The History of the Black Liberation Army (BLA)

The struggle’s of the New Afrikan Nation in North Amerika: BLA’s History and How the united states of america won its Independence from Britain (and the British empire). THE COLONIAL PERIOD “In America our people revolted often. Some of us successfully reached Spanish Florida and there built new states–first, at Santa Teresa de Muse; then along the Apalachicola River, and finally We built the New Afrikan-Indian state known as the Seminole Nation. Each of these small states fought for their freedom against the United States, though finally losing. Some Seminoles never surrendered.” (Obadele, 1997, p. 67).

Late 1586 – New Afrikans revolted in Spanish territory in what is now South Carolina. They fled and went to live with Native Indians.

* By 1600, there were more than half a million slaves in the Western Hemisphere.

1619, latter end of Aug. – In Colonial America the first 20-something Blacks landed at Jamestown, Va. They were accorded the status of indentured servants.

1624 – First black child born in English America christened William in the Church of England at Jamestown.

1641 – Massachusetts became the first colony to give statutory recognition to slavery. Other colonies followed: Connecticut 1650; Virginia, 1661; Maryland, 1663; New York and New Jersey, 1664; South Carolina, 1682; Rhode Island and Pennsylvania, 1700; North Carolina, 1715; Georgia, 1750.


1644, Feb. – First black legal protest in America pressed by 11 blacks who petitioned for freedom in New Netherlands (New York). Council of New Netherlands freed the 11 petitioners because they had “served the Company seventeen or eighteen years” and had been “long since promised their freedom on the same footing as other free people in New Netherlands.”

1649 – Colonial officials reported there there were in Virginia about 15,000 English, and “of negroes brought thither, three hundred good servants.” By 1660, Blacks had become a group apart, separated from the rest of the population by custom and law. “Starting in the Chesapeake region and continuing through the first decades of the 18th century, slave codes were promulgated by legislatures throughout the colonies. They tried to solidify the distiction between slave and free. Simultaneously they placed limits on the free Black populations of most colonies, thus further identifying slavery and blackness. Among the besetting fears of the White majority (or minority in the case of South Carolina) was servile insurrection: the Whites were, after all, holding their fellow humans in bondage. Many of the laws were designed to keep the slave and free Black population under surveillance with the idea of preventing revolts.” (Spickard, p. 238). (Friedman, Crime and Punishment, p.7). 1709,



Mar. 21 – Virginia Lt. Gov. issues a proclamation to prevent assemblage of slaves for fear of conspiracy to rebel. Mar. 24 – Virginia court reveals conspiracy of Afrikans and Indians to escape slavery. 1712, Apr. 7 – Caromantees [Ashanti/Fantee] Revolt in New York; seized guns, swords and hatchets and began setting fires and killing slavemasters. Kwako, one of the leaders, and twenty others were broken on the wheel and burnt at a slow fire. 1723, May 17 – Seven slaves sentenced to sale and removal from Virginia colony for conspiring to revolt.

July 4 – Afrikan slave executed in Boston for setting fire to owner’s house. 1729, June 29 – Virginia Governor reports attack by whites on Maroon settlement in Blue Ridge Mountains. 1730, Aug. 15 – Slave conspiracy discovered in Charleston, SC. 1738, May 5 – Slaves escape from SC jail and join with others to begin a small-scale guerrilla war. 1739, Jan. 30 – Letter of South Carolina Council describes plan of 200 slaves to capture capitol and establish their own government. 1741, Mar. 18 – “Great Negro Plot” discovered in New York; Blacks planned to set city afire and kill all whites. 18 Blacks hanged and 71 shipped to Caribbean.


– The Albany (NY) Convention: The meeting of six colonial governors and six Indian “national presidents” of the Iroquois Confederation (Iroquoian nation-states, including Seneca, Cayuga, Oneida, Onandaga, Mohawk, and Tuscarora who “re-joined” them after 1712). Benjamin Franklin was one of the organizers of this meeting. (The Cherokee and Tuscarora considered themselves to be in amity with the U.S. later). 1770, March 5th – Crispus Attucks (Natick language for “deer”), a Boston New Afrikan, and four others were killed by British 29th Regiment in Boston, Mass. He was perhaps the first to die for freedom. THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR BY UNITED COLONIES


