Huey Percy Newton

Huey Percy Newton (February 17, 1942 – August 22, 1989), was co-founder and leader of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, an African-American organization established to promote Black Power, civil rights and self-defense.

Newton was born in Monroe, Louisiana to Amelia and Walter Newton, a sharecropper and Baptist minister; he was the youngest child in his family, and was named after Huey Long. Newton's family moved to Oakland, California when he was three. Despite completing his secondary education at Oakland Technical High School, Newton did not know how to read. During his course of self-study, he struggled to read Plato's Republic, which he understood after persistently reading it through five times. This success, he told an interviewer, was the spark that caused him to become a leader.

While at Oakland City College, Newton had become actively involved in politics in the Bay Area. He joined the Afro-American Association, became a prominent member of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc. Beta Tau chapter, and played a role in getting the first black history course adopted as part of the college's curriculum. He read the works of Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Frantz Fanon, Malcolm X, Mao Zedong, 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. Seale assumed the role of Chairman, while Newton became Minister of Defense.

Newton and Seale decided early on that the police's alleged abuse of power in Oakland against African-Americans had to be stopped. From his law studies at college, Newton was well-versed in the California penal code and state law regarding weapons, and so was able to persuade a number of African-Americans to exercise their legal right to openly bear arms (as concealed firearms were illegal). Members of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense bore their rifles and shotguns and began patrolling areas where the Oakland police were allegedly committing racially-motivated crimes against the community's black citizens. The street patrols had broad support in the local African-American community. Newton and Seale were also responsible for writing the Black Panther Party Platform and Program, derived largely from Newton’s Maoist influences. Newton was instrumental in the creation of a breakfast program feeding hundreds of children of the local communities before they went to school each day.
References are from Huey Newton's and Bobby Seale's own words found in Voices of Freedom, Chapter 20, Birth of the Black Panthers, pages 350-360. Bantam Books, 1991.

Newton was accused of murdering Oakland police officer John Frey.
Frey had stopped Newton before dawn on October 28, 1967, and attempted to disarm and discourage the Panther patrols. After fellow officer Herbert Heanes arrived for backup, shots were fired, and all three were wounded. Heanes testified that the shooting began after Newton was under arrest, and a surprise witness testified that Newton shot Frey with Frey's own gun as they wrestled.No gun for Frey or Newton was found.Frey was hit four times and died within the hour, while Heanes was left in a serious condition with three bullet wounds. With a bullet wound to the abdomen, Newton staggered into the city's Kaiser Hospital. He was admitted but was later shocked to find himself chained to his bed.
Charged with murdering Frey, Newton was convicted in September 1968 of voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced to 2-15 years in prison. In May 1970, the California Appellate Court reversed the conviction and ordered a new trial. After two subsequent mistrials, the State of California dropped the case.
While Huey was imprisoned, his party's membership declined significantly in several cities. The FBI, which deployed the counter-insurgency tactics of operation COINTELPRO, actively campaigned to eliminate the Black Panthers' 'community outreach' programs such as free breakfasts for children, sickle-cell disease tests, free food and free clothing. Funding for several of the programs was raised courtesy of the only independent commerce in the area: drug dealers and prostitution-ring leaders. Bobby Seale later wrote about his belief in Newton’s involvement and attempted takeover of the Oakland drug trade, further claiming that Newton attempted to 'shake down' pimps and drug dealers; as a result, a contract was taken out on Newton’s life. But this story was never proven. It is suggested that such mutual paranoia between the long-time friends and party co-founders, Seale and Newton, was created by J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI. The FBI sent what became known as the "brown" letters — fabricated letters (often bearing death threats) seemingly written by Panthers. The ensuing fear triggered sharp declines in membership, and the eventual failure of the Party.
Funding for the Black Panther Party survival programs, included free children's breakfasts, food and shoe give aways, free clinics, free sickle cell anemia testing, free lead poisoning testing, free senior citizen security and free pet control, always came from various sources. Primary sources were the poor people from the communities it served, independent vendors, and celebrities like Marlon Brando, Richard Pryor, Dick Gregory, Jim Brown, Jimi Hendrix and James Brown.
The decline of the Panther membership only took place after the FBI succeeded in dividing the Panther leadership in 1971. Panther membership at its height in 1970 was 5,000 to 7,000. In 1974, several charges were filed against Newton, and he was also accused of murdering a 17-year-old prostitute, Kathleen Smith. Newton did not appear in court. His bail was revoked, a bench warrant was issued, and Newton was added to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's 'most wanted' list. Newton had jumped bail and escaped to Cuba, where he spent 3 years in exile.
In January 1977, Peoples Temple leader Jim Jones visited Newton in Cuba.After Jones fled to Jonestown, Guyana, Newton spoke to Temple members in Jonestown via phone patch supporting Jones during one of the Temple's earliest "White Nights." Newton's cousin, Stanley Clayton, was one of the few residents of Jonestown to escape the 1978 tragedy, during which more than 900 Temple members were ordered by Jones to commit suicide.Newton 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. Because the evidence was largely circumstantial and not solid beyond hearsay, Newton was acquitted of Smith's murder after two trials were deadlocked.

