REPRESSION BREEDS

RESISTANCE

The Black Liberation Army and the Radical
Legacy of the Black Panther Party

AklemeUm]u

REPRESSION
BREEDS
RESISTANCE

The Black Liberation Army
and the Radical Legacy
of the Black Panther Parly

Akinyele Omowale Umoja
The Black Panther Party (BPP) was one of the most
significant radical movements in American history.
As an organized political organization, the BPP ex-
isted from 1966 to 1982. Many activists and schol-
ars argue that the BPP only existed as a revolution-
ary organization from 1966 until 1971, in the initial
period of its existence. In these years the BPP em-
phasized armed resistance as a primary means of
achieving social change. After 1971, historians of
the BPP argue, the organization dropped its revo-
lutionary, pro-armed resistance agenda to pursue
reformist politics. For example, Charles Hopkins's
study was a central factor in transforming of the
organization from radicalism to reformism: "The
result of the interaction between the Panthers and
the government from 1966 through 1973, was the
transformation of the Black Panther Party from a
REPRESSION BREEDS RESISTANCE

black radical organization to a de-radicalized so-
cial protest group.” While governmental repres-
sion led to the ascendancy of a reformist agenda
for one faction of the BPP, this was not the only or-
ganizational response. Some BPP members com-
mitted themselves to involvement in or support of
clandestine military resistance, which accelerated
the development of the armed movement called
the Black Liberation Army (BLA).

Some accounts of the Black Liberation Army argue
that "the BLA grew out of the BPP and its original
founders were members of the Party.” The BLA is
often presented as a result of the repression of the
BPP and the split within the Panthers. Other par-
ticipants in the Black revolutionary movement give
a different perspective to the BLA and its relation-
ship to the Panthers. For example, former political
prisoner and Black revolutionary Geronimo ji Jaga
suggests that the BLA as a movement concept
pre-dated and was broader than the BPP. Ji Jaga’s
perspective is that several Black revolutionary or-
ganizations contributed to the ranks of the Black
underground collectively known as the Black Lib-
eration Army. Consistent with the view of ji Jaga,
BPP and BLA member Assata Shakur asserts in her
autobiography that "the Black Liberation Army was
not a centralized, organized group with a common
leadership and chain of command. Instead there
were various organizations and collectives work-
ing together out of various cities, and in some larg-

4
er cities there were often several groups working
independently of each other.” Given the character
of the BLA as a movement of autonomous clandes-
tine units, one can understand the different inter-
pretations of its origins and composition. While
acknowledging the positions of ji Jaga and Shakur,
this paper argues that the intense repression of the
BPP did replenish the ranks of the Black Liberation
Army. Since the BPP was the largest revolution-
ary nationalist organization of the Black liberation
movement of the 1960s and '70s, its membership
contributed greatly to the BLA. Panther participa-
tion in the BLA represented a continuation of the
radical legacy of the BPP and was a response to
the counterinsurgency strategy to destroy the Par-
ty and the Black liberation movement.

The role of the underground and the armed strug-
gle was a critical issue in the split that occurred
within the BPP in 1971.In the split, BPP chapters in
Los Angeles and New York, the International Sec-
tion of the Party, and other members were expelled
by the national hierarchy led by Huey P. Newton.
These factions of the BPP all supported armed re-
sistance and viewed themselves, not the nation-
al hierarchy, as the sustainers of the revolutionary
legacy of the BPP.

This study focuses on the infiuence of BPP mem-
bers and supporters on the revolutionary armed
movement, the Black Liberation Army. This aspect

5
REPRESSION BREEDS RESISTANCE

of the legacy of the BPP has not been emphasized
in previous scholarly studies, an omission that re-
flects the willingness of scholars and popular ac-
counts of the BPP to narrow its existence to the na-
tional leadership in Oakland. In the introduction to
his recently published book The Black Panther Par-
ty Reconsidered, Charles E. Jones argues that the
Oakland-based BPP existed 16 years (1966-1982).
This study asserts that the activity of the radical
faction of the BPP in the guise of the BLA, lasted
just as long as that of the Oakland-based Panthers,
perhaps even longer, since it has current manifes-
tations.

