In the first paragraph of this chapter, the authors describe a moment in early 1967. “Huey Newton, Bobby Seale and Little (Lil’) Bobby Hutton, “the first recruit to their Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, were cruising around north Oakland in Seales’ 1954 Chevy.” Continue reading “Chapter 2: ‘Policing the Police’”
Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, the founders of the Black Panther Party, met in 1962 as students at Merritt College — a public community college in Oakland, Ca. They encountered each other at a rally at the college “opposing the U.S. blockade of Cuba,” the authors note on page 21. Continue reading “Chapter 1: ‘Huey and Bobby’”
“I had read a pamphlet about voter registration in [Alabama], how the people in Lowndes County had armed themselves against Establishment violence. Their political group, called the Lowndes County Freedom Organization had a black panther for its symbol. A few days later, while Bobby and I were rapping, I suggested that we use the panther as our symbol,” (Huey Newton describing how he and Bobby Seal adopted the Black Panther for their party’s symbol, from page 44 of Black Against Empire).
The authors open the book by describing a 1971 visit to China by Black Panther leader Huey Newton, who visited the country a year before President Richard Nixon’s famous trip there in 1972.
Continue reading “Introduction”
Writing in the New York Times, critic A.H. Weiler called this 1971 documentary “a disturbingly somber illustration of some of the ills that beset us and our social system,” and “an unleavened indictment of Edward V. Hanrahan, the Illinois State’s Attorney, the policemen in the raid and the Chicago political Establishment.” “The Murder of Fred Hampton” is a must-watch for anyone looking to understand the context … Continue reading ‘The Murder of Fred Hampton’
