What Was The Black Panther Party Fighting For?

In 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, police killed unarmed 17-year-old Bobby Hutton, and Aaron Dixon decided it was time to join the Black Panther Party.

Aaron Dixon was co-founder and Captain of the Seattle chapter of the Black Panther Party. As a college student at the University of Washington, Dixon played a key role in the formation of the Black Student Union (BSU) and the Seattle Chapter of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). In the spring of 1968, at the funeral of Bobby Hutton in Oakland, California, Dixon met Bobby Seale and later was appointed Captain of Seattle’s Black Panther Party, the first chapter outside of Oakland. He was 19 years old. Dixon led the chapter through its first four years, then moved to Party national headquarters in Oakland in 1972. There he worked with Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, and served for a time as bodyguard to Elaine Brown. 

Aaron Dixon’s autobiography is titled My People Are Rising: Memoir of a Black Panther Party Captain (2012).

BOOK: My People Are Rising: Memoir of a Black Panther Party Captain

GUEST: Aaron Dixon

PRODUCER: Oziah “Ozzy” Wilson

PRODUCTION: Pod People