His courage and leadership allowed him to make the public aware of the unethical values of the U.S. government, and police brutality, won him admirers in ghettos and college campuses. His own personal struggles included urban unrest, police brutality, government repression, and an intense debate over civil rights tactics. When Newton met Bobby Seale, they co-founded one of the most influential militant parties ever, The Black Panthers.
Bobby Seale was born in Dallas, Texas in 1936. As a child growing up in both California and Texas, Seale encountered racism at two different levels; facing police brutality and discrimination. At the age of eighteen, Seale joined the Air Force where he gained most of the knowledge he would later use to lead the Black Panthers in some of their more militant actions. Seale's political views developed in 1962 after he heard Malcolm X speak. Seale would later become the national leader of the Black Panther Party. Seale wrote the "Ten Point Plan,"which consisted of the guidelines and goals that the Black Panthers enforced. In 1969, he was involved with the "Great Chicago Eight Conspiracy Trial," where he was charged by the American government" with conspiracy to incite riots. Seale was eventually denied the right to a lawyer during the trial. Although all charges were dropped, "when Seale repeatedly rose to insist that he was being denied his constitutional right to counsel, the judge ordered him bound and gagged."()He was taken to the lock up during the trial and tape was put over Seale's mouth, arms and legs. The police and members of the court then proceeded to attach him to the chair. Bobby Seale was then carried into the courtroom not able to talk, walk, or let alone move from the chair he was tied down to previously. This is the way they treated him throughout the "Chicago 8 Trial". .
The Black Panther Party was not all about destruction and chaos; they also volunteered themselves to protect and serve their people in every possible way.