Nation: The Odyssey of Huey Newton

Violence is never far from the Black Panthers' leader

Just a decade ago, he seemed to many admirers an almost legendary figure. Enthroned in an oversized wicker chair, sporting a rak ish beret and clutching a rifle in one hand and a spear in the other, he looked defiantly out at the world from a thousand wall posters of radical chic. FREE HUEY the bumper stickers cried, and everybody knew that meant Huey Newton, co-founder of the Black Panthers, imprisoned for the death of a policeman in a Shootout in Oakland, Calif.

Last week a bearded Huey Newton, 36, imprisoned since Sept. 29...

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