Mourners Laud Newton in Daylong Wake

Admirers of Huey P. Newton filed slowly though a mortuary Sunday and paid respects to the Black Panther leader slain in a drug-ridden neighborhood.

“He instilled the blackness in black,” said Norma Corman, 38, one of hundreds of people who waited quietly in a three-block line under sunny skies to attend the daylong public wake for Newton.

Newton, who co-founded the Black Panther Party in 1966 and became one of the most articulate representatives of the black militancy movement, was shot to death Tuesday in a dispute over crack cocaine, police said.

“He made us have black pride. He was a good man destroyed by the badness of drugs,” said Corman, who said she knew Newton for the last 10 years and waited about an hour to walk past the open casket.

A quiet hour for friends and invited guests was planned Sunday night at Allen Temple Baptist Church, where Newton’s body was moved after the wake.

Thousands of people, including some of Newton’s fellow radicals from the ‘60s and ‘70s, were expected to attend a public funeral today.

“This is a terrible tragedy for blacks. He stood for black pride in the ‘60s and now he stands for the decimation of blacks by crack,” said LeRoy Johnson, 44, another man in the line of mourners.

Meanwhile, a self-proclaimed prison gang member who police say admitted killing Newton faces arraignment today on a charge of homicide.

Investigators said Tyrone Robinson, 25, told them he shot Newton in self-defense after the 47-year-old former activist, who battled drug and alcohol addictions, pulled a gun on him and demanded crack cocaine. But police discounted the ex-convict’s account.