Bobby Hutton was born in Jefferson County and was killed in Oakland, California, less than three weeks before his 18th birthday.
Myron Jackson, CEO of The Design Group in Little Rock, took a long view of the civil rights and Black Lives Matter movements last month during an interview on multicultural marketing, reminding Whispers that George Floyd had a famous Arkansas-born forerunner.
That was Bobby Hutton, the Black Panther Party’s first martyr.
“There’s a kind of racial reckoning that’s taking place in the marketplace now, but here’s what’s interesting,” Jackson said.
“What’s the difference between George Floyd, who died under a police knee in Minnesota, and Bobby Hutton, who was from right here?”
Hutton, the Black Panthers’ first treasurer, was born in Jefferson County and moved with his parents to Oakland, California, as a boy.
“He was the first member of the party to be killed by the police,” Jackson said, noting that Oakland officers shot Hutton down in 1968 after he had surrendered.
Police said he was trying to get away after a shootout with police sparked by the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis. Two officers were wounded.
“Now fast-forward to today, and you still have black men being killed by white police,” Jackson said. “Bobby Hutton was killed after he surrendered; George Floyd was on the ground with a knee to his neck. I think what’s taking place in America is that there’s a cultural shift where black and brown, white and light have just taken all that they can take.”
He said historical narratives allowing society to explain away these killings have faded.
“Atrocities have had a way of being justified, but with the advent of social media, where you get to see it in a 24-hour news cycle constantly in front of you, that has changed,” Jackson said.
“Now the power is back in the hands of the common person, and there’s no way to explain how someone like George Floyd could have been murdered. How someone like Jacob Blake could be shot in the back, so eerily similar to Bobby Hutton.”
Hutton, who was eulogized by actor Marlon Brando, among others, was two weeks shy of his 18th birthday when he died of multiple police gunshots on April 6, 1968.
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