Huey P Newton
Narrative essay on Huey p Newton from his point of view, his perspective
Huey P Newton
Born in Monroe, Louisiana on February 17, 1942, Dr. Huey Percy Newton, an African-American political activist was the last born of seven siblings and was named after the Louisiana governor named Huey Long. They later migrated to family to Oakland, California following the African America migration waves from the South to the North East, Midwest, and West. It was in Oakland that Newton witnessed cases of racial shaming because he was black.
It was while in Merritt College that he became actively involved in politics and together with Bobby Seale, they formed the Black Panther Party for Self Defense in 1966. Newton took the role of the minister of Defense while his partner Seale became the chairman of the party. Newton focused on learning about the history of the blacks from the party leader, Donald Warden but later recognized that his solutions were unsatisfactory.
The Blank Panther Party fought for the right of self-defense for African-Americans living in the United States. The party acquired recognition both nationally and internationally as a result of their substantial involvement in the Black Power movement as well as politics in the 60s and the 70s. The party aimed at achieving better housing, jobs, and education for the African Americans. The party also aimed at protesting against police brutality towards the African-Americans. According to Blank Panther Party, violence was necessary for attaining the social change they were fighting for (Newton, 70).
The term Revolutionary Humanism was coined by Newton with the aim of understanding social conditions, intercommunalism. It aimed at understanding the racial disparities in the US where he argued that the nation has stopped to exist as the world’s organizing principle due to the existing imperialism. Power was in the hands of the minority who controlled all every aspect of the world. According to Newton, the term community meant a collection of institutions whose purpose was to be of service to its residents, and it was comprehensive. He argued that the ruling circle had taken over the institutions to the point that they ceased serving the interests of the majority but rather served the ruling minority. The Panthers therefore aimed at distancing themselves from the existing internationalism oppression. By calling themselves, intercommunalists, they managed to advocate for the importance of the community amidst existing state neglect for the African-American community.
Recruitment for his party members was through attending gatherings of the African-Americans, be it be bars, or campuses, or pool halls. He focused on teaching his recruits on the legality and necessity of self-defense. According to Newton, the lack of knowledge regarding social institutions was the reason as to why the African-American community suffered. Newton together with his teammates initiated social programs in Oakland including the Oakland Community School which managed to provide quality education to 150 children and the Free Breakfast for Children Program, among others. Newton was reported to transform gang mentality to social consciousness through these programs.
In the year 1968, Dr. Newton had been convicted of manslaughter regarding the murder of an Oakland policeman and was later released after an appeal. He continued with his activism but was later charged with numerous crimes which saw him serve time in prison in the late 70s. He acquires a Ph.D. in Social Philosophy where through his dissertation, War Against the Panthers: A study of Repression in America; he highlighted the features of the Black Panther Party including how the US federal government responded to his party (Newton, 11). In 22, August 1989, Newton lost his life through a drug sold to him by Tyrone Robinson whose aim was to advance in the narcotics prison gang known as Black Guerrilla Family.
Bibliographies.
Newton, Huey P. The Huey P. Newton Reader. Seven Stories Press, 2011.1-239
Newton, H. P. (1980). War against the Panthers: A study of repression in America (Vol. 1980). University of California, Santa Cruz.
