Black Panther Party co-founder Elbert "Big Man" Howard dies
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Elbert "Big Man" Howard, a co-founder of the Black Panther Party who served as newspaper editor, information officer and logistics genius behind the group's popular social programs, has died at age 80.
His wife, Carole Hyams, says Howard died Monday in Santa Rosa, California, after a long illness.
Friends and family described Howard as a "gentle giant" who could paint in words what a jazz song was saying. Howard was an author, volunteer jazz disc jockey, author, lecturer and activist in Sonoma County, where he later made his home.
Howard was one of six people who founded the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense in Oakland in October 1966, along with Bobby Seale and Huey Newton. The political organization started out patrolling police for possible abuse against blacks.
Read more: http://www.phillytrib.com/news/black-panther-party-co-founder-elbert-big-man-howard-dies/article_a4116f6b-2915-5134-b055-dfd2f3980181.html
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He and Bobby Seale have been fortunate to live as long as they did as so many black men never even make it long enough to reach their mid-60s to collect SS. Here is a recent pic -
A good historical summary that mirrors today -
That October, in Oakland, Seale and Newton founded the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. Howard and three others — Sherwin Forte, Reggie Forte and Little Bobby Hutton — signed on as founding members.
Howard told The Press Democrat in March of 2017 he’d had enough of police brutality committed with impunity on African-Americans. “No results came of it, and no one came to the people’s rescue,” he said.
Initially, he and the other Black Panthers wore berets and black leather jackets as they stood in armed defiance and patrolled the streets in vigilance against police brutality. “In the beginning,” Howard said 2002, “the police would patrol our community, and almost every week somebody would get killed, and so a show of arms was a necessary move at the time. Extreme actions required extreme measures.”
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/8564329-181/elbert-big-man-howard-80
See back then, these guys were doing "open carry" (although as I understand, the rifles weren't loaded). Many of us have chuckled that the minute blacks start doing this again in their neighborhoods, suddenly the gun rules will be changed, quick, fast and in a hurry, especially when we stop shooting each other and go back to patrolling our neighborhoods against rogue cops.
