huey p newton

huey p. newton was never fond of his name.  he was named after huey long, who he considered a racist, but who his father thought had done much for black people.  peers ridiculed huey in school and caused much torment because of his name.  his mother forbid him to change his name and he stuck out the pain to the point of advantage.  he also never did like being referred to as "baby." on one occasion, a prostitute calling him baby on the street led to a murder charge and huey had several other charges from violent acts against people who called him baby.  he had been acquitted also of a murder charge of a police officer and got off several other charges, twice including murder, perhaps related to his powerful standing within the panthers.  in a lot of cases, huey had too much of a bad image to fit well with the other rabble rousers so i am not sure if he is a hall of famer, but huey newton also was a prominent changing-times activist.

huey newton grew up the son of a baptist minister in rural lousiana. an important early memory for huey was his father's friendship with a police officer.  his father cut ties with the friend, not for his being a police officer, but on principle because his friend would submit himself to conditions in which he was only allowed to arrest black people.  after huey's family migrated to california, huey graduated from oakland technical high school in 1959, although he could not read.  he rose from illiteracy, teaching himself to read with plato's the republic. he went on to study at merritt college.  he met bobby seale, also a student at merritt, and the two founded the black panther party in 1966.

huey was part of a notorious stand off with police when the black panthers were serving as armed protection at a speaking engagement for betty shabazz.  originally forming the panthers as a militant organization, after traveling to china, newton made a dramatic shift toward non-violence, which caused a deep division within the party and created an image of allegiance with the communist party.

huey instilled upon the youth a social conscious, primarily that it was OK to be black, not something to be ashamed of.  he wrote a book called revolutionary suicide, in which he derided every attempt at education he had ever received in public schools, that no one ever directed his study toward something of interest or instilled in him a thirst for knowledge.  constantly in trouble with the law, from prison, huey enrolled in graduate study of social science.  in 1980, a couple years after being released, he received his phD from university of santa cruz.

august 22, 2014 was the 25th anniversary of huey's death.
in 1989, huey was shot and killed by a member of the black guerrilla front, which had a decided anti-newton stance.  the incident was an unfortunate, but perhaps appropriate, ending.  with some history of drug addiction, huey had apparently been to a crack house and upon leaving was said to have owed money to the drug dealer who killed him.  he bled to death in the street in a dilapidated neighborhood that he had once prominently worked in providing free breakfast to the city's youth.

he told his killer that his soul would live forever.