Biography
Bobby Seale was the co-founder, with Huey P. Newton, of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense in Oakland in October 1966 and served as the party's chairman through its peak years. As one of the original Chicago Eight defendants charged in connection with the 1968 Democratic National Convention demonstrations, he repeatedly demanded the right to represent himself; Judge Julius Hoffman responded by ordering him bound to his chair and gagged for several days of the trial — an image that became one of the defining scenes of American legal history. Hoffman finally severed his case from the others' (which is why the remaining defendants became known as the Chicago Seven) and sentenced Seale to four years for contempt; that sentence was overturned on appeal.
Seale was then transferred to Connecticut to stand trial in the New Haven Black Panther trials for the 1969 murder of party member Alex Rackley, in which the government alleged he had ordered the killing. After more than two years held in pretrial detention, the case ended in a hung jury in May 1971 and the prosecution was dropped. He was released and ran for mayor of Oakland in 1973, finishing a strong second.
