Jussie Smollett was convicted Thursday night “of five Class 4 felonies for lying to police about a hate crime he staged against himself back in 2019. The “Empire” actor had told police that he was attacked by two people who shouted a MAGA slogan at him.
The now-convicted felon and his allies in politics and media previously used his claim to push forth progressive social justice issues anyway.
Smollett was possibly only practicing what he learned from his mother’s friends — break the law to advance leftist causes which stoke racial division. By the actor’s own admission, his mother Janet was close with communist Angela Davis.
In a 2016 interview titled, “The Smollett Family Business: Acting and Activism,” Smollett told the New York Times that his mother was actively involved with militant black activists:
“My mom was in the movement with Bobby Seale and Huey Newton, and one of her first mentors was Julian Bond,” Mr. Smollett said of the Black Panther founders and the civil rights leader. “To this day, Angela Davis is one of her dearest friends. We’ve spent Mother’s Day with Angela.”
Seale co-founded the Black Panther movement alongside Newton. Though never convicted of the more serious charges of inciting riots and murder, Seale spent four years in jail after being found in contempt of court in 1969, as reported by Brittanica.com:
In 1969 Seale was indicted in Chicago for conspiracy to incite riots during the Democratic national convention the previous year. The court refused to allow him to have his choice of lawyer.
When Seale repeatedly rose to insist that he was being denied his constitutional right to counsel, the judge ordered him bound and gagged.
He was convicted of 16 counts of contempt and sentenced to four years in prison. (See Chicago Seven.) In 1970–71 he and a codefendant were tried for the 1969 murder of a Black Panther suspected of being a police informer. The six-month-long trial ended with a hung jury.
For his part, Newton also has a sordid history with the law, even fleeing to Cuba after being suspected of murder and spending time in jail for stealing public funds:
In 1967 Newton was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in the death of a police officer. His imprisonment sparked protests—and the popular rallying cry “Free Huey.”
His conviction was overturned in 1970, and he was released from prison.
In 1971 he announced that the party would adopt a nonviolent manifesto and dedicate itself to providing social services to the Black community, which included free meals for children and health clinics. In 1974 Newton was accused of another murder and fled to Cuba for three years before returning to face charges; two trials resulted in hung juries.
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In March 1989 Newton was sentenced to a six-month jail term for misappropriating public funds intended for a Panther-founded Oakland school. In August of that year he was found shot dead during a drug dispute in Oakland.
Davis also was accused but not found guilty in a separate violent case that left four individuals shot to death. Davis, the activist and former presidential candidate under the communist title banner was found not guilty:
Championing the cause of black prisoners in the 1960s and ’70s, Davis grew particularly attached to a young revolutionary, George Jackson, one of the so-called Soledad Brothers (after Soledad Prison). Jackson’s brother Jonathan was among the four persons killed—including the trial judge—in an abortive escape and kidnapping attempt from the Hall of Justice in Marin County, California (Aug. 7, 1970).
Suspected of complicity, Davis was sought for arrest and became one of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s most wanted criminals. Arrested in New York City in October 1970, she was returned to California to face charges of kidnapping, murder, and conspiracy; she was acquitted of all charges by an all-white jury.
The 2016 New York Times article stated that Smollet was “raised in the orbit of the Black Panthers and, lately, have lent their voices to the Black Lives Matter movement. Their trajectory, from child stars to successful adults, is born of their family and its history of activism.”
Ironically — given the verdict in Smollett’s trial — family friend Alfre Woodard said Smollett’s and his sister’s “sense of justice is very strong, and it permeates everything that they do.”
Perhaps because Newton’s conviction was overturned and Davis not convicted, Smollett is reportedly “100% confident” that his case “will be won on appeal.”