1775, Apr. 18 – Paul Revere and William Dawes, on the night of April 18 on horseback alerted Samuel Adams (Crispus Attucks’ mentor) and John Hancock at Lexington and others that 700 British were on their way to Concord to destroy arms. April 19th – At Lexington, Minutemen lost 8 killed, 10 wounded. On return from Concord, the harassed British lost 273. May 1 – Birth of Gabriel Prosser. May 10 – Col. Ethan Allen (joined by Col. Benedict Arnold) captured Ft. Ticonderoga; also Crown Point. June – Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation in which he stated that slaves would gain freedom if they’d bear arms for the British. Lord Dunmore’s Royal Ethiopian Regiment fought to maintain Britain’s control over its rebellious colonies. It was the only way they had to gain their freedom. According to an estimate by Thomas Jefferson, more than 30,000 Virginia slaves ran away in 1778 alone, presumably to enlist. June 15 – British named George Washington commander-in-chief. June 17 – Colonials headed for Bunker Hill, fortified Breed’s Hill, Charlestown, repulsed British under Gen. William Howe twice before retreating; British casualties 1,000; called Battle of Bunker Hill. July 8 – Exposure of conspiracy among slaves in North Carolina who aimed to establish their own government. By 1776, some 500,000 Blacks were held in slavery and indentured servitude in the u.s. Nearly one of every six persons in the counrty was a slave. By the end of the war, about 5,000 Blacks had been in the ranks of the Continental Army. hose who had been slaves became free.


1783 – The Treaty of Paris. THE CONSTITUTION AND THE LAWS 1790 – The New Afrikan population numbered slightly more than 750,000. The vast majority, almost 89 percent, lived in the South Atlantic States, where the plantation system was making the greatest demands for Black labor. The states of Maryland (111,000) and Virginia (305,400) had the largest concentration of enslaved Afrikans in the u.s. Virginia’s Blacks were almost three times the number in South Carolina. 1790 ? – Birth of Abraham in Pensacola, Florida. * 1791, Aug. 22 – Beginning of Haitian Revolution. 1792, July 9 – Three Afrikans executed for attacking Virginia slave patrol. Georgia and South Carolina runaways mixed with Creeks to form the Seminole tribe. Other runaways were held by the Cherokee as slaves. (Spickard, p. 246). 1799 or 1800, May 9 – Birth of John Brown.


Aug. 30 – Planned rebellion and establishment of Black state by General Gabriel Prosser and 40,000 slaves foiled by storm, Richmond, Va. 1802, Feb. 12 – two slaves executed for alleged involvement in conspiracy to rebel in Brunswick, Va. 1804, Jan. 5 – Ohio is the first of the Northern states to pass Black Laws. 1808 – Congress was prohibited from restricting the slave trade until after this year, and the free states were required to return fugitive slaves to their Southern owners.




1811, Jan. 8 – 400-500 slaves revolt in Louisiana. 1812, May 6 – Birth of Martin R. Delany, Charlestown, Va. 1814 – Free Blacks assist whites in the defense of the city of Washington against the invasion of the British. * 1816 – Paul Cuffee, Black philantropist and owner of a fleet of ships, transported a group of Blacks to a new home in Sierra Leone. 1816, July 27 – Fort Blocont attacked by u.s. troops; 300 Afrikans and 20 Indians captured. 1818, Apr. 18 – Andrew Jackson suppresses Afrikans and Indians at Suwanee, ending First Seminole War. 1822, May 30 – House negro betrays Denmark Vesey and 1,000 ? slaves, Charleston, SC; 37 hanged, 131 Blacks, 4 whites arrested. July 2 – General Denmark Vesey hanged. July 19 – Several armed Maroons captured and hanged, Jacksonville, SC. 1825,

