Bobby Seale

Bobby Seale
Bobby Seale at Binghamton University, February 25, 2006
Born	Robert George Seale (1936-10-22) October 22, 1936 (age 80) Liberty, Texas, U.S.
Education	Merritt College
Occupation	Political activist
Notable work	Seize the Time: The Story of the Black Panther Party and Huey P. Newton

Robert George "Bobby" Seale (born October 20, 1936) is an American political activist. He and fellow activist Huey P. Newton co-founded the Black Panther Party.

Seale is the eldest of three children. He has a younger brother, Jon, and a younger sister, Betty. He was born in Liberty, Texas to George Seale, a carpenter, and Thelma Seale (née Traylor), a homemaker. The Seale family lived in poverty during most of Bobby Seale's early life. After moving around Texas, first to Dallas, then to San Antonio, and Port Arthur, his family eventually relocated to Oakland, California when he was eight years old. Seale attended Berkeley High School, then dropped out and joined the United States Air Force in 1955. He was discharged for bad conduct three years after joining for fighting with a commanding officer at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota. After being dishonorably discharged from the Air Force, Seale worked as a sheet metal mechanic for various aerospace plants while earning his high school diploma at night. "I worked in every major aircraft plant and aircraft corporation, even those with government contracts. I was a top-flight sheet-metal mechanic" After earning his high school diploma, Seale attended Merritt Community College until 1962 where he studied engineering and politics.

While in college, Bobby Seale joined the Afro-American Association (AAA), a group on campus devoted to advocating black separatism. "I wanted to be an engineer when I went to college, but I got shifted right away since I became interested in American Black History and trying to solve some of the problems." Through the AAA group, Seale met Huey P. Newton. In June 1966, Seale began working at the North Oakland Neighborhood Anti-Poverty Center in their summer youth program. Seale's objective was to teach the youth in the program Black American History and teach them a degree of responsibility in terms of the people living in their communities. While working in the program, Seale met Bobby Hutton, the first member of the Black Panther Party.

While in college, Seale also became a member of Phi Beta Sigma fraternity. He married Artie Seale, and had a son, Malik Nkrumah Stagolee Seale.