About Organizations
Black Panther Party
Black Liberation Army
American Indian Movement
FALN
Weather Underground
Earth Liberation Front
Animal Liberation Front
MOVE
Republic of New Afrika
Symbionese Liberation Army
Los Macheteros
United Freedom Front
May 19th Communist Organization
Young Lords
George Jackson Brigade
Students for a Democratic Society
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
Industrial Workers of the World
Communist Party USA
Puerto Rican Nationalist Party
Brown Berets
Socialist Workers Party
African People's Socialist Party
Nation of Islam
About Black Panther Party
Founding of the Black Panther Party
Police Patrols in Oakland
Sacramento Capitol Protest
Huey Newton Arrest & the "Free Huey" Campaign
Killing of Bobby Hutton
Free Breakfast for Children Program
Bunchy Carter & John Huggins Killings
Panther 21 Arrests & Trial
New Haven Panther Trials
Fred Hampton & Mark Clark Raid
Oakland Community School
Elaine Brown Leadership Period
Decline & Dissolution
NEW HAVEN PANTHER TRIALS
The New Haven Panther trials of 1970–1971 grew out of the May 1969 killing of Alex Rackley, a young Panther tortured and murdered after being wrongly suspected of being a police informant. Party members were charged, and national chairman Bobby Seale and New Haven leader Ericka Huggins were prosecuted on charges of ordering the killing.
The trials became a national cause. A massive May Day 1970 rally on the New Haven Green drew tens of thousands in support of the defendants and helped ignite the nationwide student strike of 1970. The jury deadlocked on the charges against Seale and Huggins, and the state dropped the case in 1971, the judge citing the impossibility of a fair trial amid the surrounding publicity.