June 25 – Capture of Bob Community Relations for an Independent People (CRIP) was a city funded team post (meeting place) on the east side of L.A. that played host to some of the area’s most rowdy youth. One such brother was Raymond Washington, who at the time belonged to a young upstart click called the Baby Avenues. The team post became center ground to an ever widening group of youth who eventually took its title, CRIP, as a name and moved westward with it. With the vanguard in shambles and the local pigs turning a deliberate deaf ear, the CRIPs flourished rapidly. In its formative years, the Party’s influence was evident. For the same uniform/dress code of the Party’s was that of the CRIPs. Yet, a sinister twist developed where as New Afrikan people were targets of the young hoodlums. And with no vanguard forces readily available to teach and train these youth, they spiraled out of control, taking as their nemesis the Brims who later developed into the city wide Bloods. The founding of the CRIPs is established as 1969. Their gang color is blue, and sometimes also the color white. ENTER THE ‘70s A California guard, rated as an expert marksman, opened the decade of the ‘70s with the January 13th shooting at close range of W.L. Nolen, Cleveland Edwards, and Alvin “Jug” Miller in the Soledad prison yard. They were left lying where they fell until it was too late for them to be saved by medical treatment. Nolen, in particular, had been instrumental in organizing protest of guard killings of two other Black prisoners – Clarence Causey and William Powell – at Soledad in the recent past, and was consequently both a thorn in the side of prison officials and a hero to the Black prison populations. When the guard was exonerated of the triple killings two weeks later by a Board of Inquiry, the prisoners retaliated by throwing a guard off the tier. George Jackson, Fleeta Drumgo, and John Cluchette were charged with the guards death and came to be known as the Soledad Brother. California Black prisoners solidified around the Soledad Brother case and the chain of events led to the formation of the Black Guerrilla Family (BGF). The Panthers spearheaded a massive campaign to save the Soledad Brothers from the gas chamber. The nationwide coalescence of prisoners and support groups around the case converted the scattered, disparate prison struggles into a national prison movement.



Bob Ferebee,leader of Maroons in Virginia. DISCRIMINATION AS DOCTRINE 1829, Aug. 10 – Rebellion in Cincinnati’s “Little Africa,” Ohio; white residents invaded black community, killed Blacks, burned their property, and ultimately drove half the New Afrikan population from the city. 1,000 Blacks leave for Canada. 1830 – Many took direct action to help slaves escape through the Underground Railroad (UGRR). Some few called for, but made no effort to organize, slave rebellions and mass violence. 1830′s – The Cherokee’s slaves made the trip with their Indian masters along the Trail of Tears to Oklahoma. (Spickard, p. 246). 1830, June 28 – David Walker murdered, found on doorstep. 1831, Aug. 21 – Beginning of Nat Turner Revolt; 60 whites killed. 1834 – The Philadelphia Passover Riots. 1839, Feb. 25 – Seminoles and Afrikans shipped from Tampa Bay, Fla., to the West. In the 1840′s, newly freed mulattoes were seldom allowed to remain in the southern states; some went across the Ohio River, where small colonies of ex-slaves flourished beginning at this time. (Spickard, p. 249). 1842, Aug. 11 – Birth of Robert Brown Elliot. 1843, Aug. 22 – Henry Highland Garnet makes speech in Buffalo, NY, and calls for slave revolt and general strike. 1847, June 30 – The Dred Scott case began in St. Louis court. THE PATH TOWARD CIVIL WAR 1850 – The Compromise of 1850 settled no basic issues. 1851, Feb. 15 – Afrikans invade a Boston courtroom and free a fugutive slave. 1854 – The Kansas-Nebraska Act settled no basic issues.


About 1856, Martin R. Delany, Black editor and physician urged Blacks to settle elsewhere. 1857 – The Dred Scott case confirmed Blacks in their understanding that they were not “citizens” and thus not entitled to the Constitutional safeguards enjoyed by other Americans. 1859, Oct. 16 – Osborne Perry Anderson, Dangerfield Newby, Sheilds Green, Lewis Sheridan Leary, John Anthony Copeland, and others in Virginia with General John Brown’s raid on the arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, fought and gave their lives trying to seize land and establish New Afrikan states. (Of the five Black revolutionaries, Leary and Newby were killed; Copeland and Green were hanged; and only Osborne Perry Anderson escaped and survived the failed mission, and later rendered the most accurate and passionate account of the raid). (see also Franklin and Moss, p. 179). Dec. 2 – General John Brown was hanged, but not before he had dazzled the country by his words and his conduct after the trial. CIVIL WAR AND “EMANCIPATION”



