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Bobby Hutton
Joined at only fifteen years old, Bobby Hutton became the first member recruited into the Black Panther Party in 1966. After his death, only two years later in 1968, the Black Panther Party rose to fame.
Black Panther Party
Malcolm X, who was an African-American minister and human activist, became a big inspiration for the formation of the Black Panther Party. After his assassination, Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale founded the BPP that same year on October 15, 1966 in hopes of bringing liberation to African-Americans. At the time, the Oakland, California police force were infamously brutal with black Americans so when the BPP originated and arose in that area, the harassment and intimidation towards the party expanded. The leaders then drafted the Ten-point Program which established their goals of self defense. The original name of the party was the "Black Panther Party for Self-Defense." Their goal was not to wreck havoc into America but learn to defend themselves against the unfair discrimination.
April 6, 1968
After the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, members of the BPP were upset and riotted. As the riots began, many of the BPP members were ambushed in the street by the Oakland Police Department. The Black Panther Party claim that they did not attack the police first but rather defended themselves based on their self-defense policy. The BPP members part of the riot took refuge in a nearby house. The 17-year old "Little" Bobby Hutton
shootout lasted an hour and a half; the police used machine-guns and tear gas to terrify the members into surrendering. When the house was set on fire, the members finally announced to the police that they would come out. Bobby Hutton, who was the first member to surrender with his hands up in the air and stripped to his underwear to show he was not armed, was shot twelve times without mercy. Seven other members were arrested and Eldridge Cleaver, who was the minister of the party, was wounded and sent back to prison for violating his parole.
Due to this tragic incident, thousands of people attended Bobby’s funeral, and they formed a rally at Lake Merritt near the Alameda County Court house which was led by actor Marlon Brando and BPP member Kathleen Cleaver. After the rally, the death of Bobby Hutton became national news, showing the public the intolerable discrimination towards African-Americans by the police. Bobby Hutton’s tragic death made the Black Panther Party rise to fame.
Today
Although the original Black Panther Party officially culminated in 1982, the “New Black Panther Party” was formed. However, the original group is not associated with the new one. The New
Black Panther Party is an extremely racist and hostile organization whose leaders have
Bobby Seale, co-founder of the original BPP, championed hatred towards whites as wells as Jews.
and Marlon Brando, an American actor, at
Bobby Hutton’s memorial rally.
Sources
Gates. “Interview Eldridge Cleaver.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, 1995, www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/race/interviews/ecleaver.html.
Gray, Jesse. “Violence in Oakland.” The New York Review of Books, The New York Review of Books, 9 May 1968, www.nybooks.com/articles/1968/05/09/violence-in-oakland/.
Handyman, Gary. “Media Resources Center.” UC Berkeley Library, The Library, University of California, Berkeley, 13 July 2011, www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/pacificapanthers.html.
The New Black Panther Party founded in Newton, Huey P. “There Is No New Black Panther Party.” Polybius at The Clickto Network, Dallas in 1989 but has become more active Fox News, 8 May 2018. web.archive.org/web/20140907064728/http://www.blackpanther.org/ today in the East Coast. newsalert.htm.
Niekerken, Bill Van. “The Death of a Black Panther: 50 Years after Bobby Hutton's Killing.”San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Chronicle, 24 Apr. 2018, www.sfchronicle.com/thetake/article/The-death-of-a-Black-Panther-50-years-after-