Member-only story
Lil’ Bobby Hutton
The First to Join the Black Panthers and the First to Die
Bobby Hutton was 17 years old the night he died, 15 days shy of his 18th birthday. Bobby was old enough to drive, but not old enough to legally drink or smoke on April 21, 1968, his last day on earth. He technically could have owned a gun, which he couldn’t legally carry openly or concealed without an impossible to get permit. That law, the Mulford Act, was designed specifically for and only ever used against the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense.
Bobby was one of the thirty Black Panthers who protested the Mulford Act before its passage by bringing long guns to the Sacramento capital, as was their legal right. In response, Governor Ronald Reagan, Democrats, Republicans, and the National Rifle Association pushed through the bill, which became law just over a month after the Panthers showed up on the capital steps.
Hutton, known as Lil’ Bobby Hutton, didn’t always look for trouble. Sometimes, it found him. At age three, his family escaped Jefferson County, Arkansas, as nightriders were terrorizing Black families, including theirs. The nation was on the cusp of formally ending segregation. The…
