An icon of the radical '60s, former Black Panther Bobby Seale will be the keynote speaker this afternoon at the University of Minnesota Black Student Union's African Cultural History Month celebration.
Seale, who co-founded the Black Panther Party with Huey Newton in 1966, will speak from 3 to 4:30 p.m. at the Coffman Union Theater, 300 Washington Ave. SE., Minneapolis.
Seale also will join students and others at a dinner in the Mississippi Room at 7 p.m. The event sponsored by the Black Student Union.
Initially formed to protect local communities from police brutality and racism, the Black Panthers had chapters in several major cities and ran medical clinics and provided free food to schoolchildren.
At its peak, it had a membership of more than 2,000. It later developed into a Marxist revolutionary group.
Seale, as one of the "Chicago Eight," was charged with conspiracy to incite riots during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Charges were eventually dropped.
A few years later, he was tried for the torture-murder of former Panther Alex Rackley, a suspected police informant. That trial ended in a hung jury. Seale later stepped away from militancy and left the Panthers in 1974.
PAUL WALSH
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