Part 2: The Life of Black Panther Queer Woman Ericka Huggins; & Palestine Solidarity in Kentucky & NYC

Details

Published: 29 July 2025

Out-FM aired on Tues., July 29

Press play to stream or green down arrow to download mp3 file.

Part 2: The Life of Black Panther Queer Woman Ericka Huggins

Last week we presented Part 1 of Out-FM’s recent interview with Dr. Mary Frances Phillips, author of a new book, Black Panther Woman: The Political and Spiritual Life of Ericka Huggins. On Tuesday we bring you the second and final part of that interview, done by Stahimili Mapp and Bob Lederer. We will include clips from our 2020 interview with Ericka, as well as from our 2024 interview with former Black Panther and current political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal, paying tribute to Ericka. 

Revered Black Panther and queer woman Ericka Huggins, now 77, is a mother, widow, educator, poet, and former political prisoner, held for two years in the early 70s. She is also the coauthor with Stephen Shames of the 2022 book, Comrade Sisters: Women of the Black Panther Party.

Dr. Phillips, author of the new biography of Ericka Huggins, is Associate Professor of African American Studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and co-creator of the Intersectional Black Panther Party History Project. One reviewer called the new book “a remarkable story of awakening, commitment, grit, and fearlessness in the wake of personal pain, grassroots struggle, and state violence. [It] is itself a meditation on the pertinence and power of spiritual wellness and encourages us to consider what a radically holistic movement for liberation might need.”

To recap key points covered last week, Ericka Huggins, who we have also separately interviewed in the past, joined the Black Panther Party in Los Angeles, at age 19, along with her husband John Huggins, and they had a baby together. Within several months, John Huggins was shot and killed in an operation that Ericka believes, and considerable evidence shows, was carried out under the direction of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Program or COINTELPRO. Shortly after that, when Ericka moved to New Haven, Connecticut to form a new Black Panther chapter there, she and 8 other Panthers were indicted in yet another COINTELPRO-generated conspiracy/murder case, of which Ericka and the others were eventually acquitted – but not until after she had spent two years in pre-trial detention.

As our guest Dr. Mary Phillips explained last week, after Ericka survived over a year in punitive solitary confinement, she and another woman organized the Sister Love Collective to provide all types of material, financial, and emotional support to the women incarcerated with her. In addition, she taught herself yoga and meditation, and after her release from prison became a teacher of those spiritual arts. In the 70s she spent years as director of the Black Panther Party’s Oakland Community School, providing elementary education. She has lectured internationally for decades on Restorative Practices, the role of spiritual practice in creating social change, and Radical Self Care for Women of Color. Ericka speaks on campuses and in communities about the importance of inclusive grassroots movements.

If you would like to listen to Part 1 of our interview, click here .

--------------------------------------------------------------

Palestine Solidarity – from Kentucky to New York City

Activism in solidarity with the Palestinian freedom struggle and against the Gaza genocide is alive and well from Louisville, Kentucky to New York City. Tonight, a few updates from Out-FM's Naomi Brussel and Bob Lederer:

• In Louisville, KY last month, a jury convicted five activists – dubbed the Raytheon 5 -- of shutting down the offices of munitions manufacturers Raytheon/RTX and BAE Systems for their complicity in the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank by selling their weapons to the Israeli Occupation Forces.  But, in a victory for the movement, they were merely sentenced to a $125 fine each, with NO JAILTIME. This was despite a judge forbidding the defendants or their lawyers from explaining the political reasons they took their action. This victory followed months of community education and mobilization, leading for four potential jurors being disqualified because they expressed sympathy for Palestine.

• Here in NYC, the 32-year-old annual Dyke March, held the night before the Queer Pride March, adopted a principle of anti-Zionism and solidarity with the Palestinian people. This generated controversy and an alternative march by those supportive of the Israeli state.

• In Brooklyn, the 15-year struggle continues at the 14,000-member Park Slope Food Co-op to institute a boycott of Israeli-produced foods. The battle has taken various forms, but a solid core of members who support Palestine persists in seeking to have this community-based institution join the Boycott/Divestment/Sanctions movement.

On a more troubling note, Columbia University settled the dispute with the Trump Administration by caving in to all its key demands in the (specious) name of “protecting Jewish students and faculty from anti-semitism.” Already scores of students who protested to support Gaza have been suspended or expelled, and a crackdown will make any future such protests very difficult. The Middle East Studies Program will have a federally-designated monitor to ensure “balanced” curricula. Bisexual former law professor Katherine Franke – constructively fired from the faculty last year – gives her analysis of the terms of what many are calling a surrender to authoritarianism.

-------------------------------

Update on Struggles To Protect Full Medicare and Medicaid Benefits

Finally, we will be joined by Julie Schwartzberg to update everyone about new developments in the continuing struggle for health care for all - particularly concerning Medicare for New York City retirees. Julie is a New York City retiree and longtime activist who co-founded the Cross-Union Retiree Organizing Committee, as well as a board member of Physicians for a National Health Program - New York Metro, and an out lesbian.

And Naomi Brussel emphasizes the importance of attending Wednesday's demonstration celebrating the 60th anniversary of both Medicare and Medicaid, and demanding a reversal in the recent draconian cuts passed by Congress. Details below:

Part 1 - The Life of Black Panther Queer Woman Ericka Huggins; & The Book of Everyday Resistance

Details

Published: 22 July 2025

Out-FM aired on Tues., July 22

Press play to stream or green down arrow to download mp3 file.