Huey P. Newton

J. Herman Blake

In October 1967, one year after the founding of the Black Panther Party, Huey Newton was involved in a shooting during which an Oakland police officer was killed. Newton spent three years in prison before being released and having his charges dismissed, and his jailing brought cries of "Free Huey" from supporters around the world. This engrossing and well-written autobiography recounts the forming of a revolutionary and shows how the degrading and psychologically destructive penal system forged Newton's already growing spirit. When Newton was a child, his father instilled in him a sense of dignity and pride; as an adolescent, he was torn between religious principles and life as a hustler; as a young man, he founded the radical Black Panther Party with Bobby Seale, and finally, in solitary confinement in the Alameda County Jail, he reached deep within himself to find the strength to face adversity; and even death without fear.

Revolutionary Suicide

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Revolutionary suicide does not mean that I and my comrades have a death wish; it means just the opposite. We have such a strong desire to live with hope and human dignity that existence without them is impossible. 

I do not expect to live through our revolution, and most serious comrades probably share my realism. Therefore, the expression “revolution in our lifetime” means something different to me than it does to other people who use it. I think the revolution will grow in my lifetime, but I do not expect to enjoy its fruits.

The United States is jeopardizing its own existence and the existence of all humanity.

Not that I am happy with the suffering; I simply refuse to be defeated by it.

Our image of ourselves was defined for us by textbooks and teachers. We not only accepted ourselves as inferior; we accepted the inferiority as inevitable and inescapable.

Predictably, this sense of despair and futility led us into rebellious attitudes. Rebellion was the only way we knew to cope with the suffocating, repressive atmosphere that undermined our confidence

At the time the church was the only stable force in the Black community, and while some people do not think it was very effective, it did offer a kind of permanence and stability to our lives.

The Black teen-ager, in his most impressionable  and vulnerable years, looks around and sees a contradiction between society’s expressed values and reality—the way things actually are. The “Sonny Men” of the community who defy authority and “break the law” seem to enjoy the good life and “have everything in the way of material possessions. On the other hand, people who work hard and struggle and suffer much are the victims of greed and indifference, losers. This insane reversal of values presses heavily on the Black community. The causes originate from outside and are imposed by a system that ruthlessly seeks its own rewards, no matter what the cost in wrecked human lives.

To me, that was not taking things that did not belong to us but getting something really ours, something owed us. That “stealing” was merely retribution.

Everything they opposed I supported. That was how I first became a supporter of Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution. Earlier, when I heard teachers criticizing Paul Robeson, I defended him and believed in him, even though I knew very little about his life. When they started putting down Castro and the revolution of the Cuban people, I knew it must be good, too. I became an advocate of the Cuban Revolution.

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