workingclasshistory:

On this day, 23 March 1953, singer, songwriter and former Black Panther Yvette Marie Stevens, better known as Chaka Khan, was born in Chicago.
Her stepmother was a civil rights activist, who encouraged Khan to speak up. By the age of 14 she had joined the revolutionary Black Panther Party. A friend of Chicago Panther leader Fred Hampton, she dropped out of high school, spoke at rallies and worked in the organisation’s free breakfast for children program.
Khan was later given a gun which she held in her room, but she later told Guardian journalist Alexis Petridis: “every moment I had that gun it changed me. I felt physically sick. I threw it away into Botany’s Pond by Chicago University, then I felt better. That finished me with the Panthers.”
Khan went on to considerable success in bands and as a solo artist.
We have numerous books available by and about former Panthers here: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/all/black-panthers https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/2236450673206737/?type=3