Biography of: Huey P. Newton
Author: Tim Ramseur
Timeline
Leadership Style
Political Philosophy
Timeline
- October 1966 Black Panther Party was founded by Huey P. Newton
- 1967 By 1967 there had been more than 100 black, urban rebellions in cities across the country as a result of the Panther movement.
- May 1967 Panthers, led by Bobby Seale who was chairman of the party, marched into California legislature fully armed to protest a pending gun control bill directed at them.
- January 1969 Two party leaders of the Southern California Black Panther Chapters were murdered at UCLA by FBI paid assassins, with the cooperation of Black Nationalist Ron Karenga and his US Organization.
- July 1970 Henry P. Newton was freed from jail after being charged and convicted for simple manslaughter.
- 1974 Henry P. Newton went into self-imposed exile.
- 1977 Newton returned from exile, but because of sophisticated activities of the FBI, internal stress and conflict came to erode the party. By the end of the decade, the Black Panther Party came to a slow and unheralded demise.
- 1989 Huey P. Newton was killed.
Leadership Style
In October of 1966, in the wake of the assassination of black leader Malcolm x and on the heels of the massive black, urban uprising in Watts, California and at the height of the civil rights movement lead by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Huey P. Newton gathered a few of his friends including Bobby Seale and David Hilliard and developed a skeletal outline for this Black Panther Party. The black panther was used as the symbol because it was a powerful image, one that had been used effectively by the voting rights group the Lowndes County (Alabama) Freedom Organization. Immediately upon the formation of this organization, the leadership of the Party outlined a Ten Point Platform and Program. This platform and program articulated the fundamental wants and needs of the organization.
The Black Panther Party had a combination of leaders in its organization. Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale both lead the Panther movement. They shared this leadership with the interests of many other black followers of their organization. I think that this organization had more of a democratic type leadership style because all of the functions related to the organization were designed to benefit the black people as a whole. There were Black Panther offices or homes in such places as Philadelphia, Chicago, Newark, Omaha, New Haven, San Diego, Los Angeles, and other cities. However, I do not think that the government would allow the organization to reach a level of leadership to where all of the branches were merged as one basic organization in the media. Instead, the FBI tried to cause conflict within the organization by raiding various Black Panther offices and even murdering some of the branch leaders to scare members. For example, J. Edgar Hoover, a member of the FBI, stated that the Panther Party represented "the greatest threat to the internal security of the U. S." Hoover pledged that 1969 would be the last year of the party's existence. As a result, two party leaders John Huggins and Alprentice Carter were murdered at UCLA by FBI paid assassins.
Political Philosophy
The Black Panther Organization could be considered as Revolutionary Radicalists. They believed that the current society was corrupt and they were willing to do whatever it took to gain the full freedom of the black race. Their beliefs and demands on society was outlined in the Black Panther Party Ten Point Platform and Program as follows:
- We want freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our Black Community.
- We want full employment for our people.
- We want an end to the robbery by the CAPITALIST of our Black Community. We believe that this racist government has robbed us and now we are demanding the overdue debt of forty acres and two mules. Forty acres and two mules was promised 100 years ago as restitution for slave labor and mass murder of black people. We will accept the payment in currency which will be distributed to our many communities.
- We want decent housing, fit for the shelter of human beings.
- We want education for our people that exposes the true nature of the decadent American society. We want education that teaches us our true history and our role in present-day society.
- We want all black men to be exempt from military service. We believe that black people should not be forced to fight in the military service to defend a racist government that does not protect us. We will not fight and kill other people of color in the world who, like black people, are being victimized by the white racist government of America. We will protect ourselves from the force and violence of the racist police and the racist military, by whatever means necessary.
- We want an immediate end to police brutality and murder of black people.
- We want freedom for all black men held in federal, state, county and city prisons and jails.
- We want all black people when brought to trial to be tried in court by a jury of their peer group or people from their black communities, as defined by the Constitution of the United States.
- We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace. And as our major political objective, a United Nations supervised plebiscite to be held through the black colony in which only black colonial subjects will be allowed to participate, for the purpose of determining the will of black people as to their national destiny.
