Here be dragons.

People have a lot to say about Huey Newton, both good and bad, right and wrong, but what often goes unmentioned is that he was an intellectual who earned his bachelor’s degree from U.C. Santa Cruz in 1974.  Newton also earned a Ph.D. in history of consciousness. His doctoral dissertation was entitled, “War on the Panthers: A Study of Oppression in America.”

An excerpt from the dissertation’s introduction:

It is logical that Oakland, California, should be the focus of hostile government actions against the Party because it is the place where the Party was founded, and it is the center of its organizational strength. In discussing Party leaders, including myself, and events in which they were involved, there has been a persistent temptation to write personally and emotionally. Individuals, with all their strengths and weaknesses, make significant differences in the outcome of political struggles; however, their roles are too often romanticized, clouding an understanding of the political forces propelling them into struggle. I have tried to maintain an objectivity consistent with scholarly standards by placing the roles of the involved personalities in proper political perspective. To aid int his effort, I will be referred to throughout this study in the third person. This dissertation  is then, by necessity, illustrative, not exhaustive; a history in brief, not a biography of the Black Panther Party [BPP]

What is perhaps most significant about [this study] is that it suggests how much we still do not know. How many people’s lives were ruined in countless ways by a government intent on destroying them as representatives of an “enemy” political organization? What”tactics” or “dirty tricks” were employed, with what results? Perhaps we shall never know the answers to these questions, but this inquiry about the BPP and the federal government will hopefully help us in our search for “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”