Scholarly research on the BLA is a challenging en-
deavor. Most books that focus on this organization
have been journalistic or biographical. The journal-
istic texts have primarily relied on police or pros-
ecution records. American newspapers have also
reported on BLA activities based upon information
offered to the media to support police investiga-
tions and prosecutions of Black radicals. The jour-
nalistic literature on the BLA s usually written from
a perspective that is uncritical of American law en-
forcement and its counterinsurgency tactics. Since
the BLA is a radical clandestine movement, its ac-
tivities by their very nature are illegal, making it dif-
ficult for scholars to interview its members. Facts
are often omitted from biographies and BLA state-
ments to protect incarcerated or indicted members
of the movement. The nature of the organization

6
The BLACK UNDERGROUND and the
LACK FREEDOM MOVEMENT

also does not provide the researcher with organi-
zational archives. This study will utilize public doc-
uments of the BLA and other movement literature
and statements and autobiographies from incar-
cerated BLA members, as well as from former BLA
militants and supporters, as a balance to police and
prosecutor-oriented literature and records.

The Black Underground and the
Black Freedom Movement

A clandestine insurgent military force has existed
in different periods of the Black freedom struggle
in North America. The insurrections and attempt-
ed uprisings of enslaved Africans utilized secret,
conspiratorial organizations. Insurgent Africans
certainly could have brought with them a tradition
of secret societies (e.g., Equngun, Oro, and Ogboni
among the Yoruba peoples, Zangbeto in Dahomey,
Poro in Sierra Leone). Conspiratorial networks were
established to connect African fugitive communi-
ties with those on the plantation with the objective
of creating a general uprising. Northern Blacks also
created secret societies to aid the escape of fugi-
tives and to plan for general insurrection.

In 1919, the African Blood Brotherhood (ABB)
emerged as a radical Black secret society in Amer-
ican urban centers. The ABB advocated that Black
people "organize in trade unions, build coopera-
tively owned businesses, and create paramilitary

7
REPRESSION BREEDS RESISTANCE

self-defense units.” The ABB dissolved as an orga-
nization in the late 1920s as its members decided
to become the Black cadre of the American Com-
munist Party.

In the 1950s and '60s, in several southern towns
and rural locations, armed clandestine networks
protected civil rights activists and activities, retal-
iated in response to acts of white supremacist vio-
lence, and served as an accountability force within
the Black community during economic boycotts
of white-owned business districts. The secretive,
paramilitary Deacons for Defense and Justice, con-
sidered by many to be the armed wing of the south-
ern civil rights movement from 1965 through 1969,
never identified the majority of its membership or
revealed the size of its organization. Deacons se-
lectively recruited, and its members understood
that revealing organizational secrets could result in
death. In 1969 activists in the southern movement
formed a clandestine paramilitary organization to
retaliate against white supremacists who commit-
ted heinous acts of violence on southern Blacks.

The early 1960s saw the emergence of the Revolu-
tionary Action Movement (RAM) as a radical clan-
destine organization within the Black liberation
movement. RAM was initiated in 1962 by northern
Black radicals who defined themselves as "revo-
lutionary Black nationalists” seeking to organize
an armed struggle to win national liberation for the

8
The BLACK PANTHER PARTY and the BLACK UNDER-
GROUND

“colonized Black nation” in the United States. In
1963, due to political repression, the RAM cadre
decided to "go underground.” In 1964 RAM mem-
bers involved in Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee (SNCC) projects in the Mississippi Del-
ta worked with SNCC field staff to develop armed
self-defense units to defend the project. In the
spring of 1964 RAM chairman Robert Williams, a po-
litical exile in Cuba, published an article titled "The
USA: The Potential for a Minority Revolt.” Williams
stated that in order to be free, Black people "must
prepare to wage an urban guerrilla war.” During the
fall of the same year, RAM organizers presented a
twelve-point program to Black youth at the Nation-
al Afro-American Student Conference in Nashville,
Tennessee, including "development of Liberation
Army (Guerrilla Youth Force).” The RAM cadre were
active in urban guerrilla warfare during the urban
uprisings occurring from 1965 through 1968. In his
work Black Activism, Black political scientist Rob-
ert Brisbane stated that RAM’s objective was "to
build a black liberation army consisting of local and
regional groups held together under a tight chain
of command.” In 1967 RAM began to organize
Black urban youth into a paramilitary force called
the Black Guards. A RAM document, titled "On Or-
ganization of Ghetto Youth” projected developing
the Black Liberation Army: "In the early stages of
the mobilization of Black ghetto youth we must
prepare for the ultimate stage, a protracted war
of national liberation; therefore the type of orga-

9
REPRESSION BREEDS RESISTANCE

nization that must be established is a paramilitary
organization.” This document referred to the para-
military organization as the Black Liberation Army
or BLA. Due to intensive federal and state coun-
terinsurgency campaigns, in 1968 RAM decided to
disband the organization and function under other
names, including the Black Liberation Party, Afrikan
Peoples Party, and the House of Umoja.

