Beginning with his founding of the Black Panther Party in 1966, Huey P.Newton (1941-1989) set the political stage for events that would quickly place him and the Panthers at the forefront of the African American liberation movement for the next twenty years. Eldridge Cleaver, Bobby Seale, Angela Davis, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and Geronimo Pratt all came to international prominence through Newton's groundbreaking political activism. Additionally, Newton served as the Party's chief intellectual engine, conversing with world leaders such as Yasser Arafat, Chinese Premier Chou Enlai, and Mozambican president Samora Moises Machel, among others. DAVID HILLIARD is a founding member and former chief of staff of the Black Panther Party. He is the author of This Side of Glory- The Autobiography of David Hilliard and the Story of the Black Panther Party, and Huey- Spirit of the Panther. He currently serves as executive director of the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation in Oakland, California. DONALD WIESE is the editor of Black Like Us- A Century of Lesbian, Gay & Bisexual African-American Fiction. In 2015 he founded Querelle Press, a small press dedicated to publishing LGBT titles. ELAINE BROWNis a former leader of the Black Panther Party, as minister of information and chairman. She is the author ofA Taste of PowerandThe Condemnation of Little B. She lives in Oakland, California.
In our messy situation where (whatever remains of) the radical Left is constantly sabotaging itself with its Politically Correct moralism, a Huey Newton reader is needed like daily bread: a remainder of a time half a century ago when incisive philosophical thinking was immediately linked to practical political engagement. Newton was a Communist who saw the struggle for decolonization as outdated, a materialist keeping an eye open for extrasensory perception... Our task is not to return to Newton but to repeat his gesture in today's predicament. The future of the American radical Left will be Newtonian--or there will be none! --Slavoj Zizek