Ericka Huggins

Born Ericka Jenkins in Washington, D.C., Huggins was the middle child of three. After graduating high school in 1966, Huggins attended Cheyney State College. She began her collegiate years at Lincoln University, where she met her husband, Vietnam veteran John Huggins. She holds a master's degree in Sociology. In 1972, she moved to California and became an elected member of the Berkeley Community Development Council.[3] She was the Director of the Black Panther Party's Oakland Community School from 1973 to 1981. Huggins is a Professor of Sociology at Laney College in Oakland and at Berkeley City College.[4] In addition, she has lectured at Stanford, Cornell, and UCLA.[4]

After joining the party in 1968,[5] Ericka Huggins became a leader in the Los Angeles chapter and later led the Black Panther Party chapter in New Haven, Connecticut, along with two other women, Kathleen Neal Cleaver and Elaine Brown.[6] Her husband John Huggins, who was leader in the Los Angeles chapter of the Black Panther Party was assassinated on January 17, 1969, on the UCLA campus[7] because of a feud between the Black Panther Party and a Black Nationalist group, US Organization, that was fueled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation's,[8] COunter INTELligence PROgram), a series of covert and illegal projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting American political organizations. Ericka Huggins attended the burial of her husband in his birthplace of New Haven.

In 1969, members of the New Haven Black Panthers tortured and murdered Alex Rackley, whom they suspected of being an informant. Along with Black Panther Party co-founder Bobby Seale, Huggins was charged with murder, kidnapping, and conspiracy.[9] Huggins was heard speaking on a tape recording of Rackley's interrogation that was played during the trial.[10] The trial sparked protests across the country about whether the Panthers would receive a fair trial and the jury selection would become the longest in state history. In May 1971 the jury deadlocked 10 to 2 for Huggins' acquittal, and she was not retried.[11]