The above-mentioned efforts preceded the 1971
split within the Black Panther Party and the subse-
quent identification of the BLA by state and federal
police. While often omitted from the historiogra-
phy of the Black freedom movement, the concept
of armed struggle and a Black underground has a
long history and is a legacy that would infiuence
the early development of the Black Panther Party.

The BlackPanther Party and the
Black Underground

The question of the underground was a principal
issue for the Black Panther Party from its incep-
tion. Prior to founding the Black Panther Party for
Selt-Defense with Huey Newton, Bobby Seale was
a member of the Revolutionary Action Movement,
but Seale did not share RAM’s insistence on the
revolutionary vanguard being clandestine. RAM
structure, membership, meetings, and other activ-
ities were secret.
The BLACK PANTHER PARTY and the BLACK UNDERGROUND

While Seale and Newton disagreed with RAM's
clandestine posture, the BPP organized an un-
derground from its earliest days. By developing an
underground wing, the BPP leadership prepared
for the possibility that its political activities would
not be allowed to function in the public arena. In
this context, the BPP envisioned a clandestine
guerrilla force that would serve as the vanguard
of the revolution. In 1968 Newton stated, "When
the people learn that it is no longer advantageous
for them to resist by going into the streets in large
numbers, and when they see the advantage in the
activities of the guerrilla warfare method, they will
quickly follow this example... When the vanguard
group destroys the machinery of the oppressor by
dealing with him in small groups of three and four,
and then escapes the might of the oppressor, the
masses will be overjoyed and will adhere to this
correct strategy.”

The Panther underground was not openly referred
to or publicly acknowledged; it was decentralized,
with autonomous cells in different cities that were
referred to by different names at different times.
Some large cities contained several autonomous
units. These underground units were all part of a
movement called the Black Liberation Army. The
BLA was broader than the BPP, representing the
underground military forces of the revolutionary
nationalist Black movement. By 1968 the official
rules of the BPP stated, "No party member can join

n
REPRESSION BREEDS RESISTANCE

any other army force other than the Black Libera-
tion Army.” Besides serving as an urban guerrilla
force, the Panther underground included an under-
ground railroad to conceal comrades being sought
by federal and sate police. Clandestine medical
units were also developed to provide care to BLA
soldiers or Panther cadre wounded in combat.

The Southern California chapter of the BPP had an
underground almost from its inception. Former Los
Angeles gang leader Alprentrice "Bunchy” Carter
virtually brought a military force into the BPP when
he joined in 1967. Carter was the leader of the Ren-
egades, the hard core of the Slausons. In the early
1960s the 5,000-strong Slausons were the largest
street force in Los Angeles. The same social forces
(the desegregation struggle in the South, African
independence, other anti-colonial struggles, and
so on) that were politicizing tens of thousands in
their generation began to radicalize members of
the Slausons, including Carter. Many of the Slau-
sons and other street force organizations engaged
in guerrilla attacks on police and national guard
during the Watts uprising of 1965. While incarcer-
ated in the 1960s, Carter joined the Nation of Is-
lam and was deeply influenced by former prisoner
turned revolutionary Malcolm X. In Soledad State
Prison in California, Carter met the radical intellec-
tual inmate Eldridge Cleaver, who taught Soledad’s
African-American history and culture class. His as-
sociations and the changing political and cultural

12
The BLACK PANTHER PARTY and the BLACK UNDERGROUND

climate motivated Carter to adopt a revolutionary
nationalist ideology. In Soledad, Cleaver and Car-
ter made plans to form a revolutionary nationalist
organization, including an underground military
wing. Upon leaving prison, Bunchy Carter worked
to transform loyal members of his street organi-
zations, ex-inmates, and other Los Angeles street
gangs from the gangster mentality to revolutionary
consciousness. In late 1967, when Carter joined the
BPP,he was also able to contribute an autonomous
collective of radicalized street forces organized
after leaving incarceration.

In his role as southern California minister of de-
fense, Carter made it his responsibility to orga-
nize an underground Panther cadre. Carter's most
trusted comrades formed the southern Califor-
nia Panther underground, often referred to as the
“"Wolves.” The true identities and activities of the
Wolves were not revealed to aboveground rank-
and-file Panthers. Carter’s Wolves carried out se-
cret operations to support the work of the BPP in
Los Angeles.

