be stopped' from harassing Oakland's African-Americans. From his study of the law, Newton was familiar with the California penal code and the state's law regarding weapons and was thus able to convince a number of African-Americans to exercise their legal right to bear arms. Armed members of the Black Panther Party began patrolling the Oakland police. In addition to patrolling, Newton and Seale were responsible for writing the Black Panther Party Platform and Program, which drew largely upon Newton’s Maoist influences. Former Panther Earl Anthony describes the party as being created with the goal to organize America for armed Maoist revolution.

Trial

Newton was accused of murdering Oakland police officer John Frey, and in September, 1968 Newton was convicted of "voluntary manslaughter", and was sentenced from 2 to 15 years in prison. In May, 1970 the California Appellate Court reversed Newton's conviction, and ordered a new trial. The State of California dropped its case against Newton after two subsequent 'mistrials'. (The officers actually shot each other, but the racism of the jury found Huey guilty anyway, allegedly.)

Newton's Autobiography, Revolutionary Suicide, was published in 1973.

While Newton had been imprisoned, party membership had decreased significantly in several cities, and the FBI had been involved in a campaign to disrupt the Black Panthers (see COINTELPRO). Newton concentrated on 'community outreach' programs, and the Black Panthers sponsored a free breakfast program, sickle-cell disease tests, "free" food and shoes. Funding for several of their programs were raised as the result of the co-operation of drug dealers and prostitution rings. Bobby Seale later wrote about his knowledge of Newton’s involvement and attempted takeover of the Oakland drug trade. Seale admitted that Newton attempted to 'shake down' pimps and drug dealers, and as a result, a contract was taken out on Newton’s life.

In 1971, between his trials for the murder of John Frey, he visited China for ten days, where he met with Premier Chou En-lai and Chiang Ch'ing, the wife of Chairman Mao Tse-tung. While there, he was offered political asylum.

In 1974, several charges were filed against Newton, and he was also accused of murdering a 17 year-old prostitute, Kathleen Smith. Newton failed to make his court appearance. His bail was revoked, a bench warrant was issued, and Newton's name was added to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's 'most wanted' list. Newton had jumped bail and escaped to Cuba, where he spent three years in exile. He returned home in 1977 to face murder charges because, he said, the 'climate' in the United States had changed, and he believed he could get a 'fair trial'. He was acquitted of the murder of Kathleen Smith after two trials were dead-locked.

College graduation

Newton was awarded a bachelor's degree from University of California, Santa Cruz in 1974. He was enrolled as a graduate student in History of Consciousness at UC Santa Cruz in 1978, when he arranged (while in prison) to take a reading course from famed evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers. He and Trivers became close friends. Trivers and Newton published an influential analysis of the role of flight crew self-deception in crash of Air Florida Flight 90 (Trivers, R.L. & Newton, H.P. Science Digest 'The crash of flight 90: doomed by self-deception?' November 1982, pp 66,67,111).

Embezzling

In 1985, Newton was arrested for embezzling state and federal funds from the Black Panthers' community education and nutrition programs. In 1989, he was convicted of embezzling funds from a school run by the Black Panthers, supposedly to support his alcohol and drug addictions. By this time, the Panthers had turned to 'less violent' activism.

Death

On August 22, 1989, Newton was shot and killed, in Oakland, during a dispute with a drug dealer.

External links

• Online audiorecordings and video of Huey Newton via UC Berkeley Black Panther site
• 1968 interview with Newton
• A Huey P. Newton Story, directed by Spike Lee, as shown on PBS
• The Women's Liberation and Gay Liberation Movements by Huey P. Newton
• Huey Newton - as Philosopher Gunman