The Icon Black Lives Matter Series: Huey P. Newton

Huey Newton was born on February 17, 1942. He was an African-American revolutionary, notable as the founder of the Black Panther Party. Newton crafted the Party's ten-point manifesto with Bobby Seale in 1966.

The Black Panther Party founded over 60 community support programs including food banks, medical clinics, sickle cell anemia tests, prison busing for families of inmates, legal advice seminars, clothing banks, housing cooperatives, and their own ambulance service. The most famous of these programs was the Free Breakfast for Children program which fed thousands of impoverished children daily during the early 1970s. Newton also co-founded the Black Panther newspaper service, which became one of America's most widely distributed African-American newspapers.

In 1989, he was murdered in Oakland, California, by Tyrone Robinson, a member of the Black Guerrilla Family. Newton was known for being an advocate of self-defense and used his position as a leader within the Black Panther Party to welcome women and LGBT people into the party, holding the belief that homosexuals "might be the most oppressed people".

Huey Newton was never shy in talking to the media because after all the powerful movement he started with bobby Seale was all about communication and understanding leading to meaningful change.

What follows is a collection of interviews with the controversial charismatic leader commencing from his prison cell in 1968 right up until 1989 just weeks before his tragic death. Here is a chance to get to know and understand not only Huey the forward-thinking and intractable black rights advocate but also the sensitive and sensible intellectual ultimately compassionate and caring man.