Obituary - Elbert “Big Man” Howard, co-founder of the Black Panther Party

Died: July 23 2018

ELBERT “Big Man” Howard, who has died aged 80, was a co-founder of the Black Panther Party, which was established to monitor the activities of the police and became a central organisation in the fight for equality and human rights. Famously dressed in black berets and black leather jackets, its members organised armed citizen patrols of US cities and by the late 1960s had thousands of members right across America.

Howard was one of six people who founded the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense in Oakland in October 1966, along with Bobby Seale and Huey Newton. The political organization started out patrolling police for possible abuse against blacks. Howard served as newspaper editor, information officer and the organiser of the group’s popular social programs.

Key members quit in 1974 after years of fatal fights with police and each other. Later it became clear that the FBI had engaged in surveillance and harassment to undermine the party and incriminate its leaders.

Howard quit the party in 1974, but in its active years, he travelled to Europe and Asia to set up chapters and was responsible for the social programs that made the party famous.

Billy X. Jennings, a longtime friend and party archivist, said Howard was the person who negotiated lower prices and organized refrigerated trucks for food giveaways. Later, as an administrator at a local college, he organized a program for jail inmates to take courses.

“He was a beloved member,” Jennings said. “People might have had different grudges against Bobby or Eldridge (Cleaver), but nobody got a grudge against Big Man.”

Howard was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, as the only child of Emma and Anderson Howard. He joined the Air Force and was posted to Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, California.

Jennings said after he was discharged, Howard enrolled in Merritt College, where he met Seale and Newton. Seale remains active in politics. Newton was killed in 1989.

Howard's wife, Carole Hyams, was a nurse when she met Howard in 1969; they broke up when he started travelling on party business.

“He was huge, he was impressive, he was quiet,” she said. “He seemed shy almost, but carried himself with great distinguishment.”

After Howard left the party, he returned to Tennessee and worked as a sales manager, Jennings said. The friends got back in touch in the 1990s, and Howard became active in party reunions and events.

In 2005, Hyams got back in touch with Howard by phone after a friend’s son found his information online. They got back together and were married in her Sonoma County home in 2008.

Hyams said Howard died in Santa Rosa, California, after a long illness.

Friends and family described him as a “gentle giant” who could paint in words what a jazz song was saying. Howard was an author, volunteer jazz disc jockey, lecturer and activist in Sonoma County, where he later made his home.

In addition to his wife, survivors include his daughter Tynisa Howard Wilson and grandsons Jaylen and Amin; stepson Robert Grimes and three step-grandchildren