Did you know that the co-founder of the Black Panther Party, Dr. Huey P. Newton, was a member of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc.? Newton became one of the most influential figures in the history of the Black liberation movement.
Dr. Huey Percy Newton was born on February 17, 1942, in Monroe, Louisiana, and moved with his family to Oakland, California, as a child. Though he reportedly finished high school barely able to read, he taught himself and went on to a life of scholarship, eventually earning a Ph.D. in social philosophy from the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 1980. According to Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc., it was while attending Merritt College in Oakland that Newton became a member of the fraternity through its Beta Tau Chapter. While at the college, he also played a role in getting the school to adopt its first African American history course.
Newton’s life changed at Merritt College, where he met Bobby Seale. In October 1966, the two organized the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense in Oakland. As Phi Beta Sigma documents, a coin toss decided their titles, with Seale becoming Chairman and Newton becoming Minister of Defense. To protect Oakland’s Black community from rampant police brutality, the party made the exercise of the Second Amendment right to bear arms an essential tenet of its platform. Newton and other members monitored police procedures, made sure Black citizens were not abused, advised people of their rights, and posted bail for those who were arrested. Newton and Seale also wrote the Black Panther Party Platform and Program, a ten-point plan for liberation that called for freedom, full employment, decent housing, education, literacy, and military exemption for African Americans.
The Black Panthers became far more than an image of armed resistance. Under Newton’s leadership, the party launched dozens of community survival programs, including the free breakfast for children program, health clinics, and education initiatives that fed and served tens of thousands of people across the country…