Black Panther Party Co-Founder and African-American revolutionary Huey P. Newton would have been 79 on Wednesday.
To mark his legacy, he was honored with the renaming of the Oakland street Wednesday where he was gunned down in August 1989.
The last time I was here, Newton’s blood was still on the sidewalk.
On this day, his trademark rattan chair sits surrounded by flowers.
"This place is both darkness and light for me," said Fredricka Newton, his widow. "There is sorrow for this block where he died, and that is darkness. Today, there is light."
This stretch of 9th St. at the intersection of Center St. has been renamed Dr. Huey P. Newton Way. "All power to the people," Oakland city councilwoman Carol Fife. "Respect for Dr. Huey P. Newton. We love you and we know your energy is moving some things."
A sculpture is in the works and will be unveiled later this year.
Newton spent a portion of his childhood in Oakland and earned his Ph. D. from UC Santa Cruz before co-founding the Black Panther Party in 1966.
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