1860-65 – The War Between the Union North and the separatist Confederate South: A total of more than 186,000 New Afrikans served with Union combat forces by the end of the war: “From the seceded states came 93,000, and from the border slave states, 40,000. The remainder, approximately 53,000, were from free states. It is possible that the total figure was larger, for some contemporaries insisted that many mulattoes served in white regiments without being designated as Negroes.” New Afrikans saw action in every theater of operation during the Civil War. General Harriet Tubman was a spy for Union troops at many points on the eastern seaboard. (Franklin and Moss, pp. 195, 196, 197). 1861, Aug, 6 – The first mass “manumission” of Afrikans in the u.s. occurred, with the enactment of the Confiscation Act. Aug. 30 – Major General John C. Fremont issues proclamation freeing slaves of Missouri rebels (St. Louis, MO); Lincoln nullifies it. 1862 – Violent rioting occurred in Cincinnati, when Black and Irish hands competed for work on the riverboats. Lesser riots took place in Newark, NJ, and Buffalo and Troy, NY, the result of combined hostility to the war and fear that Blacks would take white jobs. 1862 – Slavery in the District of Columbia is abolished; 3,100 enslaved persons held by District residents are emancipated. 1862, May 9 – General David Hunter issues proclamation freeing slaves in Ga, Fla., and SC; Lincoln revoked it. July 16 – Birth of Ida B. Wells. July 17 – The mass recognition of the Afrikan’s inherent freedom was followed by another Confiscation Act. Aug. 14 – Lincoln meets with Black representatives and urges emigration to Afrika or Central America. Late 1862 – Not until a shortage of troops plagued the Union Army, were segregated units of “United States Colored Troops” (USCT) formed.


1862 – President Davis odered that all Black slaves captured in arms were to be delivered to the state from which they came, to be dealt with according to state laws. Union officials insisted that captured Blacks should be treated as prisoners of war, but the Confederates did not accept that point of view until 1864. (Franklin and Moss, p. 197). 1863 – The spark that lit the Detroit Riot was the rape of Ellen Hover, a Black female, by Thomas Faulkner, a White male. Yet soon white mobs rampaged through Black neighborhoods, stoning, burning, and dismembering dozens of Black people. A particular target of these mobs was a small number of white women married to Black men. (Spickard, p. 247). 1863 – General Butler reported that 3,000 New Afrikan troops were prisoners of the Confederates.(Franklin and Moss, p. 197). 1863, Jan. – The Emancipation Proclamation freed all Afrikans who were still held as slaves in those areas of the imperialist state which sought to establish their independence from the u.s. empire (the Confederate States); just a few at first were freed, but had immediate significance as a symbol.


May 1 – Confederate Congress passed resolution branding Afrikan troops and officers in Union Army criminals, dooming them to death or slavery if captured. July 13 – The most violent of the troubles, “the New York City Draft Riots,” when white workers, mainly Irish-born, embarked on a three-day rampage. Federal troops restored order. But 34 Afrikans were murdered, shot, stoned, hanged from lamp posts, homes burned, etc. 4 whites reported dead, and over 200 people injured. General Sheridan later said, “at least nine-tenths of the casualties were perpetrated by the police and citizens by stabbing and smashing in the heads of many who had already been wounded or killed by policemen…it was not just a riot but `an absolute massacre by the police…a murder which the mayor and police…perpetrated without the shadow of necessity.” THE END OF RECONSTRUCTION (or “The War after the Civil War”) AND SEGREGATION BY LAW, a virtual revolution. Immediately after the Civil War the whites of the Confederacy began a vengeful campaign of murder againts the New Afrikans. So vicious was this year-long aggression that Congress in 1867 divided the Confederacy into five military districts. 1875, Sept. 1 – Riot in Yazoo City, Miss.; 20 Blacks killed. Sept. 4 – Riot in Clinton, Miss.; 80 Blacks and republicans killed. For 20 years thereafter, in state after state, ex-Confederates and their progeny mounted this armed revolution and captured for themselves the government of every former Confederate state. The U.S. Army, a reluctant and inconsistent protector of New Afrikans in this latter period, was withdrawn in 1877.



