Huey�s imprisonment was everyone�s plight the fight for his freedom was their own struggle for liberty. Huey�s immediate condition was equated with the ultimate fate of the black community, and Forman�s inflammatory vow that �Brother Huey must be set free or else the sky is the limit!� demonstrated that blacks had accepted Huey�s status as an indicator of their own oppression. Carmichael announced that Huey Newton was �part and parcel of black people wherever we are on the world,� removing Newton�s specific identity and encouraging the audience to view him as not just the symbol of the movement, but its very essence. Rap Brown, three prominent members of SNCC, spoke about the great sacrifices that Newton was making for black people everywhere, thus reinforcing the idea that he had come to personify the troubles of an entire race. Newton and the �Free Huey� slogan were emblazoned on flags, buttons, t-shirts, and posters through heavy marketing this propaganda became �as popular among white radicals as antiwar buttons with peace signs.� The hype of the Free Huey movement perhaps was represented best at the Oakland rally held in his honor on February 17, 1968, where the merger with SNCC was announced. �But the people go on in them lies the possibility for immortality�since each man eventually gives up his life, death can only be controlled through the ongoing life of the people.� With his new status as a national icon, Newton had been handed the opportunity to promote the Black Panther platform, to use his �incarceration a continual reminder to the outside world of the outrageous tactics of the police.� In his opinion, �every day they kept me there I grew as a symbol of the brutalization of the poor and Black as well as a living reproach to society�s indifference to the inequities of the legal system.� To Newton, the immediate publicity opportunities for the party outweighed the prospect of severe legal consequences for himself.Īs Huey remained behind bars, coolly embodying resistance to injustice, the leadership of the party rallied the radical community around his image, temporarily uniting with SNCC as well as forming an uneasy coalition with PFP. �My life had to come to an end sometime,� he rationalized. As Cleaver and the party made the decision to use Newton�s case as the cause celebr� of the Black Panthers, recognizing �that a potential black martyr could galvanize young blacks of all persuasions, in a way that they couldn�t be otherwise,� Newton remained calmly in jail, seemingly unruffled by the prospect of his trial, conviction, and possible execution. Newton, for his part, more than willingly accepted the role of revolutionary exemplar thrust upon him. Meanwhile, a confused and angry officer tried to block the photographer�s shot.Įldridge Cleaver further framed the incident as an example of the Panther�s refusal to be intimidated in his words, Huey Newton had �dealt with transgression of the territorial integrity of the Black community in a necessary way.� His actions and attitude were to be emulated, not condemned. Reports trickled out that police had handled the arrest of a badly injured Newton with excessive force a widely distributed photograph displayed him shackled to a hospital gurney so that his stomach wound was tensed and contracted, obviously worsening his pain. Yet for the Panthers, the incident was a validation of sorts, a proof that their complaints of police brutality were warranted. For the national media, the Panthers� potential for violence merited no further debate�the question had been resolved with the worst possible outcome, the death of a police officer. What mattered most were the ways in which the import of the shooting and Huey�s arrest for the death of Officer Frey were manipulated by the press and the Panthers. The actual events of that evening�s confrontation were never established definitively beyond the physical evidence for all effective purposes they were negligible. On October 28th, 1967, the prophecy of violence was realized in a battle of gunplay between Huey Newton and the Oakland Police Department that left Officer John Frey dead, Officer Herbert Heanes shot several times, and Newton wounded in the stomach.
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