Keynote speaker Fredrika Newton, President and Co-founder of the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation, giving a speech at the MLK Student Appreciation Celebration.
UAA kicked off Black History Month with a commemoration Feb. 2 in honor of MLK’s legacy and the students who preserve his values.
The Martin Luther King Jr. Student Appreciation event featured Fredricka Newton, a former rank and file member of the Black Panther Party-Oakland Chapter, as its keynote speaker. Newton is also the widow of the late Dr. Huey P. Newton, the co-founder of the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California.
For 40 minutes, Fredicka gave an immersive speech on the true history behind the Black Panther Party.
“I cannot overstate enough the magnitude of what the Black Panther Party was trying to do, and how much the government didn’t want them to do it,” said Newton. She said the party was originally established to protect black citizens from police brutality.
Soon after its establishment, the Black Panther Party started a free breakfast for children program to combat food injustice and its consequences on the educational success of schoolchildren.
“You should know that this is a common theme with the party, if there was a problem in the community, they developed a program to solve it,” Newton said.
Though threatened by the Black Panther's program, the government would later establish an identical and official school breakfast program in 1975.
Another method of mediating educational disparities was starting their own school. Children from the school would come into the grocery store where Fredricka was employed to sell The Black Panther’s newspapers
Newton said, “They were out in the community with the party newspaper in one hand and a can in the other that said ‘contribution to the Free Breakfast for Children’s Program.’” The newspapers were printed every week and distributed nationally for 13 years.
“I joined the Black Panther Party out of my love for these children.”
The Black Panther Party liberation schools first started in 1969 and aimed to educate African-American youth on their true history. A similar outcome was experienced by the audience as Newton spoke.
“I felt like I learned more about black history than I ever learned in school,” said nominated freshman Amayahlidwina Alenepi.
Over sixty students were nominated by faculty for their positive impact on the UAA community. Eight students were selected as scholarship recipients by the Diversity Action Council
“The UAA Student Diversity Award honors students who have demonstrated a deep and ongoing commitment to social justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion on any of our UA campuses,” a councilmember said.
One of the honorees, Kareena Bathija, said it was “eye-opening” to hear from someone with first hand experience. “A lot of these things that she mentioned were things that were skipped over when we learned about black history in class.”
Newton said, “As a member of the Black Panther Party, I will tell you it took great love to do what we did.”
In 1957, Dr. King said "Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?' "
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