Bobby Seale
Staggerlee
Staggerlee: A Conversation with Black Panther Bobby Seale
& his son Malik Nkrumah Stagolee, 6, relax
by playing drums here, after political campaign
in which Seale challenged the incumbent mayor in
California's 5th largest city.
Bobby Seale is an African-American political activist and co-founder and national chairman of the Black Panther Party.
Bobby Seale named his son Malik Nkrumah Stagolee Seale. The choice of "Stagolee" symbolizes rebellion and resistance, themes aligned with Seale's activism. Malik, born in the late 1960s.
Born in Texas in 1936, Bobby Seale is one of a generation of young African-American radicals who broke away from the usually nonviolent Civil Rights Movement to preach a doctrine of militant black empowerment, helping found the Black Panthers (later renamed the Black Panther Party) in 1966.
The Panthers focused much of their energies on community outreach, and the California movement spawned chapters across the nation. By 1968, Seale decided that a public account of the formation and history of the Panthers was needed, so he wrote Seize the Time: The Story of the Black Panther Party and Huey P. Newton (published in 1970). That same year, Seale was arrested while protesting at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. He and seven other defendants, thereafter known as the Chicago Seven, were tried for conspiracy to incite riots in a circus-like atmosphere that resulted in Seale being sentenced to four years in prison for contempt of court . Seale was also tried during this period for the murder of a fellow Panther suspected of being a police informant. The trial ended with a hung jury.
In the 1970s, as the Black Panthers faded from public view, Seale took on a quieter role, working toward improving social services in black neighborhoods and other causes.
Biography from Biography.com