Continue to rest up 2/17/42 – 8/22/89 #BlackKing
Huey P. Newton founded the Black Panthers and spent years debating that black americans needed to arm and defend themselves while fighting for equal rights. He is a hero to most and a villain to white america.
Newton founded the Black Panthers nearly 50 years ago and here we are today, No change. Racial barriers are still keeping a hold on the world and what we can strive to do as a nation all together. Newton had clout and advocated armed self-defense in black communities, where the organization also provided social services. They would patrol the streets, guns drawn, turning them on drug dealers and police officers alike and black americans had, no chance.
The Black Panthers, which never grew beyond a few thousand members, tried to combine socialism and black nationalism. Its charter called for full employment, decent housing, and the end of police brutality.
Unlike black separatists, the Panthers welcomed all races and found wealthy liberals willing to give them money. But the group’s social programs — like a breakfast program for schoolchildren and clothing and food drives — came undone partly by the corruption of the leadership. At least 19 Panthers were killed in shootouts with one another, the authorities or other black revolutionaries. [Huffington Post]
In 1980, he earned a Ph.D. in philosophy. But he was shot to death on Aug. 22, 1989, in a crack cocaine deal gone bad. He was 47, a victim of the same streets he had once tried to make safe.
