Radical Women: Fredrika Newton

Fredrika was candidly honest throughout her presentation as well as afterward when we had dinner together with a small group of students.
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Widow of Dr. Huey P. Newton Continues Legacy of The Black Panther Party
March 2007

Fredrika Newton, widow of slain Black Panther Party (BPP) co-founder Dr. Huey P. Newton, brought the history of the Black Panther Party to PSU on February 27 as part of the celebration of Black History Month. Ms. Newton, who is also the President of the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation, gave a lecture and slide presentation and shared her experiences as young women in the Black Power Movement.

The BPP was founded as a grass roots community organization in Oakland, California in 1965. Dr. Newton and Bobby Seale created the organization on the foundation of Marxist internationalism. In October of 1966, Newton and Seale drafted the BPP Ten Point Platform and the Program of the BPP Party of Self-Defense. The Ten-Point Platform spoke to the needs and rights of the Black community and included the need for decent housing, education and full employment. It also included the exemption of all Black men from the military and freedom of Black political prisoners until tried by a jury of their peers. The seventh point spoke to the crisis in the Black community regarding police brutality and called for armed monitoring of police activity in Black neighborhoods. The Party also organized their Liberation Schools in which Black children were taught a curriculum of empowerment through Afro-centric teachings. There was also offered a free breakfast program for Black children, a free health clinic and community food giveaways.

Huey Newton was absent from the Party from 1967 to 1970 while he served a prison term for the killing of a police officer (this charge was overturned upon appeal). Upon returning to the community, he found difficulty in reestablishing his role. Internal conflict occurred regarding the direction of the Party. In 1973, Huey fled to Cuba rather than face new criminal charges. Upon his return, he found the party greatly lacking the prominence that it once had. Eventually, the Party dwindled significantly in its prominence. By the early 1980’s, the Party was all but extinct.

It was while a student at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, that Ms. Newton first became involved with the BPP. While visiting her mother in Oakland, California during the 1970 Christmas break, she went home to find Huey Newton chatting with her mother in the family dining room.

“My mother was operating as the real estate agent for the BPP and was helping party leaders get housing. Huey had recently been released from prison after serving four years for the murder of an Oakland police office (the conviction was overturned after 4 years). Huey was there in the dining room, and, I don’t know how many of you remember what he looked like—he was amazing looking and he was an amazing man. I was an eighteen-year-old girl and was totally swept off my feet. After speaking with him briefly, I went back to Oregon, packed my bags and went back. And, that’s how I got started with the organization.”

Ms. Newton began working at the BPP school (which became internationally know for its academic excellence) and was immediately taken by the degree of dedication by Party members. “There is nothing sexy about getting up at four in the morning to feed hungry children, folding up the BPP newspapers (The Black Panther) and going out on the street selling newspapers. It was just hard work. Originally, it was the children of Party members who sent their children to the school. As community members began to send their children to the school, many of the children came to live at the school, simply because their families were poor and had no other place to live. It’s been quite a journey and it’s just so very important that this history doesn’t get buried.”

Ms. Newton also worked to open the George Jackson People’s Free Health Clinic in Oakland, the first of the many free health clinics in the United States. The Party screened over 500,000 children nationally for Sickle Cell Anemia. All clinic doctors, nurses, techs and ambulance drivers volunteered their time to treat and serve community members. The clinics were open seven days a week. The BPP also operated a shoe factory whereby community members were able to get shoes for their families without cost. In addition, there was a legal education clinic that provided free legal services and workshops, a free bus service to bus elderly parents to visit their children to prisons (many prisoners were incarcerated many miles away from their families) and a free furniture store. A program for seniors called the S.A.F.E Program (Seniors Against a Fearful Environment) was staffed by Party members and volunteers to escort elders when leaving their homes. “Many older people are held hostage in their own homes because of the violence in their community,” stated Newton. “The S.A.F.E Program served as accompaniment for Seniors as they went out to attend to various errands.”

Of all of the incredible resources that the BPP provided, it was the free breakfast program for children that most raised the ire of then FBI Chief J. Edgar Hoover. It was this program that was seen as the single most threat to national security. “It’s bizarre isn’t it?” asks Newton. “The reason why it was seen as the single most threat to United States security was because it was just a tremendous organizing mechanism for the Party. It really galvanized the community. Hoover saw that it worked. That was why he identified feeding children as this single most threat.” With this, Hoover repeatedly instructed personnel to destroy the BPP Free Breakfast for Children Program.

