Ericka Huggins.

Ericka Huggins ( Jenkins; born January 5, 1948) is an American activist. She was a leading member of the Black Panther Party (BPP) for 14 years. She was married to John Huggins in 1968.

Early life and education 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, now Cheyney University of Pennsylvania. She then attended Lincoln University, an historically black school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. There she studied education, and eventually met John Huggins, whom she married in 1968. Although Lincoln University's Black Student Congress was opposed to female leaders, Huggins engaged in the group despite the opposition.

Career In 1972, she moved to California and was elected to the Berkeley Community Development Council. In 1976, she was the first Black person elected to the Alameda County Board of Education.

For more than 30 years, she has lectured at Stanford University, Cornell University, and University of California, Los Angeles where she has spoken about education, spirituality, feminism, prison reform, and queer people of color homelessness. Her motivation came from a Ramparts magazine article she read that discussed the cruel treatment of Huey P. Newton while incarcerated. A picture in the article depicted Newton shirtless, with a bullet wound in his stomach, strapped to a hospital gurney.

Eventually, her husband John Huggins, became leader of the Los Angeles Chapter of the Black Panther Party. due to a feud between the Black Panther Party and a Black Nationalist group, US Organization, that was fueled by the FBI's COINTELPRO program. After his death, Ericka attended his burial in his birthplace of New Haven, Connecticut. Following his funeral, she decided to move there and open up a new Black Panther Party branch. Ericka Huggins was heard speaking on a tape recording of Rackley's interrogation that was played during the trial. The trial sparked protests across the country about whether the Panthers would receive a fair trial. The jury selection was the longest in state history. In May 1971, the jury deadlocked 10 to 2 for Huggins' acquittal, and she was not retried. The Panthers who had taken Rackley and shot him had already been convicted, and the public demonstration of internecine conflict and extreme violence sped the decline of the Panthers.

Writing and poetry While awaiting trial from 1969 to 1971, Huggins spent her time writing in the Prison Niantic State Farm for Women. Writing about the poor social conditions she and her community endured, she viewed storytelling as a form of self-defense, personal agency, and educational activism. Her work is defined by themes such as love and hate, time and space, sexism and feminism, spirituality, racism, and nationalism. Insights and Poems, a book of poetry, co-written by Huggins and Huey P. Newton, founder of the Black Panther Party, was released in 1975.

Huggins has two sons. One of her sons is Rasa Sun Mott,

In 2007, Huggins stated in an interview that Huey Newton repeatedly raped her and threatened that if she told anyone he would hurt her children.