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"I have to explain some profound American history," said Robert Seale, a founding member of the Black Panther Party. For two and a half hours, over 200 students listened, laughed and learned as Seale explained the Panthers and their role in the Civil Rights Movement. "A lot of young people don't know that era," he said. "It is a tough, hard era." Seale first wanted to clear up the "Hollywood myth" surrounding the party. He said that the 1995 movie Panther was "90 percent cheap fiction" that distorted the facts and ideology of the party so much that he had tried to sue the film's producers. Seale said that, far from being the young thugs portrayed in the movies, he and his friends were educated and relied more on a keen knowledge of the law than on the guns that have become so iconic of the party. Seale said that he was a 26-year-old engineer and design major at Mary College in Oakland, California when he first became active in the Civil Rights Movement. [more]