Black Panther Party cult of personality

So here is my question what if after a communist revolution in the late 60’s or 70’s America gives the minorities some autonomous zones within the country could we see a cult of personality develop around the leaders of the BPP in the black autonomous zone.
 
Can't really see a Communist Revolution in the US at that point. It's near ASB without the PoD reaching back to the 1880s
 
Well, let's say the Panthers manage to acquire control of some small piece of territory outside the USA, like those neo-nazis tried to do with Dominica in the early 80s, and make it into a Communist state.

Yeah, they may very well try to establish a cult-of-personality. My guess would be, depsite the maoist orientation of some of the Panther leadership, they'd be more likely to take their cue from Castro in Cuba. Not sure what sort of cult he had(besides assuming everyone wanted to listen to his long-winded speeches), but the Panther cult might end up looking something like his.

I'm not well-versed enough to know who the main idols of the cult would be. Huey Newton?
 
I think that Huey Newton was not a likely candidate for a cult of personality (although in a hypothetical communist United States, however unlikely that is, would be a broad coalition of left movements and so wouldn’t have the impetus to establish the BPP as ‘The Party’). Newton was not a great public speaker and was something of a loose cannon, having various falling outs with influential figures of the movement and causing splits in the Party. Bobby Seale would be a better choice as a founding member since he was more charismatic and gained much notoriety for his status as (political) prisoner and the target of various “Free Bobby” campaigns.

I think the individual the most likely to become ultimate leader of the movement and head of a hypothetical cult of personality would be Fred Hampton - he was a great organizer and public speaker and perhaps the greatest asset the BPP had. He was very influential until his murder and was on track to take over the movement in my opinion, although granted I could also see him acting as a sort of Zhou Enlai “power behind the scenes” figure to another.

Eldridge Cleaver is another choice here since he was also quite influential and very popular within the Party - his clashes with Huey Newton would create problems with this, although I think for a successful BPP one would need to martyr Huey in some way during the height of the Party given the trouble and infighting he caused for the movement. If martyred, Huey would certainly become the Sun Yat-Sen analogue to Hampton’s Mao though.

Basically, a cult of personality really depends on the circumstances involved with them getting in to power and how the power struggles play out between the various influential members of the BPP.
 
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