The National Park Service expands its African-American history sites

Fredrika Newton, widow of Black Panther Party co-founder Huey Newton, touches a bust of her late husband at Artworks Foundry on Tuesday, Aug. 10, 2021, in Berkeley, Calif. The bust is scheduled to be unveiled in Oakland on Sunday, Oct. 24, the first permanent public art piece honoring the party in the city of its founding. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

On a cool spring day, Fredrika Newton — the widow of Black Panther co-founder, Huey P. Newton — stands next to a bronze bust of her late husband. It’s situated in a wide, landscaped median in the west end of Oakland that the Panthers called home.

“The Black Panther Party is an American story, and that’s the job of the National Park Service is to tell the American story,” Newton says.

Once upon a time, former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover called the Panthers the “greatest threat to internal security.”