Seale, Bobby (b. October 22, 1936, Dallas, Tex.)

Bobby Seale, with Huey Newton, cofounded the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California, in 1966.

Seale, Bobby (b. October 22, 1936, Dallas, Tex.), political and social activist in the 1960s, cofounder of the militant Black Panther Party. Bobby Seale, the son of George and Thelma Seale, moved to California with his family at the age of ten. He entered the U.S. Air Force at 18 and served as an aircraft-sheet mechanic. Three years later, he was dishonorably discharged for insubordination and absence without leave. In 1961, he was admitted to Merritt College in Oakland, California.

While at Merritt, Seale became a member of the Afro-American Association in Oakland. Through this militant organization, Seale met and befriended fellow student Huey Newton. Together, Newton and Seale formed the Soul Students Advisory Committee at Merritt. In 1966, the two created the Black Panther Party, whose political platform called for equality of opportunity for African Americans and an end to police brutality against black people.

Seale was arrested in 1968 for his participation in the antiVietnam war- demonstrations at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and spent two years in jail. He was arrested a second time in 1972 for the murder of a suspected Panther informer Alex Rackley, but the charges against him were dropped. In 1973, he made an unsuccessful bid for the office of mayor of Oakland, and in 1974 he resigned as chairman of the Black Panther Party.

In the 1980s, Seale became involved in an organization called Youth Employment Strategies. He published two autobiographies, Seize the Time: The Story of the Black Panther Party and Huey P. Newton in 1970, and A Lonely Rage in 1978.