The FBI, in fact, waged a campaign of terror against the BPP that included infiltration and assassination. In 1969, Hoover ordered his Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) to “destroy what the BPP stands for and eradicate its ‘serve the people’ programs.” That same year, Fred Hampton, Deputy Chairman of the Chicago, Illinois Chapter of the BPP, and Party member Mark Clark were assassinated by officers of the Chicago police force after planting an informant in the BPP inner circle. This informant, William O’Neal, provided Chicago police with the floor plan of the house that Hampton and other Party members lived. On the evening prior to the murder of Hampton and Clark, O’Neal slipped sedatives into their beverages (Hampton had in fact fallen asleep in mid-sentence during a phone call to his mother conducted from his bedroom.) In the early morning hours of December 4, 1969, police stormed the BPP apartment and shot Clark and Hampton to death. In 1979, investigators found evidence that the FBI was involved in a conspiracy to murder Hampton and obstruct justice. Sanctions were imposed on the FBI for its cover-up activities and an award of 1.85 million went to survivors and families of the police raid.

Fredrika Newton was witness to this history of oppression and terrorism. She continued in her work as a tireless and dedicated Party member throughout the campaign of misinformation directed at the BPP. Fredrika and Huey married in 1981 and worked side by side through many a struggle. After years of government sanctioned assassinations, harassment, legal prosecutions and internal conflicts, many BPP leaders and members succumbed to movement burn-out. Huey Newton himself became increasingly dependant on cocaine. In 1989, Huey was shot to death during a dispute by a drug dealer.

“This was a profound experience in my life...today I am so pleased to see the insurgence of interest in the BPP. Through the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation we provide information on the history of the Party, because as you know, there is very little information out there.

We provide bus tours (Ms. Newton coordinated the Black Panther Legacy Tour) of the eighteen BPP historical sights in Oakland and are in the process of digitizing thousands of pages of archives at Stanford University. Stanford was the only university that would pay to have it archived and housed there. We also have a record label called Black Panther Records. We use music as a way to get the message out. Through the Foundation, we try to make sure that our history remains pure. There are a lot of revisionists out there. We try to make sure that the Party history is there for anybody to study. If any of you come to Oakland, please come and take the history tour. The tour is now incorporated in the schools in the 9th grade curriculum in the Bay Area as a result of our efforts in Oakland.”

After Ms. Newton’s presentation and book signing (she brought copies of the pictorial The Legacy of the Panthers, a Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation publication as well as books authored by her late husband), I asked her about her life after Huey’s death. Huey’s death is still suspected by many to be just another in a long line of government assassinations, a cover-up clouded with muffled conspiracy. How did Fredrika survive the loss of a companion who, as a Black Power Movement icon, was larger than life?

ME: You have been very generous tonight in sharing your experience and your life with Huey Newton. Life with Huey Newton must have been some experience. The question that I have for you is, what was it like for you to be without him, to experience that loss? What revived you? What kept you committed to continuing the work?

FN: (Bursts into laughter) Hmmm…a lot of questions in that one question, Sista! Life with Huey was an experience. During the time that we were active in the Party and after the party was over, we tried to preserve a sense of normalcy in our household that never really was. Huey never escaped police presence. He was hounded by the police until the day died. Our house was raided a couple of times, so my life with Huey was never really easy. What kept me going afterwards? There was a bit total collapse after he died, although I tell you, I was really prepared for his death because I knew that it was inevitable. I was fairly reclusive for a year. After Huey died, I became involved in a relationship with David Hilliard (BPP leader and Executive Director of the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation) and he helped to really push me out there and accept the responsibility that I had as a result of being married to Huey. It hasn’t come easy because I’m a very private person. It’s a legacy that I’m proud of. Today I’m a nurse and work in chemical dependency programs. This came out of my life with Huey. He was addicted to drugs and alcohol when he died. This is a disease that affects every walk of life. I don’t think that it’s by accident that part of my life’s work is in addiction medicine. That’s half of my life. The other is keeping this history alive. I have a very rich life and strong support base of family and friends who have been there since the beginning.”

The Fredrika Newton presentation was brought to the PSU campus by the PSU Black Cultural Affairs Board, the Association of African Students and the Women’s Resource Center.