![]() ![]() They would patrol the streets, guns drawn, turning them on drug dealers and police officers alike. Newton advocated armed self-defense in black communities, where the organization also provided social services. Newton can elicit cries of “hero” or “criminal,” and the space in between reflects the distance in racial perspectives that the United States has failed to bridge since Newton helped found the Black Panthers 50 years ago, when the civil rights struggle was moving beyond the South to black neighborhoods in the North and West. The club’s members made it their mission to patrol their neighborhoods, keeping an eye on the police and others. The Dallas club began in 2014 after an officer there killed an unarmed black man and wounded a child with a stray bullet but was not disciplined. And last month, in response to more police shootings, they took them to another rally in Dallas in which five officers were fatally shot by a veteran of the Army Reserve, not a club member. Newton Gun Club carried their rifles on a march in Dallas. As many Americans protested the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., two years ago, members of the Huey P.
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