Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation Receives Grant to Digitize Black Panther Party Archive for Global Access

Oakland, CA – In a significant move to preserve the legacy of the Black Panther Party, a selection of The Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation Inc. collection, the largest Black Panther Party archive, will be digitized and made accessible to the world. The initiative is being driven by a $150,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation, with Stanford University Libraries overseeing the digitization process.

The collection, which has been housed at Stanford University Libraries since 1996 when Huey P. Newton’s widow Fredrika entrusted it to them, contains invaluable materials detailing the history and inner workings of the Black Panther Party. This includes Dr. Newton’s personal papers, political campaign documents, drafts of the Party’s Ten Point Program, and archives of their groundbreaking Community Survival Programs.

Notably, the collection features issues of The Black Panther Party Intercommunal News Service, the Party’s weekly newspaper that was distributed across the country for 13 years. This publication often reached hundreds of thousands of people weekly, making it a vital tool for spreading the Party’s message.

Fredrika Newton, co-founder of the Foundation, emphasized the importance of this project in ensuring the Black Panther Party’s history remains accessible to all. “An essential part of this was taking the voluminous amount of archives Huey left and placing them where they can be accessed, studied, and utilized by as many people as possible,” she stated.

The digitized collection will be available online through SearchWorks, Stanford University Libraries’ catalog, and in-person at the Black Panther Party Museum, newly established in downtown Oakland. This project aligns with Stanford University Libraries’ dedication to supporting research in civil rights and social justice, making historical archives more accessible to a global audience.

Roberto Trujillo, Associate University Librarian for Special Collections at Stanford, highlighted the importance of expanding access to the collection, especially as the discussion of racial history faces challenges in educational settings across the U.S. “It is critically important to broaden discoverability and access for a continued critical reception of the Black Panther Party history,” Trujillo remarked.

As interest in the Black Panther Party’s history grows among students and scholars, this initiative ensures that the legacy of the Party, and its efforts to empower the Black community, will continue to be studied and understood for generations to come.

The Mellon Foundation, the nation’s largest supporter of the arts and humanities, continues to provide critical support for projects like this that promote understanding and preservation of historical legacies.

For more information, visit Stanford University Libraries and the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation’s online platforms.