I attended the Kathleen Cleaver lecture last Thursday and came away very impressed. She went through the entire history of the Black Panther history including the founders Bobby Seale and Huey Newton. They met in college and wanted to create a group to combat the racial injustices committed to black folks. Something I learned that I was never taught or saw on documentaries was they didn’t want any religion in the organization because it would take away the central focus in terms of fighting racism. i got to learn about the first official member of the party named Bobby Hutton who was killed two days after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on April 6th, 1968.
She even gave her own opinion on the emergence of the New Black Panther Party in Texas. She deems them as illegitimate and frauds who are using the clout of the original Panthers to get their messages across. She thinks they just want to wear the gear and do embarrassing things that goes against everything the original Black Panthers mission was putting forth.
I thoroughly enjoyed her lecture but with she would of gave more information on what she did then her husband Eldrige Cleaver . Overall, I was amazed by the new bits of information that only someone like her who was not only in the group but knew and worked with the founders and the most famous people out of the Panthers.