Probably the most significant recruit Bunch Carter
made to the BPP underground was Geronimo ji Jaga
(then known as Geronimo Pratt). Ji Jaga, an ex-US
military special forces commando and Vietnam
War veteran, was sent to Los Angeles to work with
Bunchy Carter by a relative who had become ac-
quainted with Carter's effort to build a Black free-

13
REPRESSION BREEDS RESISTANCE

dom organization in Los Angeles. While he did not
become an official BPP member, ji Jaga's military
skills became a valuable asset in assisting Carter to
develop the LA BPP underground. After Carter was
murdered in an FBI-provoked clash between the
BPP and the US (United Slaves) organization on the
campus of UCLA in 1969, ji Jaga assumed Carter’s
position as southern California minister of defense.
With national minister of defense Huey Newton in-
carcerated at this time, the national responsibility
of organizing the military wing of the BPP also fell
upon the shoulders of ji Jaga. Ji Jaga saw it as his
responsibility to utilize his military skills to devel-
op the Panther underground and to build a coop-
erative relationship with other clandestine military
forces in the Black liberation movement under the
banner of the Black Liberation Army.

After the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
in 1968, the BPP grew rapidly, transforming itself
from a California-based organization to a national
movement with chapters in most American urban
centers with a significant number of Black people.
By 1969 the BPP had "approximately five thousand
members in forty chapters.” In his role as acting
minister of defense, ji Jaga helped to develop new
chapters of the organization in places like Atlanta,
Dallas, New Orleans, Memphis, and Winston Salem,
North Carolina, among others. Along with above
ground units of the organization, ji Jaga played a
significant role in developing the underground ap-

%
The BLACK PANTHER PARTY and the BLACK UNDERGROUND

paratus of the BPP nationally. Besides initiating
new chapters, he visited existing party chapters to
offer his expertise in establishing their clandestine
cadre.

One of the most significant chapters of the BPP to
join after the rapid expansion of the BPP in 1968
was in New York City. As in Los Angeles, a clandes-
tine force was established in the New York BPP vir-
tually from its inception. By 1969 a New York police
officer reported at federal congressional hearings
that "members of the Black Panthers are not secret
with the exception of those who have been desig-
nated as 'underground.’ This group are secret rev-
olutionaries, and their identities are kept secret.”

One influence on the development of the Panther
underground in New York was the Revolutionary
Action Movement. After the assassination of Mal-
colm X, RAM played a significant role in promoting a
revolutionary nationalist program in New York City.
New York Panthers had a cooperative relationship
with RAM, in contrast to the competitive and even
antagonistic relations between RAM and Newton
and Seale’s BPP in northern California. Some New
York BPP recruits were affiliated with RAM or RAM
front organizations prior to becoming Panthers,
and many in the New York BPP cadre were influ-
enced by RAM and Republic of New Afrika leader
Herman Ferguson. Ferguson, a New York City ed-
ucator, served as an inspirational leader and men-

1

&
REPRESSION BREEDS RESISTANCE

tor to several New York City youth who eventual-
Iy joined the BPP and became leaders in the New
York chapter. RAM’s perspectives on guerilla war-
fare and underground organization may have influ-
enced the development of a clandestine wing of
the New York BPP.

On September 8, 1968, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover
designated the BPP as "the greatest threat to the
internal security of the country.” Hoover's pro-
nouncement signaled an intensified counterinsur-
gency campaign to destroy the BPP. In his study
on police repression, Frank Donner classified 1969
as the "year of the Panther.” That year alone, po-
lice conducted over thirteen raids on BPP offices
across the United States. Due to the counterin-
surgency campaign waged by the US government
on the BPP, Donner states that by the end of 1969,
"it was estimated 30 Panthers were facing capital
punishment, 40 faced life in prison, 55 faced terms
up to thirty years, and another 155 were in jail or
being sought.” In December of 1969 predawn po-
lice raids on the BPP in Los Angeles and in Chicago
(in which Fred Hampton and Mark Clark were mur-
dered) are distinguished in terms of their impact
on the national Black liberation movement.

The increased repression enhanced the impor-
tance of ji Jaga in the BPP: First, the increased re-
pression made underground organization more
necessary. Panthers who faced charges needed

16
The PANTHER SPLIT and the BLACK LIBERATION ARMY

refuge in the clandestine network. Those wound-
ed in battles with police often needed care from
the underground medical cadre. Geronimo's status
as a nationally known BPP leader was also well es-
tablished after the vigilant defense of the primary
office of BPP in Los Angeles. The Los Angeles BPP
office, mainly staffed by teenagers, was able to sur-
vive a five-hour predawn police attack that includ-
ed the use of SWAT forces and the detonation of
abomb on the Los Angeles Panther headquarters.
While ji Jaga was not present during the raid, the
preparations and military training provided by him
were decisive to the survival of his comrades. After
the defense of the Los Angeles Panther headquar-
ters, the Black Panther hailed ji Jaga as the "es-
sence of a Panther.”