1877 – Louisiana was the last Southern white government to return to power. 1878 - The Louisiana-based movement of Henry Adams–Exodusters–appealed fruitlessly to the U.S. for “land anywhere.” About 100 lynchings occurred every year in the 1880′s and 1890′s. 1883 – The Supreme Court declared the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional, Southern states began to enact laws to segrate races. 1884, Aug. 9 – Death of Robert Brown Elliot. * 1884, Nov. 15 – “Scramble for Afrika” organized at an international conference in Berlin. 1886, Carrollton, Miss. massacre of over twenty Blacks. 1887, Aug. 17 – Birth of Marcus Garvey. 1889 – The prominent New Afrikan journalist John E. Bruce and his prophecy about New Afrikan’s organized resistance and “resort to force under wise and discreet leaders.” (Schleifer, in Williams, p. 128). 1889, Apr. 15 – Birth of Asa Philip Randolph, trade union and civil rights leader, in Crescent City, Fla. Edward McCabe sought to make Oklahoma a New Afrikan state, with himself as governor. 1892 – There were 161 lynchings. 1895, Feb. 20 – Frederick Douglass died. 1895, Mar. 11 – White mob attacks Black workers in New Orleans, LA. 1898 – Spanish-American War. 1898, Apr. 9 – Birth of Paul Robeson. 1900 – Anti-Black riot in New York 1900, July 24 – Riot in New Orleans which killed several Blacks and over 30 homes and schools burned. 1904 – Anti-Black riot in Springfield, Ohio. 1905, July 11 – Niagara Movement organized by W.E.B. DuBois and William Monroe Trotter. 1906 – Anti-Black riot in Greensburg, Ind. 1906, Aug. 13 – Black soldiers raid Brownsville, Tex., in retaliation for insults.




1908 – Anti-Black riot in Springfield, Ill. A three-day riot, initiated by a white women’s claim of violation by a Black man. By the time National Guardsmen reached the scene, six persons were dead–four whites and two Blacks; property damage was extensive. Many New Afrikans left Springfield, hoping to find better conditions elsewhere, especially in Chicago. 1908, July 2 – Thurgood Marshall born. 1909, Sept. 20 – Birth of Kwame Nkrumah. 1913, Mar. 10 – Death of Harriet Tubman, Auburn, NY. WORLD WAR I: 1914-18: More than two million New Afrikans registered under the Selective Service Act, and some 360,000 were called into service. (1968 Riot Commission, p. 218). 1916 ? – African Blood Brotherhood organized. 1917 – Major riots by whites against Blacks took place in Chester, Penn., and Philadelphia. Between July 1917 and March 1921, 58 Black houses in Chicago were bombed, and recreational areas were sites of racial conflict. (1968 Riot Commission, p. 219). 1917, July 1 – Riot in East St. Louis, Ill., kills approximately 200 Blacks (other reports say 39), and nine whites, as a result of fear by white working men that Black advances in economic, political and social status were threatening their own security and status. Hundreds injured, and more than 300 buildings destroyed. 1917, Aug. 23 – Whites and Black soldiers of the 24th Infantry Regiment battle in Houston, Tex.; 2 Blacks and 17 whites killed; 13 Blacks later hanged. POSTWAR VIOLENCE * 1919, Feb. 19 – First Pan-Afrikan Congress meets in Paris, France.


1919, June to the end of the year – About 25 Major riots by whites against Blacks took place, including Washington, DC, Omaha, Neb., Charleston, Elaine, Ark., and Knoxville, Tenn. July – Longview, Tex., witnessed the nightmare of a race riot. July 27 (started Sunday and lasted a week)- “Red Summer” riot in Chicago flared from the increase in Black population, which had more than doubled in 10 years. Jobs were plentiful, but housing was not. Black neighborhoods expanded into white sections of the city, and trouble developed. It left 15 whites and 23 Blacks dead, at least 537 injured, 178 were white and 342 were black, there is no record of the racial identity of the remaining 17. (see 1968 Riot Commission, p. 219; Franklin and Moss, p. 315). THE 1920′S AND THE NEW MILITANCY 1921, June 1 – A major riot by whites against a Black area in Tulsa, Okla., called the Black Wall Street, leaves 21 whites and 60 Blacks dead. 1925, May 19 – El Hajj Malik El Shabazz (Malcolm X) born. * 1925, July 2 – Patrice Lumumba born. SEPARATISM Marcus Mosiah Garvey, founder in 1914 of the UNIA, aimed to liberate both Afrikans and New Afrikans from their oppressors. THE DEPRESSION AND THE NEW DEAL Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam (NOI) began appeals in the 1930′s for a separate territory, initially to be provisioned by the U.S. for 30 years. 1931, Apr. 6 – First of Scottsboro Trials begin, Scottsboro, Ala. WORLD WAR II 1939-45 – “The treatment accorded the Negro during the Second World War marks, for me, a turning point in the Negro’s relation to America. To put it briefly, and somewhat too simply, a certain hope died, a certain respect for white Americans faded.” (Baldwin, p. 68). * 1940, June 10 – Death of Marcus Garvey, London, England. 1941, Sept. 23 – George Jackson born.

