A True Freedom Fighter

As the co-founder of the Black Panther Party, Huey Newton was a political hero who catalyzed the Black Movement by mobilizing African Americans at the community level to fight for justice and equality. His aggressive ideas highlighted the extent to which US racism had escalated. The fact that his life is not as historically proclaimed as other freedom fighters, such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., suggests how a still racist America fears minority power …

…instead of the inhumane conditions that created it. Confronting the violent nature of aggressive liveration groups, though not as aesthetically pleasant, requires us to focus instead on the pre-movement conditions imposed on African Americans for centuries that were equally brutal and equally violent. Therefore, Huey Newton emerges as not only as a hero who introduced freedom across the nation but whose life reminds us of a American past as real and shameful as it is.