In 1968, Abron travelled to Rhodesia,[3] along with other students and teachers from Baker. There she worked at a black-owned newspaper, which was subjected to strict censorship by the white-minority government. She described this as a "transforming experience" that developed her understanding of journalism. Upon her return to Kansas, she became editor of the Baker Orange, graduating with a degree in journalism in 1970. She then went to work at The Cincinnati Herald and subsequently moved to Chicago, where she worked as a reporter for The Chicago Defender and in public relations at Malcolm X College.[1]
In 1972, Abron earned a master's degree in communication at Purdue University. That same year, she joined the Detroit chapter of the Black Panther Party, going on to work at the party headquarters in Oakland, California,[3] where she became the last editor of the party's newspaper, The Black Panther.[4] She played an active role in the development of the BPP's "survival programs,"[5] which included provisions for Free Breakfast for Children, free buses for prison visitors and a free education program.[6] She was active within the party up until its dissolution; although she would later say that she was "still a Panther. I'll die one."[2] From 1974 to 1990, she also edited the academic journal The Black Scholar, after which she worked as a professor of journalism at Western Michigan University.[1]
Abron retired from teaching in 2003, but continued to write books and be involved in anti-racist activism.[1] Together with her husband, the anarchist writer and activist Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin, she moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where they engaged in community organizing in their neighborhood near Fisk University.[7] In the wake of the Ferguson unrest in 2014, Abron and Ervin moved to Kansas City, Missouri, where they established the Ida B. Wells Coalition Against Racism and Police Brutality, named after journalist and civil rights activist Ida B. Wells. Although Abron did not participate in the George Floyd protests in 2020 due to her age and the risk of the COVID-19 pandemic, she provided advice for younger activists involved in the protest movement.[1] Between 2021 and 2023, Abron and Ervin, released thirteen episodes of the Black Autonomy Podcast, on the topic of Black anarchism.[8]
————————; Rucker, Madalynn (1996). "'Comrade Sisters': Two Women of the Black Panther Party". In Etter-Lewis, Gwendolyn; Foster, Michele (eds.). Unrelated Kin: Race and Gender in Women's Personal Narratives. New York: Routledge. pp. 139–168. ISBN9780415911382. OCLC32272331.
———————— (2005). "'Serving the people': The survival programs of the Black Panther Party". In Jones, Charles E. (ed.). The Black Panther Party Reconsidered. Baltimore: Black Classic Press. pp. 176–192. ISBN9780933121973. OCLC62792437.
Phillips, Mary (2015). "The Power of the First-Person Narrative: Ericka Huggins and the Black Panther Party". Women's Studies Quarterly. 43 (3/4): 33–51. doi:10.1353/wsq.2015.0060. JSTOR43958548. S2CID86025439.
Aziz, M. (2023). "Vanguard of the Athletic Revolution: The Black Panther Party, Micki and Jack Scott, and the Sports Liberation Movement". American Quarterly. 75 (3): 655–672. doi:10.1353/aq.2023.a905868. S2CID261499016.
Gore, Dayo F.; Theoharis, Jeanne; Woodard, Komozi, eds. (2009). Want to Start a Revolution?: Radical Women in the Black Freedom Struggle. NYU Press. ISBN978-0-8147-8313-9. JSTORj.ctt9qgjjp.
Rodriguez, Cheryl (1998). "Activist Stories: Culture and Continuity in Black Women's Narratives of Grassroots Community Work". Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies. 19 (2): 94–112. doi:10.2307/3347161. JSTOR3347161.