#PeoplesHistory | Revolutionary and leader of the Black Panther Party Huey P. Newton was assassinated on this day in 1989.


Newton’s Black Panther Party rose to prominence in the 1960s and 70s for raising the revolutionary consciousness of the oppressed Black communities in the United States. Newton’s writings and leadership have left a permanent mark on the Black liberation movement and the socialist movement broadly.

Newton elevated the Panthers to the role of internationalist revolutionary socialists who sought to fight US imperialism in order to liberate the most oppressed communities within the country.

Newton, like many others in the Black liberation movement, was a target of the FBI’s COINTELPRO, which sought to sow division between revolutionary leaders and organizations.

Black August is a month to honor the history of struggles for Black liberation, in defiance of racial, colonial, and imperialist oppression, both inside and outside prison walls.

This Black August, we remember the 1971 Attica prison revolt, when 1,281 out of 2,200 inmates seized control of the prison.

Prisoners took control of Attica for four days and officials conceded to 28 of the prisoners' demands. With 43 men dead, the vast majority from the violence of state repression, the Attica prison uprising is still the deadliest in US history, but is remembered by many for its revolutionary significance.