Huey p. newton death cause12/31/2023 ![]() ![]() Download the Huey Newton Facts & Worksheets.Not just one leader, but all black people must also show courage, seize the time and take a stand against fear, complacency and selfishness, enemies that attack our community from within. It took courage for Newton to face down the forces of oppression. But far more dangerous is our unwillingness to care for our children, to save our neighborhoods, to say no to drugs. In Newton's heyday, it was apparent that the threat to the security of black people came from outside the community - mostly from racist banks, courts and police. These circumstances make clear that, despite how Newton died, the struggle that he once led so valiantly must continue. It is even more violent and drug-ridden than it was when he first promised to make it safer for black children. The real lesson in his death is symbolized by the street on which his bullet-riddled body was found. But make no mistake about this: Newton advocated self-defense. Some may believe this was a fitting end to a man who advocated violence. 22, Newton died by the gun in the same neighborhood where he had first advocated picking up the gun. Fred Hampton, Mark Clark, Bobby Hutton and dozens of other Black Panther Party members certainly did not. " It is a wonder that Newton lived as long as he did. Jamaican reggae prophet Bob Marley would put the movement in terms that every black American could understand when he wrote, "Get up, stand up, stand up for your rights. Newton, the romantic, shotgun-toting "minister of defense" in leather jacket and black beret, was prepared to live free - or die. So you say, let's get some shotguns and law books - and police the police. Somebody says let's protest at city hall. Somebody suggests holding a civil rights meeting at a local church. You are 26, functionally illiterate and frustrated because police are being allowed to break into your neighbors' homes, drag women and children from their bedrooms, beat, shoot and detain anybody black without due process of law. ![]() Put yourself in his shoes, sitting around with a group of friends in 1966, wondering what to do about the fact that Oakland's then all-white police force is terrorizing your neighborhood. Newton's final days were tragic, but his place in history was secured long ago when he demonstrated what courage was all about. It is that kind of stupidity, this utterly pathetic ignorance of who we are as a people, where we came from and the sacrifices others have made on our behalf that fuels black self-hatred and this horrendous black-on-black crime. Robinson probably danced to the music of the popular rap group Public Enemy, reveling in the name as well as the lyrics, not knowing that he was about to kill the leader of the organization that inspired the rap group, the organization Hoover had targeted in 1969 as Public Enemy No. Edgar Hoover had wanted him - and scores of black men like him - dead or in prison. I wonder if any 25-year-old would have killed Newton if he really knew how badly the late FBI director J. I wonder if Robinson knew this, whether he had any idea that Huey Newton had put his life on the line so many times to protect the Tyrone Robinsons of the world. He would have been in elementary school when Newton and the Panthers started a free breakfast program for hungry children. But regardless of what the shooting was about, I note Robinson's age with sadness. Oakland police say 25-year-old Tyrone Robinson, of that city, has admitted killing Newton. Nowadays, black communities across the country are literally begging for more police to come and take these same young black men away. Gone were the days when the black community wanted its young men protected from police brutality. Nobody seemed to care anymore about the man who, with Bobby Seale, cofounded the Black Panther Party for Self Defense in 1966. He had been arrested several times on cocaine possession charges, and was just wasting away. At the time of his death, Newton, 47, was an unemployed drifter, paranoid and antisocial. Newton in Oakland, Calif., last week are so riddled with irony that his acts of heroism and courage can easily be obscured. The circumstances surrounding the shooting death of Huey P. ![]()
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