Black Panther Party co-founder Huey P. Newton (center) smiles as he raises his fist from a podium at the Revolutionary People’s Party Constitutional Convention, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, early September 1970. | Source: David Fenton / Getty
The life of activist and Black Panther Party co-founder Huey P. Newton came to a tragic end 33 years ago on this day at the hands of a member of a similar Black Nationalist organization that considered him an enemy. Newton was said to have fallen on hard times after his ascent to the top of the Panthers’ ranks alongside Bobby Seale, but other details surrounding his death remain murky.
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Huey Newton, 47 at the time, was found on an Oakland street lying in blood. He was shot in the same neighborhood where Black Panther members would work with area churches to serve free breakfast to young people. It took Oakland authorities three days to garner a confession from 24-year-old Tyrone Robinson, a drug dealer and member of the Black Guerilla Family (BGF) group that warred with Newton and the Panthers for two decades.
Huey Newton (right), co-founder of the Black Panther Party, sits with Bobby Seale at party headquarters in San Francisco. | Source: Ted Streshinsky Photographic Archive / Getty
Originally, Oakland police said that drugs were not a part of the reason for Newton’s shooting. After Robinson confessed that the shooting was a result of a cocaine deal gone wrong, though, there was some speculation from investigators that Newton stole drugs from the BGF. The same detectives also determined that Newton was unarmed at the time of his shooting.
Newton’s death was especially jarring because his death on a drug-ridden street corner in Oakland occurred just nine years after the vaunted Black leader would earn a Ph.D. from the University of California at Santa Cruz. While critics — particularly those on the tight who opposed the left-wing Panthers — lambasted Newton for falling into the trap of drugs and crime, he did help to introduce Oakland youth to the notion that being African American was a thing of value.
Source: Black Panther Party Co-Founder Huey P. Newton Was Murdered Today In 1989
