Newton, Huey P (1942-1989)

US civil-rights activist who co-founded the Black Panther Party. In 1967, Newton was accused of killing an Oakland police officer. His trial attracted crowds of demonstrators chanting Panther slogans and demanding his release. Newton was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and sent to the California Men's Colony, but his conviction was later overturned by the California court of appeals. By the 1970s, the Black Panther Party had become a potent political force in California, but Newton was once again in serious trouble. He was charged with shooting a prostitute, after which the charges were dropped. He was retried and convicted for the 1969 death of the police officer. The conviction was later reversed.

Huey Newton was born in Monroe, Louisiana. At Oakland City College he founded the Afro-American Society, and in 1966, at San Francisco Law School, Newton and friend Bobby Seale established the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. In 1980, Newton gained a PhD at the University of California. In the late 1980s, he was charged with embezzling state and federal funds from an educational and nutritional programme he headed in 1985, and in 1987 he was convicted of illegal possession of guns. In 1989, he was fatally shot.