Huey P. Newton (1942 – 1989)
Co-founder and leader of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, an African-American radical organization that began in October 1966 in Oakland, California.
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To die for the racists is lighter than a feather, but to die for the people is heavier than any mountain and deeper than any sea.
You can kill my body, but you can't kill my soul. My soul will live forever!
An unarmed people are slaves or are subject to slavery at any given moment.
The FBI was most disturbed by the Panthers' survival programs providing community service. The popular free breakfast program, in which the party provided free hot breakfasts to children in Black communities throughout the United States, was, as already noted, a particular thorn in the side of J. Edgar Hoover. Finding little to criticize about the program objectively, the Bureau decided to destroy it.
When you deal with a man, deal with his most valuable possession, his life. There's play and there's the deep flow. I like to take things to the deep flow of play, because everything is a game, serious and nonserious at the same time. So play life like it's a game.
My father came out to California with another good friend of his who was also trying to support a large family. And this friend of his got a good job with the Oakland Public Works Department, something like that, but he quit that job cause he took a new job with the Oakland Police Department.… My father broke friendship with him, not because he joined the police force…; he broke his friendship with him because his friend was only allowed to arrest black people. So my father broke friendship with him on principle, cause that's the kind of man my father was, he was a man of high standing principle.
He admitted killing Officer John Frey. He said that before he killed Frey, the police and the power structure could just come down to the black community and do anything they wanted. But after he shot Frey, much of that changed.
I expected to die. At no time before the trial did I expect to escape with my life. Yet being executed in the gas chamber did not necessarily mean defeat. It could be one more step to bring the community to a higher level of consciousness.
I'm actually a rather shy individual. I wouldn't consider myself to be very charismatic; I never did anything hero-like, I just worked on some little community programs. I do have a role to play however — I'm a theorist of sorts — I work on theories. But I really do not enjoy discussing the details of my personal life except as it relates to the movement. I hate cameras, microphones stuck up in my face. To tell you the truth, I hate stages cause they put you up on a stage and expect for you to entertain them and I keep trying to tell them I'm not an entertainer. Came to New York and I was supposed to speak at the Apollo Theater — 125th Street. And somebody called me, said, "Huey, we gonna have to cancel the rally. Somebody's gonna assassinate you from the balcony." I said, "Listen, if I'm ever foolish enough to get up on stage at the Apollo Theatre, they wouldn't need to assassinate me. That man will just come out and hook me off the stage." What's his name? The sandman? Yeah, the sandman cometh.
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