Aaron Dixon was born in Chicago, and grew up in Seattle's Central Area. 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 (UW), 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 and Bobby Seale, and served for a time as bodyguard to Elaine Brown.

This image shows Aaron Dixon flanked by two bodyguards while speaking at a fundraiser for Students for a Democratic Society. The meeting was held in the ballroom of the Husky Union Building (HUB) at UW and attended by around 700 students. Its purpose was to raise money for a legal defense fund for 12 UW students who were suspended for disrupting a disciplinary hearing earlier in the school year. A lawyer for the students criticized UW administration for punishing the students without due process and not allowing them a fair hearing.

Caption information source: 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
Caption information source: “Lawyer blasts UW discipline,” by Melvin Goo, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, April 5, 1969, page 3.