Activist Fredrika Newton to Deliver MLK Celebration Keynote

Activist Fredrika Newton, president and co-founder of the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation, will deliver Colgate's 2026 MLK Celebration Keynote Address on Jan. 22, 2026, in Colgate Memorial Chapel. The celebration's opening ceremony and keynote address set the tone for a week of learning, dialogue, and collective action grounded in community, empathy and justice.

Newton is a former member of the Oakland Chapter of the Black Panther Party and the widow of Black Panther Party co-founder Huey P. Newton, PhD. She worked side-by-side with Black Panther Party members to support many of the party's Community Survival Programs, including the Oakland Community School, the Free Breakfast Program for Schoolchildren, the Communal News Service, and voter registration drives.

Thirty years ago, Newton co-founded the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation after her husband's killing to counter the narratives of the Black Panther Party presented by the FBI, police departments, and media outlets.

Esther Rosbrook, PhD, director of the ALANA Cultural Center, says Fredrika Newton embodies the 2026 MLK Celebration theme - Live the Values and Lift Each Other - through her lifetime of community-centered change agency.

"From her work in the Black Panther Party's Survival Programs to her leadership in preserving its legacy of service and justice," Rosbrook says, "her lived experience offers a rare, firsthand perspective on organizing, resilience, and truth-telling-lessons deeply relevant to faculty, staff, and students as we work together toward shared goals of creating a more inclusive campus, community well-being, and meaningful connection."

The Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation's mission is to preserve and uplift the principles and ideals of the Black Panther Party, including histories of resilience, collective struggles, and community perseverance to inspire future generations. Through that mission and under Fredrika Newton's stewardship, the foundation has developed multiple programs and events, as well as maintained and exhibited historical archives. In 2024, the foundation opened the Black Panther Party Museum in downtown Oakland, Calif., and recently opened the Dr. Huey P. Newton Research Room at the museum, where people can engage with a digitized selection of the Black Panther Party archives.

Newton received her bachelor's in sociology at Wesleyan University and her RN degree at College of the Redwoods.

The MLK Celebration is a proud Colgate tradition, organized by the ALANA Cultural Center and the Dean of the College Division. Other highlights will include a unity dinner, a day of service, and a social justice summit, featuring student leaders from the New York Six Liberal Arts Consortium. View the full program of events online.