Every week or so, Fredrika Newton receives a flyer with an offer to buy her home.
Newton, widow of Huey P. Newton, a co-founder of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, lives in West Oakland.
She sees a connection between the Black Panthers’ fight for social justice for African Americans in the late 1960s and the battle she and her neighbors face just to stay in West Oakland, where home prices are skyrocketing and wealthy buyers are moving in.
Founded in the city in 1966, the Black Panthers are remembered for wearing black leather jackets and black berets while patrolling West Oakland streets armed with rifles and pistols.