55 years ago African Americans were making historic gains in civil rights. But much work was still to be done. 

That year, 1966, Bobby Seale and his longtime friend Huey Newton created a new organization they called the Black Panther Party. 

In 1968 Seal made a name for himself during anti-Vietnam War protests outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. 

It was not his first run-in with the law and it would not be his last.