Newton earned a bachelor's degree from University of California, Santa Cruz in 1974. He was enrolled as a graduate student in History of Consciousness at University of California, 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 the crash of Air Florida Flight 90.Later, Newton's widow, Frederika Newton, would discuss her husband's often-ignored academic leanings on C-SPAN's "American Perspectives" program on February 18, 2006, mentioning that Newton earned a Ph.D. from UC Santa Cruz in 1980.His doctoral dissertation was entitled "War Against the Panthers: A Study of Repression in America."
In 1985, Newton was charged with embezzling state and federal funds from the Black Panthers' community education and nutrition programs. He was convicted in 1989. It was later rumored that Newton had embezzled the money to support an alcohol and drug addiction. He volunteered for alcohol/drug treatment at Alta Bates' treatment center in Berkeley and was successfully completing treatment when San Francisco Chronicle columnist, Herb Caen, made Newton's circumstances public. Under a barrage of news coverage, Newton left Alta Bates prematurely.

On August 22, 1989, Newton was fatally shot in the Acorn Projects neighborhood in Oakland by 24-year-old Tyrone Robinson. Robinson was convicted of the murder in August 1991 and sentenced to 32 years for the crime. Official accounts claimed that the killer was a known drug dealer in Oakland.
It is reported that Newton and Robinson, who had known each other for two years, argued over a cocaine deal and that Robinson then shot the 47-year-old former leader of the Panthers.
Robinson contended that Newton pulled a gun when the two met at a street corner in the drug-torn neighborhood, Sergeant Mercado said, but investigators said they found no evidence Newton had been armed.
The killing occurred in a neighborhood where Newton, as minister of defense for the Black Panthers, once tried to set up social programs to help destitute blacks.
The police said Robinson told them he refused to sell Newton drugs and that the two argued for about a minute. Investigators believe that Newton stole drugs from the gang.
Newton's last words, as he stood facing his killer, were, "You can kill my body, but you can't kill my soul. My soul will live forever!" He was then shot three times in the face by Robinson, who went by the street name "Double R".


Little back story about the photo
Via:Jay Lawrence Friedheim

This picture I took in Huey’s bedroom by setting up the camera and having a timed flash. Huey’s home in the Oakland hills was given to him by the Actor Rod Steiger.
I was Bob Trivers assistant for a couple of years while I was working my way through college at University of California Santa Cruz studying Biology.
I worked extensively with Bob and Huey on the Deceit and Self Deception work. There were plans for a book. We used to get together and talk for hours on the subjects, plan areas of research and then I did a lot of library work as the world was not yet blessed with search engines. We also had a fondness for having really good times together.
Huey did the political analysis , Bob do the biological work and animal behaviors, cryptic colorations and I gathered everything that was known to that time about deceit and self deception in human beings.

For example I gathered all the work on lie detection, ocular stability and the use of placebos in medicine.

I have become a lawyer and use what I learned with them in my practice all of the time as I am a trial lawyer and the determination of veracity and bringing out the truth is the basis of that work. l

I had become friends with Huey before Bob arrived at UCSC because we had of a couple of mutual friends of ours in common such as , Lucy Montgomery and Fred Hampton in Chicago.


I was very close with Lucy and she was a major figure in the political activities in Chicago of those days.
I would often be and her home when Jesse Jackson would drop buy for lunch or just to hang out.
I met Jane Fonda, Studs Turkel at her home and countless people in the acts and politics.

Here is a bit I found about that.

http://www.vdb.org/smackn.acgi$tapedetail?FREDHAMPTO

When I left Santa Cruz I went back to Chicago and became good friends with Del Close the then Director of Second City and the Acting coach for Saturday Night Live, who in his own way had the same kind of creative genius that Bob and Huey demonstrated in their own field. Bob and Del became good friend when he would come to Chicago and I was living with Del .

Her is a picture of Del and I and some friends in our apartment in Old Town in Chicago.

This was the night I introduced Tim Leary to Del because Tim was debating G. Gordon Liddy and Liddy was destroying him in stage.

Del got him up to speed in no time.

http://chicagoist.com/2006/10/12/looking_closer_into_the_past.php