Lecture Hall One was packed to capacity Saturday night as Black Panther Party co-founder Bobby Seale addressed an audience of 500.
The event, sponsored by Binghamton University’s Black Student Union, was the concluding event of the University’s Black History Month celebration.
Dr. Michael O. West, associate professor of sociology at Binghamton and the opening speaker, started off the lecture by describing the Civil Rights Movement as a whole and illustrating Seale’s involvement.
“Bobby Seale has been on the battlefield a long time,” he said. “He fought. He suffered. He is still fighting.”
After a 40-minute delay caused by technical difficulties, including the absence of a working microphone, Seale’s voice carried strongly throughout the entire lecture hall. He held the audience’s attention for two hours, often causing the room to erupt in laughter.
“It was really inspiring,” said junior theater major Frankie Juste, “because Bobby Seale is an icon so it was very moving to hear him talking on such a personal level.”
Seale, now 69, delivered an animated performance, full of energy and movement. He shared several stories from his younger days, often taking on the persona of his good friend and Black Panther co-founder Huey P. Newton, as well as a number of relatives and friends from his past.
One anecdote he shared was the story of the night he and Newton founded the Black Panther Party. Seale said that he earned the position of chairman in a coin toss with Newton the night they drew up the now famous Ten Point Plan of the party’s constitution.
The audience laughed as Seale recounted the night of the coin toss.
“Well I have a right to flip just like you do,” Newton said. Seale responded, “Huey, there’s only two of us.”
Not only did Seale regale attendees with stories of the founding days of the Panthers, he also described the differences between the controversial reputation the group has and what he saw as the reality of it.
“A lot of people thought the Black Panther party started because we wanted to be macho with some guns, but we were readers and researchers,” he said.
Seale devoted a large portion of the speech to describing the authors and novels that most inspired the movement. He focused on how he believed the true power behind the Panthers was the legal minds within the organization, notably Newton.
“We not only captured the imagination of the African American community, we captured the imagination of everybody — including the police — because we were as legal as you could get,” he said.
He also branched out to address more diverse topics like the economy and the war in Iraq. He expressed his belief in the need to “develop a balanced economy.”
“There are 6 billion human beings on the face of this earth,” he said. “1 percent of the population is controlling 90 percent of the world’s wealth.”
A major aspect of the speech was Seale’s desire to quell the belief that the Black Panthers perpetuated any kind of discrimination. Seale stated that the Panthers stood for “all power to all people” and welcomed members of all races and nationalities.
“What I got out of it is that you can work together in unity and things can get accomplished,” said Aileen Hernandez, a sophomore political science major who attended the event.
“It’s not just about skin color, that’s just a barrier that stops people,” she said, “so I think it was a good issue to be brought up, especially on this campus.”