3. Strain, Christopher Barry. “Civil Rights and ... - Freedom Archives

their perception in the media, and their t~esponse from government agencies, especially
the police . Guns became si~ua non to the Panthers' image ; but, originally, they were
simply a function of the members' personal needs for self-protection . Clearly,
understanding the priority the Panthers placed on armed self-defense predicates full
understanding of the Black Panther Party itself .
Working within the established tradition of armed self-defense by Afro-
Americans, Huey P. Newton and Hobby Scale traced their organization to similar groups
befoc+e, such as the Deacons for Defense and Justice . They consciously followed the
precedent set by Robert Williams and Charles Sims . "Negroes with Guns by Robert
Williams had a great influence on the kind of party we developed," explained Huey
Newton . "We also had some literature about the Deacons for Defense and Justice in
Louisiana . . . One of their leaders had come through the Bay Area on a speaking and
fund-raising tour, and we liked what he said."~ Scale claimed to have learned of Robert
Williams in 1962.° What the Panthers did--brandishing weapons in public--seemed
unprecedented to most everyone who knew nothing of Williams or the Deacons and who,
with Americans' characteristically selective historical memory, remembered little of the
David Walkers and Henry Highland Garnets of the nineteenth century. But the Panthers
~'Huey P . Newton with J. Herman Blake, Revolutionaryr Suicide (New York : Harcourt
Brace Jovanovich, Inc ., 1973), 112. Newton listed Robert Williams among his "idols,"
including Marcus Garvey, F.rnesto "Che" Guevara, Kwame Nkrumah, Regis Dubray, and
Mao Tse-Tung ; see Rush Gr+eenlee, "A Revolutionary Talks From Cell ;' San Francisco
j,II~[ (June 30, 1968) : 1 .
3°Bobby Scale, A Lonely Rage : The Autobiog~y of Bobby (New York :
Times Books, 1978), 130.