* 1942-45 – Rebellions on U.S. bases worldwide by New Afrikans. [see Port Chicago Explosion and Mutiny website below]. 1943 – Racial disorders had broken out sporadically in Mobile, Los Angeles, Beaumont, Tex., and elsewhere. In Harlem, NY, a riot erupted. Six persons died, over 500 were injured, more than 100 were jailed. (1968 Riot Commission, p. 224). 1943, June 20 (Sunday) – The Detroit Riot. By the time federal troops arrived to halt the racial conflict, 25 Blacks and 9 whites were dead, property damage exceeded $2 million, and a legacy of fear and hate became part of the city. (1968 Riot Commission, p. 224). * 1945, Apr. – Two unarmed U.S. Black soldiers killed by military police at French army camp for allegedly talking to French women employed there. THE POSTWAR PERIOD 1947, Apr. 9 – CORE sends first group of Freedom Riders through South. 1947, Sept. 13 – Elmer “Geronimo” Pratt born. * 1949, Oct. 1 – Victory of Chinese Revolution. 1950-53 – Korean Conflict. 1950, Apr. 3 – Death of Carter G. Woodson, historian, in Washington, DC. “…white Americans congratulate themselves on the 1954 Supreme Court decision outlawing segregation in the schools; they suppose, in spite of the mountain of evidence that has since accumulated to the contrary, that this was proof of a change of heart–or, as they like to say, progress. Perhaps. It all depends on how one reads the word “progress.” Most Negroes I know do not believe that this immense concession would ever have been made if it had not been for the competition of the Cold War, and the fact that Africa was clearly liberating herself and therefore had, for political reasons, to be wooed by the descendants of her former masters.” (Baldwin, pp. 100-101). 1955, Aug. 28 – Emmett Till, 14, kidnapped and lynched in Money, Miss. 1955, Dec. 5 – Beginning of Montgomery, Ala., Bus Boycott. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Afoh, Kwame; Lumumba, Chokwe; Obadele, Imari; and Obafemi, Ahmed. A Brief History of Black Struggle In America. The Malcolm Generation, Inc., Baton Rouge, LA, c. 1997. Baldwin, James. The Fire Next Time. The Dial Press, New York, c. 1963. Franklin, John Hope, and Moss, Alfred A., Jr. From Slavery To Freedom,, 6th edition. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, NY, c. 1988. New Afrikan Prison Organization 1978 Calendar.


New Afrikan Prison Organization 1979 Calendar. Notes from a New Afrikan P.O.W. Journal, Books One thru Seven (Combined), Spear and Sheild Publications, Chicago, IL, c. 1986. Painter, Nell. The Exodusters. U.S. Riot Commission Report. Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders. Bantam Books, New York, c. 1968. 1955 - THE PERSISTENCE OF DISCRIMINATION AND THE REVOLUTION OF RISING EXPECTATIONS 1957-1961 – Robert F. Williams, president of the Monroe, Union County, NC, NAACP chapter (author of “Negroes with Guns”). 1959 - STUDENT INVOLVEMENT 1960, Feb. 1 – Four NC A&T College students launch Student Movement in Greensboro. Sit-ins started in a new way. Apr. 15 – Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) organized on Shaw University campus.



* 1961, Jan. 16 – Patrice Lumumba assassinated. THE BLACK MUSLIMS 1961, July 31 – Hon. Elijah Muhammad calls for the creation of a separate Black state in NY speech. “FREEDOM NOW!” 1963 – Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM) was started. May 27 – Philadelphia Black workers, led by RAM, attacked by whites on school construction site while demanding jobs for Black construction workers. Aug. – The March on Washington. THE FAILURE OF DIRECT ACTION/NEW DIRECTIONS By 1964 and 1965, more militant individuals especially in SNCC, were toying with the idea that revolutionary violence might be necessary. 1964 – Deacons for Defense and Justice, a semi-secret Black organization armed for self-defense, organized in Louisiana to protect Blacks and CORE demonstrators of both races from white attackers. May 1 – Afro-American Student Movement (ASM) organized at Fisk; is called the First National Afro-American Student Conference at Nashville. 34 COFO Freedom Schools in Miss. (inc. Ruleville). 1965 – Deacons for Defense and Justice spread from Louisiana into Mississippi and Alabama, and planned to expand throughout the South. ORGANIZATIONAL RIVALRIES Other groups: Black Guards, and militant individuals with SNCC (“Snick”). THE ROLE OF WHITES 1966, Jan. 4 – SNCC worker Sammy Younge, Jr., murdered in Tuskegee, Ala. “BLACK POWER” 1966, Oct. – Black Panther Party for Self-Defense started in Oakland, California. Late 1960′s to early 1970′s – BPP were in shoot-outs with police with empty weapons at times, or not enough ammunition. 1967 – The so-called RAM Plot.



