Huey Newton, born on this day in 1942, was a Marxist-Leninist revolutionary who, along with fellow Merritt College student Bobby Seale, co-founded the Black Panther Party (1966 - 1982). Together with Seale, Newton created a ten-point program which laid out guidelines for how the black community could achieve liberation.

In the 1960s, under Newton's leadership, the Black Panther Party founded over 60 community support programs (renamed survival programs in 1971) including food banks, medical clinics, sickle cell anemia tests, prison busing for families of inmates, legal advice seminars, clothing banks, housing co-ops, and their own ambulance service.

The most famous of these programs was the Free Breakfast for Children program which fed thousands of impoverished children daily during the early 1970s. Newton also co-founded the Black Panther newspaper service which became one of America's most widely distributed black newspapers.

In 1967, he was involved in a shootout which led to the death of the police officer John Frey. Although arrested for the murder of Frey, the charges were eventually dismissed, following a massive "Free Huey!" campaign.

Despite graduating from high school illiterate, he taught himself how to read by reading Plato's Republic, later earning a PhD. in social philosophy from the University of California at Santa Cruz's History of Consciousness program in 1980. In 1989, he was murdered in Oakland, California by Tyrone Robinson, a member of the Black Guerrilla Family.

"Black Power is giving power to people who have not had power to determine their destiny."

- Huey Newton