I was born in Monroe, Louisiana in 1942 during World War 2. I was the youngest child of Armelia Johnson and Walter Newton. A sharecropper and Baptist preacher. my parents named me after Huey Long, former governor of Louisiana. Monroe is located in Louisiana's Ouachita Parish. which has had a history of violence against Black people.

As a student of Merritt College in Oakland, I became involved in Bay Area politics. I joined the Afro-American Association. I learned about black history from Donald Warden. Later he changed his name He was the leader of the AAA. Later I concluded that Warden offered solutions that didn't work. In college, I read the works of people like Malcolm X.

During my time at Merritt College, I met Bobby Seale, with him we co-founded the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (BPP) in October 1966