From the AJC article:
“As a younger man, Floyd participated in sit-ins at segregated lunch counters in 1965 in Memphis, Tennessee. After a sneering white man spit tobacco juice on top of his head, he decided to take a more confrontational stance. He joined a faction of the Black Panther movement in 1967 in Los Angeles. He renounced violence & enrolled at UCLA to study #law after 2 Panthers, Bunchy Carter & John Huggins, were shot & killed in an altercation at a Black Student Union meeting.”