Bobby Seale is the 33-year-old Chairman of the Black Panther Party.
In 1962, Bobby met Huey P. Newton at Merritt College in Oakland, California, where both were members of an Afro-American Association.
In 1966, Bobby and Huey founded the Black Panther Party in Oakland.
The Party’s first program was police surveillance. The Panthers patrolled the Oakland ghetto in cars and carried guns in accordance with the law. When they saw the police stop a black person they informed the person of his or her rights. Incidents of police brutality against black people declined as the armed pig-watching crews went into action.
In April, 1967, Black Panthers entered the California State legislature with unloaded guns in order to demonstrate the legality of armed self-defense.
These actions infuriated the California police agencies. They began harassing Black Panther leaders and members at every turn. In succeeding years this harassment grew to the level of a coordinated military attack on the party by the combined forces of local, state and federal police.
Today over 30 Panthers have been shot to death at the hands of the police and over 400 party members are charged with a variety of crimes, mostly as a result of frame-ups.
Bobby helped build the party nationally and began spending much of his time traveling around the country, speaking and helping to organize new Panther chapters.
Bobby was in Chicago briefly during the Democratic National Convention riots during the summer of 1968. The government decided to jam him up along with seven white radicals on “conspiracy to incite riot” charges. This was done even though Seale had never met with any of his co-defendants!
When the trial started, Bobby’s lawyer, Charles Garry, was sick and in the hospital, so Bobby wanted to use his constitutional right to defend himself. Judge Julius Hoffman refused to allow this and ended up chaining and gagging Seale and then throwing him in jail for four years on contempt of court charges.
This sentence, which astonished many lawyers, was the longest contempt sentence ever handed down in an Amerikan court.
Attorney-General Mitchell’s office still wants Seale to stand trial for the Chicago Democratic Convention pig riot (which mostly involved white pigs and white youths). After they finish with that charge, the pig intends to hang Bobby up on still another rap — a murder charge connected with the New Haven 14 case.
The New Haven 14 are Black Panthers accused of killing another Panther, Alex Rackley. The Panthers say that Rackley was a revolutionary brother who was killed by the pigs and that pig informant George Sams (formerly of Detroit) is being used to frame the Panther leadership in this case.
Wide support is growing for Bobby and the rest of the defendants. A massive demonstration was held in New Haven by over 20,000 blacks and whites on May 1.
The trial has already begun in New Haven and the Panthers are convinced that the electrocution of Bobby Seale has been pre-planned by the government. And they say: “If the fascists attempt to murder Chairman Bobby and the Connecticut Panthers in the electric chair…then there won’t be any light for days.”
For information concerning the Black Panther Party or to send contributions, address the Ministry of Information, Black Panther Party, Box 2967, Customs House, San Francisco, California, 94126. The local political arm of the Black Panther Party is the National Committee to Combat Fascism, located at 2219 Indiandale in Detroit. Phone: 868-9836.