Where Are They Now? Black Panther Leader Bobby Seale, Chicago Eight - AARP Bu... Javascript must be enabled to use this site. Please enable Javascript in your browser and try again. × Search search POPULAR SEARCHES SUGGESTED LINKS Join AARP for just $9 per year when you sign up for a 5-year term. Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of discounts, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP the Magazine. Leaving AARP.org Website You are now leaving AARP.org and going to a website that is not operated by AARP. A different privacy policy and terms of service will apply.

Bobby Seale

Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of discounts, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP the Magazine. The proceedings became increasingly contentious, with Judge Julius Hoffman insisting that Seale sit down and be silent. Seale refused, railing that his rights were being denied, and calling Hoffman a racist, a fascist and a pig. At one point, he criticized the judge for displaying pictures of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson behind his bench, saying they had been slave owners. Hoffman, aghast, said he never thought he would hear "the father of our country" denounced in federal court. After Seale refused to be silent, Hoffman had him gagged and chained to his chair. Within days, Hoffman declared a mistrial and ordered that Seale be separated from the rest and tried alone. The following year, he was convicted of 16 counts of contempt of court and sentenced to four years in prison. He spent two years in jail while the case was appealed. In 1972, the contempt charges were suspended and he was released. He has no regrets about what transpired in the courtroom. "I'd cuss him out again," he said. After Chicago Returning to Oakland after he left prison, he found the Black Panthers in disarray, with many of the members killed in confrontations with the police and dozens in prison. He ran for mayor of Oakland in 1973, losing in a runoff. The next year, he left the Panthers, citing combat weariness. In the 1980s he moved to Philadelphia, where he worked in a nonprofit jobs program, and then as a community liaison for the Department of African American Studies at Temple University. He moved back to Oakland about seven years ago. AARP Membership — $12 for your first year when you sign up for Automatic Renewal Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of discounts, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP the Magazine. Flowers & Gifts 25% off sitewide and 30% off select items See more Flowers & Gifts offers > He stopped smoking and drinking years ago, and works out every day for an hour at the Berkeley YMCA near his home in Oakland. He has one son from a brief first marriage, Malik, named after Malcolm X, who used the name El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz after he left the Nation of Islam. Malik Seale fought in Iraq, and is now serving with the U.S. Army in Afghanistan. Although Bobby Seale condemned the war in Iraq, he supports the war in Afghanistan. "Now I don't want my son in the war, but he's there and he made that choice. I'll support my son," he said. He and Leslie Johnson-Seale have been together since 1971, although they have never married. "We consider ourselves married '60s style," Seale explained. She has a son, Romaine, whom the couple raised together, and they have a daughter, J'aime. They have four grandchildren. These days, he looks back proudly at the work of the Black Panthers. The group's goals, he said, included decent education, full employment, housing, free preventive health care and an end to police brutality. Seale laughed as he recalled how then-California Gov. Ronald Reagan called him a hoodlum in 1967. "I'm an engineer, I'm a carpenter, I'm an architect, I'm a jazz drummer, I'm an expert barbecue cook," he said. "I am not a hoodlum. I'm a community organizer." Kitty Bennett is a news researcher and writer based in St. Petersburg, Fla. AARP Membership — $12 for your first year when you sign up for Automatic Renewal Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of discounts, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP the Magazine. AARP VALUE & MEMBER BENEFITS See more Health & Wellness offers > See more Flights & Vacation Packages offers > See more Finances offers > See more Health & Wellness offers > SAVE MONEY WITH THESE LIMITED-TIME OFFERS