This Ten Point Platform was immediately implemented by Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale and David Hilliard upon the initial formation of the party. As you can see from this platform, the Panthers were revolutionaries. They felt that the black people were being treated unfairly by a racist white government and they were basically fed up about it. The Panthers played on their right to bear arms and used it to arm themselves in public to protect each other, such as when they marched into the California legislature fully armed to fight a pending bill that go against them arming themselves, which was directed right at the Black Panther Party. To view the Ten Point Platform in full, go to www.panthers.org and click on it.
Strategies in Movements
The first stage in the Panther movement was their exigency stage where
Huey P. Newton and his friends knew that there was something wrong in
America with the way that blacks were being treated. This agitation occurred
in 1966 after the assassination of Malcolm X, the uprising of urban black
communities in Watts, California and at the height of the civil rights
movement led by Dr. Martin Luther King. The Panther leaders Huey P. Newton,
Bobby Seale and David Hilliard felt that they should do something to protect
the black race since the government was trying to destroy it.
The next stage is social unrest, where the organization will use strategies to get new members and use legitamizers to be in the media. They acted on their frustrations. The Black Panthers already had an influence at a time when the BLM (Black Liberation Movement) was sweeping across America fighting for civil rights, women's rights, anti-war, and many others. Because of the oppression that blacks and others were under in the 60s, there was not much persuasion needed to join the Panther Party. Many new members felt that they would be protected and could feel safe in this organization.
Enthusiastic Mobilization is the next stage. The Panther Party was excited about their campaign and they solidified their campaign by actually giving food drives, putting pressure on legislature to upgrade black communities, and using the clenched fist as a symbol of the strength in the unity of the black people. By this time, they had already had a slogan "By Any Means Necessary!" which was a message to the government and any opposers that they were willing to do whatever it takes to gain total liberation from the current society. I think this stage caused the most problems because it scared the government and the FBI to the point that they were tagging the party as "a threat to the internal security of the United States". J. Edgar Hoover who was a head in the FBI engineered raids on Black Panther offices across the country and implemented plans to turn members paranoid and scare them out of participation in the organization. Their strategy even resulted in the murder of several key leaders in the Panther movement.
By the Maintenance stage, most of the Panthers were arrested and charged with what many people believed to be engineered charges. Most members had "cooled out" for fear of incarceration. Huey P. Newton, upon release from jail after being convicted of simple manslaughter, exiled himself out of the country to Cuba. Elaine Brown took over the chairmanship over the three years that Newton was exiled. Two elections later in Oakland, CA, Lionel Wilson was installed as Mayor of Oakland and he was the first black to every hold that post. This further solidified the Panthers base by fighting and obtaining funds to build 300 new replacement housing units for poor people displaced by a local freeway; by entering into a working partnership with certain developers to build up the downtown city center and provide 10,000 new jobs for Oakland's poor and unemployed.
Termination is the final stage. By this time the Panther organization had been eroded by the FBI. The COINTELPRO had taken its toll and the Panther organization died a slow death. Although this organization ceased to exist, its ideas and beliefs have birthed many small organizations and programs such as free lunch in schools and community projects in which the government assists in the housing upgrade in many urban communities. The Black Panther organization also made significant contributions to the art of propaganda. According to the Panther website, the organization was really good at spreading its message and ideas through its newspaper The Black Panther, mass rallies, speaking tours, slogans, posters, leaflets, cartoons, buttons, symbols(clenched fists), graffiti, political trials, and even funerals. One indication, although there are more, of the effectiveness of their propaganda techniques is that even today a large part of the programs shown on t.v. are still "police stories" and many of the roles available to black actors are limited to police roles. Sundiata Acoli, a former Panther, claims that a lot of this has to do with the process of the government still trying to rehabilitate the image of police from its devastating exposure during the Panther era.
Works Cited
Stewart, Charles J. and Smith, Craig A. Persuasion and Social Movements.
Prospect Heights, Illinois: Waveland Press, Inc. 1994
www.panther.org February 14, 2000
www.cs.oberlin.edu February 13,
2000
Home | Syllabus
| Assignments | Gallery
| Grades