[2 articles]

Black Panthers' co-founder recalls Martin Luther King Jr.s inspiration

http://www.goerie.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080924/NEWS02/809240283

BY DANA MASSING
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
September 24. 2008

Braxton Vaughn was talking to a 30-something man the other day who 
didn't know who Bobby Seale is.

"It lets me really see how far removed young people are from the 
struggles persons of my age witnessed," said Vaughn, 50.

Vaughn is an elder at Greater Calvary Full Gospel Baptist Church, 
where Seale, a cofounder of the Black Panther Party, spoke Tuesday 
afternoon. Seale was in Erie for Mercyhurst College's "Beyond the 
Dream" initiative, a series of events examining civil rights history 
and the life of Martin Luther King Jr.

Pertrina Marrero, director of the college's Marion Shane 
Multicultural Center and a Greater Calvary member, said Seale was at 
the church so the community could hear more from him. He spoke at 
Mercyhurst on Tuesday night.

Vaughn said Greater Calvary, 2624 German St., offered a smaller, less 
formal setting. Two dozen people, most of them from the 
African-American community, sat on metal chairs in the church 
basement. When Seale entered, in a light blue ball cap rather than 
the familiar Black Panther beret, it was several seconds before he 
was recognized.

Seale, 71, described hearing King speak in California in 1962.

"I've never forgotten how I was so inspired by his speech," Seale said.

King's death six years later led Seale to start an organization that 
he says was all about "ending institutionalized racism in America."

Denice Manus, 57, a Mercyhurst graduate, said she followed not only 
King, but also Seale's organization. She liked the Black Panthers' 
boldness, learning from them "to stand up for what you believe." But 
she also admired King's nonviolent approach.

She said Seale's church talk taught her some of "the history behind 
the history" of the Black Panthers.

Manus said that according to Seale, the members were intelligent, 
educated and well-organized.

Seale said the group researched the law so members weren't breaking 
it when they carried guns.

"They used to talk about him so terrible," Erie resident Joyce 
Jenkins said. "Now I have a better view of him."

After listening to Seale, retired Erie history teacher John Drew 
said, "It's good to hear the history from the person firsthand. He 
dispels a lot of the myths and untruths." Although Seale visited a 
Catholic college and a Baptist church, he drew listeners from various faiths.

The afternoon crowd included an Episcopalian, a Unitarian 
Universalist and Mormons. Some weren't even born when Seale resigned 
from the Black Panthers in 1974.

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Panthers founder: Become involved

http://www.goerie.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080923/NEWS02/309239979/-1/NEWS

BY KEVIN FLOWERS
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
September 23. 2008

Bobby Seale is coming to Erie to set the record straight about the 
Black Panther Party.

"I want to clarify my history," Seale, the 71-year-old co-founder of 
the Black Panthers, said in an interview. "Let people know what the 
real Black Panther Party was all about.

"The FBI stereotyped us," Seale continued. "You have people today who 
still believe the Black Panthers hated all white people, that the 
only thing the party wanted to do was shoot and kill white people. 
Baldfaced lies. The party was all about community organizing, and the 
goal objective was civil rights for all people," Seale said. "Our 
slogan was 'Constitutional, democratic, civil, human rights for all people.'"

Seale -- a world-famous political activist whose name and actions are 
linked to the civil rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s -- will be 
at Mercyhurst College tonight to begin a yearlong program titled 
"Beyond the Dream," which examines the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.

Seale, with Huey P. Newton and Bobby Hutton, cofounded the Black 
Panther Party for Self-Defense in Oakland, Calif., in 1966.

Inspired by King, who preached nonviolent social change, and by 
Malcolm X, who argued that black Americans needed to protect 
themselves against inadequate education, social conditions and 
oppression from white people, the Black Panthers set out to curb the 
economic and political oppression felt by many black people, 
particularly in poorer, urban areas.

The Black Panthers spawned controversy for originally espousing 
revolution as the only means of achieving black liberation, and for 
calling on black people to arm themselves for the liberation struggle.

Party members also were involved in several violent confrontations in 
which police officers and Black Panthers were killed.

Seale was one of the "Chicago Eight" defendants charged with 
conspiracy and other charges for disrupting the Democratic National 
Convention in that city in 1968.

In November 1969, six weeks after the trial began and a week after 
Seales was bound and gagged in the courtroom after repeated 
outbursts, the judge declared a mistrial in Seales' case, and he was 
sentenced to four years in prison on 16 counts of contempt of court.

The sentence was later reversed. Five of the remaining "Chicago 
Seven" were convicted of some charges, but those sentences were overturned.

In the early 1970s, Seale and a co-defendant were tried in the murder 
of another Black Panther suspected of being an informant. That trial 
ended with a hung jury. "I was a hoodlum (to some people) because 
politicians like Ronald Reagan called me one. Counterintelligence 
called me a thug," Seale said.

"They didn't tell people I was an engineer, a hunter, fisherman and 
carpenter. They didn't tell people I was an expert barbecue cook, a 
jazz drummer and a stand-up comedian," he said.

Seale, a dishonorably discharged U.S. Air Force veteran, worked as a 
mechanic in several aerospace plants before becoming politically 
active. He said he was inspired as a 26-year-old after hearing King 
speak in Oakland in 1962.

"I'll never forget being inspired by him," Seale said of King. 
"Especially when he talked about boycotting businesses who refused to 
hire people of color.

"I got influenced by King, then Nelson Mandela in 1963 when he was 
sent to jail. I was influenced by Malcolm (X) when he left the Nation 
of Islam."

Seale said the Black Panthers "wanted to stop the rich from 
controlling the political institutions that controlled our lives and 
perpetuated institutional racism."

Seale said most people do not realize that the Black Panthers 
established various inner-city social service programs, such as free 
school-breakfast programs for children, community health clinics, and 
testing for sickle cell anemia.

Seale resigned as the Black Panther Party's chairman in 1974 and his 
autobiography, "A Lonely Rage," was published soon afterward. Seale 
now devotes much of his time to Reach Inc., a group focused on youth 
education programs that he founded in 1992.

He even wrote a cookbook, "Barbeque'N with Bobby," in 1987. The 
proceeds from the cookbook went to various grass-roots political groups.

Seale knows that many of those who will hear him speak tonight were 
not even born when he was at the center of tumultuous events.

He said his message is simple -- it's never too late to get involved.

"I'm not here to criticize the youth, so much as I'm here to educate 
and try to raise consciousness," Seale said.

"Do not hitch your wagon to the rich who control this country," Seale 
said. "Hitch your wagon to the continuing human liberation struggle."
--

KEVIN FLOWERS can be reached at 870-1693 or by e-mail.

.


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