It was over two years ago when while riding with one of my colleague, he said something to the effect of ‘you know we work with the son of a Black Panther’.

From then on my curiosity piqued and I made it a point to introduce myself as I felt it necessary.

The legacies of each member of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense reverberated throughout the hearts and minds of all African Americans, but we Californians probably more so than others. After all, Oakland, California was a political hotbed of activity during the 1960s when the BPP was founded there by leaders Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton.

As for me, I was an Angeleno who had only heard the stories of the BPP in documentaries or by references my dad would make when he described the turbulent 1960s. Then I gained a better idea of what it meant to be Black and Beautiful from