Huey P. Newton Biography

Early Years

“My parents taught me to be unafraid of life and therefore unafraid of death.”

Huey P. Newton was born in Monroe Louisiana on February 17, 1942 to Walter and Amelia Newton. His namesake was Huey P. Long, the former Louisiana governor and senator who had instituted various social reforms beneficial to blacks. Despite Long’s attempts at overturning the prejudicial landscape of post reconstruction South, Louisiana remained an oppressive place for blacks. As a result, two years after Huey was born the elder Newton moved his family to Oakland, California in search of a job and better living conditions. As he grew older, Huey found it hard to resist the attraction of Oakland’s seductive street life. He spent much time playing the dozens, shooting dice, and pitching pennies, as well as committing small-time crimes like stealing from parking meters.

Though the family’s move had been prompted by the search for a better life than Louisiana could offer, Oakland did not provide any respite for racism, and Huey was very aware of its rampancy. In school, white staff and students would often call blacks “niggers” and Huey was constantly in trouble because of his refusal to submit to their racist attitudes. In Newton’s autobiography entitled Revolutionary Suicide he wrote that “during those long years in the Oakland public schools, I did not have one teacher who taught me anything relevant to my own life or experience. Not one instructor ever awoke in me a desire to learn more or to question or explore the worlds of literature, science, and history. All they did was try to rob me of the sense of my own uniqueness and worth, and in the process they nearly killed my urge to inquire.”

Later Years

“We’ve got to get a message over to the people.”

Though he was arrested numerous times before he graduated high school, Newton was able to attend Merritt College, eventually earning an Associate of Arts Degree. He also attended San Francisco Law School and Oakland City College, the latter where he became interested in politics and motivated to stop the oppressive conditions of America, particularly for blacks. It was here where Newton joined with Bobby Seale to form the Black Panther Party (link) for Self Defense in 1966, a group based on the armed self-defense of blacks, which included patrolling the Oakland City Police and demanding justice and resources for blacks (provide link for panther party platform).

Like his Party, Newton himself was not without controversy, and in 1967 he was charged with the murder of a policeman. Though the charges were eventually dropped and a new trial called for, he did spend 3 years in prison, during which an extensive “Free Huey” campaign was raged for his release. He would spend time exiled in Cuba before his eventual acquittal at subsequent trials. His social consciousness remained active and in 1973, Newton published his autobiography Revolutionary Suicide, and returned to school at the University of California, where in 1980 he published his dissertation, War Against the Panthers: A Study of Repression In America. Despite his intellectual productivity, he continued to have run-ins with the law, being charged with, among other things, the murder of a prostitute and embezzling funds from the Party itself. The Black Panther Party had also deteriorated due to FBI infiltration and internal disputes. On August 22, 1989, Huey Newton was shot dead in Oakland, supposedly over a drug dispute.

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