1967, July 23 – Detroit Rebellion; 43 Afrikans murdered by police. 1967, Aug. 25 – FBI circulates memo detailing plans to “disrupt” Black Liberation Movement groups. (BPP was not on list). 1968, Mar. 4 – FBI memo issued to “prevent the coalition of militant Black nationalist groups.” 1968, Mar. 31 – The Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika (RNA) was established in Detroit, Mich. Apr. 4 – Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Apr. 6 – Lil’ Bobby Hutton murdered. July 23 – Fred Ahmed Evans arrested for guerrilla ambush and killing of police, Cleveland, Ohio. 1969, Jan. – BPP allied with BLA; and became part of BLA. 1969, Jan. 24 – Chicago police and FBI conspire to prevent Fred Hampton of BPP from appearing on t.v. talk show. 1969, Apr. 2 – NY “21″ BPP members arrested on conspiracy charges. Apr. 26 – BPP office in Des Moines, Iowa, bombed. May 26 – Fred Hampton arrested and charged with stealing and distributing ice cream. June 4 – Detroit BPP office raided. June 7 – Chicago BPP office raided. June 15 – Sacramento and San Diego BPP offices raided. MODERN PHASE OF BLACK LIBERATION ARMY: 1970, Jan. – BPP allied with BLA; and became part of BLA. 1970, Aug. – Russell Maroon Shoats joined BLA (“New Afrikan Liberation Army”). 1970 ? – Some RAM members fled the country. 1971, Mar. 5 – BPP sponsors Day of Solidarity dedicated to “Freedom for all Political Prisoners.” Mar. 28 – Republic of New Afrika Capitol consecrated, Hinds County, Miss. Aug. 18 – Republic of New Afrika Capitol attaked by FBI and Jackson, Miss., police. Aug. 19 – FBI tries to assassinated Imari Obadele,RNA president. Aug. 27 – Death of Kwame Nkrumah, Conakry, Guinea. 1972, Jan. – Russell Maroon Shoats captured. 1973, Jan. 7 – Mark Essex, 23, is killed atop New Orleans hotel after killing six and wounding fifteen.



1973, Jan. 19 – One police killed and two wounded as Black freedom fighters seize a Brooklyn sporting goods store. * Jan. 20 – Amilcar Cabral assassinated by Portuguese agents. May 2 – Zayd Malik Shakur (fsn James Coston) killed by state police on NJ Turnpike; Assata Shakur (fsn Joanne Chesimard) wounded and Sundiata Acoli (fsn Clark Squire) arrested. 1974, Apr. 17 – BLA “New Haven Three,” Hodari Diallo (Harold Simmons), Ashanti (Michael Alston), and Gunnie (James Haskins) invade the Tombs in NY to liberate POWs. 1975, June 5 – POW escapes from prison in Jackson, Mich., by helicopter. 1976, Jan. 16 – Assata Shakur acquitted by NY Federal Grand Jury of a 1971 bank robbery charge. 1977, Jan. 17 – Assata Shakur begins 4th trial in New Brunswick, NJ, on frame-up charges of murdering a NJ state trooper and her comrade, Zayd Malik Shakur. 1977, Mar. 25 – All-white jury in New Brunswick, NJ, returns guilty verdict against Assata Shakur; she is immediately sentenced to life in prison. Apr. 7 – Assata Shakur moved from Clinton’s Women’s Prison to the all-male Yardsville Prison in NJ. Apr. 25 – Assata Shakur given additional, consecutive 33-year sentence on assault, weapons charges. Sept. – Maroon escaped from Huntingdon, PA. 2 recaptured and a third killed. Maroon at large for one month. 1978 - 1979, Nov. 2 – Comrade-Sister Assata Shakur was liberated from Clinton Women’ Prison, by BLA and NAAI members, and continues to carry on the struggle from Cuba.

1980, Mar. – Maroon and another POW escaped with help of female New Afrikan activist. 1981, Oct. 20th – Brinks armored car robbery/expropriation.