Santa Cruz alumni

Huey Percy Newton (February 17, 1942 – August 22, 1989) was an African American revolutionary and political activist who founded the Black Panther Party. He ran the party as its first leader and crafted its ten-point manifesto with Bobby Seale in 1966.
Under Newton's leadership, the Black Panther Party founded over 60 community support programs (renamed survival programs in 1971) including food banks, medical clinics, sickle cell anemia tests, prison busing for families of inmates, legal advice seminars, clothing banks, housing cooperatives, and their own ambulance service. The most famous of these programs was the Free Breakfast for Children program which fed thousands of impoverished children daily during the early 1970s. Newton also co-founded the Black Panther newspaper service, which became one of America's most widely distributed African-American newspapers.
In 1967, he was involved in a shootout which led to the death of police officer John Frey and injuries to himself and another police officer. In 1968, he was convicted of voluntary manslaughter for Frey's death and sentenced to 2 to 15 years in prison. In May 1970, the conviction was reversed and after two subsequent trials ended in hung juries, the charges were dropped. Later in life, he was also accused of murdering Kathleen Smith and Betty Van Patter, although he was never convicted for either death.
Newton learned to read using Plato's Republic, which influenced his philosophy of activism. He went on to earn a PhD in social philosophy from the University of California at Santa Cruz's History of Consciousness program in 1980. In 1989, he was murdered in Oakland, California by Tyrone Robinson, a member of the Black Guerrilla Family.
Newton was known for being an advocate of self-defense and used his position as a leader within the Black Panther Party to welcome women as well.

Bret Samuel Weinstein (; born February 21, 1969) is an American podcaster, author, and former professor of evolutionary biology. He served on the faculty of Evergreen State College from 2002 until 2017, when he resigned in the aftermath of a series of campus protests about racial equity at Evergreen, which brought Weinstein to national attention. Like his brother Eric Weinstein, he is considered part of the intellectual dark web. Weinstein has been criticized for making false statements about COVID-19 treatments and vaccines, and for spreading misinformation about HIV/AIDS.

Thomas Andrew Franco (born April 14, 1980) is an American actor, artist, and the founder of the Firehouse Art Collective in Berkeley, California. He is the brother of actors James Franco and Dave Franco.

Alice Inoue (born July 17, 1964) is an astrologer, feng shui expert, author, and life coach from Hawaii. She is a former television presenter, most notably for her Do Sports program on Fuji News where she showcased activities for Japanese tourists visiting Hawaii. At the height of her media career, she had three television shows and four major sponsors. She has been featured in numerous publications including gracing the cover of MidWeek twice and appearing in Hawaii Business Magazine, Pacific Business News, The Honolulu Advertiser, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, MidWeek, Homescapes, and Hawaii Home & Remodeling. Inoue is the founder and currently a life guide at Happiness U, a school for adults in Honolulu that provides advice and inspiration about life and happiness. She also has a weekly column in the Hawaii Renovation called Go Ask Alice where she answers readers' questions relating to life and feng shui.