Kansas Senate Candidate Names His Political Inspiration: A Black Panther ‘Soldier’ Working To Destroy the American ‘Empire’
Andrew Kerr
Washington Free Beacon
December 17, 2025
Just before he launched his longshot Senate bid, Kansas Democrat Erik Murray boasted on a podcast about his life-changing experience learning from former Black Panther leader Elaine Brown, an avowed socialist who recently reaffirmed her commitment to topple the “Empire of the United States.”
Murray, a real estate investor who recently moved back to Kansas after a decade in California, entered the race for the Democratic nomination to unseat incumbent Sen. Roger Marshall (R., Kan.) on Dec. 3. Just days earlier, in late November, Murray reminisced about his transformative experience living in Oakland, California, for the past 10 years during an appearance on The Disruption Lab podcast. During those years, Murray said he expanded his vocabulary to include words such as “hella,” and booked lunch meetings with Brown, whom he credits with changing the “wiring” in his brain.
“Go spend a decade, or even a year or even a week or two in Oakland, California, and I think it’ll change your mind on some things,” Murray said. “Go spend a decade, you know, having lunch with Elaine Brown, who’s one of the original founders of the Black Panther[s]. It’ll change some wiring in your brain.”
“It was a great experience, the decade I spent in Oakland,” Murray added. “The eye-opening social justice conversations that it triggered … I say things like ‘hella,’ and ‘hella’ is actually a word that came out of Oakland.”
Murray’s ties to Brown may be a tough sell in deep-red Kansas, which last elected a Democratic senator in 1932. During her time as leader of the Black Panther Party from 1974 through 1977, Brown said she viewed herself as a soldier in the fight to bring about a “socialist revolution” in the United States, a fight she says she remains committed to winning.
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“The bottom line is that the Empire of the United States, which has caused our enslavement, cannot continue like this,” the former Black Panther leader said. “We cannot continue with this world system.”
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The Murray campaign did not return a request for comment.
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