The Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation and Stanford University Libraries Receive Grant from Mellon Foundation to Digitize a Selection of The Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation Inc. Collection

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Oct 15, 2024, 08:53 ET

OAKLAND, Calif., Oct. 15, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- A selection of The Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation Inc. collection, the largest Black Panther Party archive and one of the most researched collections at Stanford University Libraries, will be digitized and made accessible to people around the globe. Thanks to a generous $150,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation to the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation, a selection of the collection will be digitized by Stanford University Libraries in this pilot project and made available online through SearchWorks, the Libraries's catalog, and in the community research room at the Black Panther Party Museum, recently established in downtown Oakland, CA. Stanford University Libraries has housed the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation Collection since Huey's widow Fredrika entrusted it to them in 1996.

The Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation Collection includes issues of The Black Panther Party Intercommunal News Service. This weekly newspaper was distributed by the Black Panther Party for 13 years. The first issue was in 1967 and the Party often distributed several hundred thousand copies across the country each week.

In the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation Collection are archives detailing the Community Survival Programs the Black Panther Party created to organize and uplift the community.

As one of the most frequently consulted and critically important archival collections housed at Stanford University Libraries, the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation Inc. collection includes Dr. Newton's private papers, letters, writings, videos, and photos as well as the Party's political campaign ephemera, documents on how they ran their Survival Programs, and drafts of the Ten Point Program, among many others. The collection also includes a series of FBI surveillance documents obtained by the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation via the Freedom of Information Act.

"In the very early days of the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation, we identified multiple pathways toward our goal of making the accurate history and legacy of the Black Panther Party as widely available as possible," said Fredrika Newton, co-founder of the Foundation. "An essential part of this was taking the voluminous amount of archives Huey left and placing them where they can be accessed, studied and utilized by as many people as possible. We are grateful for the care and partnership that Stanford University has provided to us and to this significant collection."

The Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation and Stanford University Libraries's archivists are working together to identify and prioritize the works to be digitized during this initial pilot, with the hopes of possibly digitizing the entire collection, and ensuring the preservation of these critical historical documents for future generations. This digitization project aligns with Stanford University Libraries's ongoing commitment to making its archival resources more accessible and to supporting research that advances our understanding of social justice and civil rights.

Roberto Trujillo, Associate University Librarian for Special Collections at Stanford states, "It is critically important to broaden discoverability and access for a continued critical reception of the Black Panther Party history."

In an environment where the teaching and discussion of racial history is being discouraged if not forbidden in classrooms across America, Stanford University Libraries are seeing an even larger interest in The Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation Inc. collection. Students and scholars across the country continue to use it for research, making it one of the most heavily consulted collections at Stanford.

The Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation
The Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation is dedicated to preserving and promoting the true legacy and ideals of the Black Panther Party. Since 1995, the Foundation has commissioned public art and created education tools to inspire and inform real social, economic and political change. The Foundation is the number one source for historical preservation and archival collections for people seeking the truth about the Black Panther Party. The Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization, was co-founded by Fredrika Newton and is based in Oakland, CA, the birthplace of the Black Panther Party. Follow on Instagram @hueypnewtonfoundation

Stanford University Libraries
The Stanford University Libraries are a dynamic network of libraries, librarians, information technology specialists, and a vast collection of academic resources that are dedicated to supporting research, teaching, and learning at Stanford. The Libraries hold over fifteen million items in various genres and formats, including e-resources, fifty subject specialists, twenty campus libraries, and a broad spectrum of services. The Libraries's archival collections include rare books as well as photographs and documents about the history of civil rights in the Mexican American, African American and Asian American communities; documentary photography of Bob Fitch and David Bacon; political papers of both local and state politicians from the recently acquired papers of the late Senator Dianne Feinstein to the Wilma Chan Papers; historical maps featured in the David Rumsey Map Collection; and the incredibly diverse history of Silicon Valley covered in the Silicon Valley Archives. These archival collections and more are available in the Libraries's Department of Special Collections and in the Stanford Digital Repository, which manages and makes available all scholarly resources to students, faculty and researchers. Finding aids to the Libraries's archival collections are accessible in the Online Archive of California. The Libraries's physical and digital spaces are designed to promote freedom and discovery, making knowledge-seeking more meaningful, more personal, and more connected than ever. The opportunities for contributing to and transforming scholarship are infinite at Stanford University Libraries.

About The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is the nation's largest supporter of the arts and humanities. Since 1969, the Foundation has been guided by its core belief that the humanities and arts are essential to human understanding. The Foundation believes that the arts and humanities are where we express our complex humanity, and that everyone deserves the beauty, transcendence, and freedom that can be found there. Through our grants, we seek to build just communities enriched by meaning and empowered by critical thinking, where ideas and imagination can thrive. Learn more at mellon.org.

Press Contacts:

Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation
Karin Unger – Director of Communications
[email protected] | 646-515-6933 mobile

Stanford University
Anh Ly – Assistant University Librarian for External Relations
[email protected] | 650-512-6308

SOURCE Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation