Where are they now? Black panther leader bobby seale, chicago eight - aarp bu...

He has written two memoirs,_ A Lonely Rage_ and _Seize the Time: The Story of the Black Panthers and Huey P. Newton_. He is working on several others, including one on modern community

organizing, and is developing a video documentary. Away from politics, barbecuing or "Bobbyque" as he prefers to call it is one of Seale's abiding passions. He's been

perfecting his technique since he learned it in his early teens from an uncle in Texas. A portion of the proceeds from his cookbook,_ Barbeque'n With Bobby Seale_, benefits his Bobby

Seale Reach Foundation, which provides job and leadership training. After a heart attack eight years ago, he eliminated the artery-clogging recipes and added low-salt, heart-healthy ones. He

stopped smoking and drinking years ago, and works out every day for an hour at the Berkeley YMCA near his home in Oakland. He has one son from a brief first marriage, Malik, named after

Malcolm X, who used the name El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz after he left the Nation of Islam. Malik Seale fought in Iraq, and is now serving with the U.S. Army in Afghanistan. Although Bobby

Seale condemned the war in Iraq, he supports the war in Afghanistan. "Now I don't want my son in the war, but he's there and he made that choice. I'll support my

son," he said. He and Leslie Johnson-Seale have been together since 1971, although they have never married. "We consider ourselves married '60s style," Seale explained.

She has a son, Romaine, whom the couple raised together, and they have a daughter, J'aime. They have four grandchildren. These days, he looks back proudly at the work of the Black

Panthers. The group's goals, he said, included decent education, full employment, housing, free preventive health care and an end to police brutality. Seale laughed as he recalled how

then-California Gov. Ronald Reagan called him a hoodlum in 1967. "I'm an engineer, I'm a carpenter, I'm an architect, I'm a jazz drummer, I'm an expert barbecue

cook," he said. "I am not a hoodlum. I'm a community organizer." _Kitty Bennett is a news researcher and writer based in St. Petersburg, Fla._