home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
TIME: Almanac 1990
/
1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
/
time
/
090489
/
09048900.036
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1990-09-22
|
2KB
|
29 lines
NATION, Page 17American NotesOAKLANDThe Panthers' Lost Leader
It was not surprising that Huey P. Newton ended the way he did:
lying in a pool of blood on a sidewalk in a crack-infested Oakland
neighborhood with three bullets in his head. For much of his 47
years, Newton had preached and practiced violence as a necessary
means of self-defense for blacks in urban America. He will be
remembered most as the co-founder of the Black Panther Party,
enthroned in a rattan chair, wearing a black beret, with a rifle
in one hand and a spear in the other.
For a short time, Newton seemed to embody the spirit of ghetto
uplift that the Panthers preached. After serving time in a
celebrated case involving the shooting of an Oakland policeman, he
earned a doctorate from the University of California. But after J.
Edgar Hoover's FBI targeted the group, many of his fellow Panther
leaders were killed, jailed or driven underground, and Newton's
life returned to its meaner roots. Charges of murder and assault
led to conviction for possessing a gun. There followed a string of
drug offenses, drunk driving and embezzling $15,000 from a
Panther-operated school.
At 5:30 a.m. last Tuesday, officers investigating a report of
gunfire only two blocks from one of the Panthers' original
headquarters found him dying in the street. On Friday police
arrested a suspected drug dealer, who told them he shot Newton in
self-defense after they argued over a cocaine sale. Investigators
found no gun near Newton's body.