Aaron Dixon was born in Chicago, and grew up in Seattle's Central District. His father worked at Boeing, and both parents taught Aaron and his brothers the importance of fighting for social justice. As a college student at the University of Washington, Dixon played a key role in the formation of the Black Student Union (BSU) and the Seattle Chapter of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) along with Larry Gossett and others. Through the BSU, Dixon also helped organize protests and Black student unions at local high schools. In the spring of 1968, at the funeral of Bobby Hutton in Oakland, California, 19-year-old Dixon met Bobby Seale, and with his brother Elmer and others, founded the Seattle chapter of the Black Panther Party, and was appointed captain. Dixon led the chapter through its first four years, then moved to Party national headquarters in Oakland in 1972. There he worked with Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, and served for a time as bodyguard to Elaine Brown.

This portrait shows 39-year-old Aaron Dixon around the time that he and other former Panthers were organizing a banquet to reflect on their activism.

Caption by University of Washington Seattle Black Panther Party History and Memory Project, from caption to Aaron Dixon's oral history interview at http://depts.washington.edu/civilr/aaron_dixon.htm