Bobby Seale and Huey P Newton. Black Panther Party

First Look at André Holland as Huey P. Newton In ‘The Big Cigar’

The Big Cigar tells the true story of how the Black Panther leader escaped from the FBI with the assistance of Hollywood producers and a fake movie production.

Cast includes André Holland as Huey P. Newton, Tiffany Boone as Gwen Fontaine, Jordane Christie as Bobby Seale, Moses Ingram as Teressa Dixon, and Alessandro Nivola as Bert Schneider.

The limited series premieres May 17 on Apple TV+.

Huey P. Newton with Palestinian resistance fighters outside an unnamed refugee camp in Lebanon, 1980

Self-determination and national independence cannot really exist while United States imperialism is alive... Israel was created by Western imperialism and maintained by Western fire power. The Jewish people have a right to exist as long as they solely exist to down the reactionary expansionist Israeli Government. Our situation is similar in so many ways; we say, that morally perhaps, the Jewish people can make a case for separatism and a Zionist state based upon their religion for self-defense. We say, morally, perhaps we could accept this, but politically and strategically we know that it is incorrect. In the first place it is perpetuating nationalism; perpetuating reaction, if nationalism is reaction, and I think that the United States proves this by using nationalism to rape the world and dominate everyone else. In other words, it went from nationalism to the natural conclusion which is empire or imperialism.

~ Huey P. Newton, Founder and Commander of the Black Panther Party

"Well, a very peculiar thing has happened. Historically you got what Malcolm X calls the field nigger and the house nigger. The house nigger had privileges, a little more. He got the worn-out clothes of the master and he didn’t have to work as hard as the field black. He came to respect the master to such an extent until he identified with the master because he got a few of the leftovers that the field blacks did not get. And through this identity with him, he saw the slavemaster’s interest being his interest. Sometimes he would even protect the slavemaster more than the slavemaster would protect himself. Malcolm makes the point that if the master’s house happened to catch on fire the house Negro will work harder than the master to put the fire out and save the master’s house. While the field Negro, the field blacks was praying that house burned down. The house black identified with the master so much when the master would get sick the house Negro would say, “Master, we’s sick!”

The Black Panther Party are the field blacks, we’re hoping the master dies if he gets sick. The Black bourgeoisie seem to be acting in the role of the house Negro. They are pro-administration. They would like a few concessions made, but as far as the overall setup, they have a little more material goods, a little more advantage, a few more privileges than the black have-nots; the lower class. And so they identify with the power structure and they see their interests as the power structure’s interest. In fact, it’s against their interest.

The Black Panther Party was forced to draw a line of demarcation. We are for all of those who are for the promotion of the interests of the black have-nots, which represents about 98% of blacks here in America. We’re not controlled by the white mother country radicals nor are we controlled by the black bourgeois. We have a mind of our own and if the black bourgeoisie cannot align itself with our complete program, then the black bourgeoisie sets itself up as or enemy. And they will be attacked and treated as such".

Huey P. Newton’s interview with The Movement (1968).

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Photo: Kenneth P. Green

Huey P. Newton at Black Panther Party Rally in Richmond - 1966

“My prison experience is a good example of revolutionary suicide in action, for prison is a microcosm of the outside world. From the beginning of my sentence I defied the authorities by refusing to cooperate; as a result, I was confined to ‘lock up’, a solitary cell. As the months passed and I remained steadfast, they came to regard my behavior as suicidal. I was told that I would crack and break under the strain. I did not break, nor did I retreat from my position. I grew strong.

If I had submitted to their exploitation and done their will, it would have killed my spirit and condemned me to a living death. To cooperate in prison meant reactionary suicide to me. While solitary confinement can be physically and mentally destructive, my actions were taken with an understanding of the risk. I had to suffer through a certain situation; by doing so, my resistance told them that I rejected all their stood for. Even though my struggle might have harmed my health, even killed me, I looked upon it as a way of raising the consciousness of the other inmates, as a contribution to the ongoing revolution. Only resistance can destroy the pressures that cause reactionary suicide.

The concept of revolutionary suicide is not defeatist or fatalistic. On the contrary, it conveys an awareness of reality in combination with the possibility of hope - reality because the revolutionary must always be prepared to face death, and hope because it symbolizes a resolute determination to bring about change. Above all, it demands that the revolutionary see his death an his life as one piece. Chairman Mao says that death comes for us all, but it varies in its significance: to die for the reactionary is lighter than a feather; to die for the revolution is heavier than Mount Tai.”

- Huey P. Newton, Revolutionary Suicide

Sur la scission du Black Panthers Party 

Opuscule francais de 1971, éditions Git-le-Cœur 

38 pages que je tiens à disposition en HD, me contacter   

A stack of some of my favorite books by Black authors.

"Tell My Horse" by Zora Neale Hurston

"Native Son" by Richard Wright

"Jambalaya" by Luisah Teish

"Parable of the Sower" by Octavia E. Butler

"Revolutionary Suicide" by Huey P. Newton

"Zami: A New Spelling of My Name" by Audre Lorde

"Black Feminist Thought" by Patricia Hill Collins

Huey P. Newton em sua casa ouvindo o disco Highway 61 Revisited de Bob Dylan. Berkeley, California, 1970. Foto por Stephen Shames.

The Big Cigar — Official Trailer | Apple TV+

The Black Panther Party, a fake movie production, and a nationwide manhunt. This is the true story of Huey P. Newton's escape to Cuba.

This limited series stars André Holland as Black Panther leader Huey P. Newton, and is executive produced by NAACP Image Award winner Janine Sherman Barrois, Jim Hecht, and Joshuah Bearman, with the first two episodes directed and executive produced by multi-award winner Don Cheadle. The six-episode drama chronicles the story of Black Panther leader Huey P. Newton’s escape to Cuba, and is based on the monumental, eponymous magazine article of the same name.

The Big Cigar premieres May 17 on Apple TV+

Mumia Abu-Jamal, Black August 2003, (full transcript), Prison Radio

«The spirit of Black August moves through centuries of Black, Indian and multi-cultural resistance. It is an emblem of the spirit of freedom. It is a long smoldering spark of the fire in the hearts of a people, hearts burning and yearning for freedom.»