Upon his release from prison in 1970, Huey New-
ton inherited a national military force that had been
primarily developed during his imprisonment. The
military development of the BPP paralleled the tre-
mendous increase in the size of the membership,
the transition from a local organization to a national
movement,and the recent national and internation-
al status of the BPP since the arrest and incarcer-
ation of Newton in October of 1967. While the BPP
always envisioned an underground military wing
to complement its underground activities, Newton
was uncomfortable with the military development
of the BPP. The rapidly expanded clandestine mili-
tary wing of the BPP had been primarily organized

7
REPRESSION BREEDS RESISTANCE

by ji Jaga. While ji Jaga was trusted by other BPP
leaders and rank-and-file cadres throughout North
America, Newton became very insecure about his
presence. Newton did not trust and did not include
in his circle key Panther members he did not know
prior to his incarceration in 1967. In due time, gov-
emment operatives and ambitious BPP members
convinced Newton that ji Jaga was a threat to his
leadership and the party. While the overwhelming
repression of the BPP contributed to Newton’s de-
cision to move away from his original positions on
armed struggle, his fear of ji Jaga and the develop-
ing BPP military apparatus must also be taken into
consideration. Significantly, the cleavage between
Newton and the BPP military played a central role
in what has come to be known as the split in the
Black Panther Party.

The Panther Splitand the Black Libs

ation Army

The question of armed struggle and the role of the
underground were critical in the BPP split of 1971. 1t
is acknowledged fact that the divide-and-conquer
tactics of the FBI were central to the division with-
in the leadership and rank-and-file of the Party.
The FBI and other government counterinsurgency
forces played on internal tensions and developing
ideological differences to encourage the BPP split.
The infiuence of counterinsurgency efforts must be
taken into account when examining the ideologi-
cal tensions in the BPP. Operatives were instructed

18
The PANTHER SPLIT and the BLACK LIBERATION ARMY

to manipulate ideological differences and exploit
insecurities within the organization. These coun-
terinsurgency efforts created an environment that
made resolving internal contradictions within the
BPP virtually impossible.

The major ideological conffict was over the ques-
tion of armed struggle. Newton and Party Chief of
Staff David Hilliard were perceived by radical forc-
es in the Party as moving away from their original
support for the development of an armed clandes-
tine vanguard at the very moment when repression
was forcing members of the Party underground.
As early as 1969, the national leadership had ini-
tiated a policy to expel those members involved in
“unauthorized” military and clandestine activity.
simultaneously, the increased political repression
of the Black liberation movement, and particularly
the BPP,convinced many it was time to develop the
underground vanguard. In the face of an intense
counterinsurgency campaign and court cases,
many Panthers concluded it was better to strug-
gle in clandestinely than spend years incarcerated.
Panthers’ lack of trust in receiving justice in Amer-
ican courts was well founded. In 1970, even Yale
University president Kingman Brewster publicly
questioned "the ability of Black revolutionaries to
achieve a fair trial anywhere in the United States.”
Due to the new policy of the BPP national hierarchy
against clandestine activity, Panthers going under-
ground to avoid state repression were placed in a

19
REPRESSION BREEDS RESISTANCE

precarious position.

The BPP split was the result of a series of "purges”
of collectives and groups within the BPP, culminat-
ing with the expulsion of leading Central Commit-
tee members by Huey Newton. The turning point
was the expulsion of Geronimo ji Jaga. In August of
1970, ji Jaga had gone underground to further de-
velop the BLA. Based upon his assessment of the
counterinsurgency assault on the Black liberation
movement, ji Jaga concluded that the "establish-
ment of querrilla bases” was "an integral necessary
part of the overall freedom movement.” His strat-
egy was to strengthen the revolutionary nation-
alist clandestine network in urban and rural areas
throughout the United States, particularly in the
historic Black belt in the Southeast. Ji Jaga and his
comrades Will Stanford, Will "Crutch” Holiday, and
George Lloyd were arrested in Dallas, Texas on De-
cember 8, 1970. At another location in Dallas later
the same day, BPP member Melvin "Cotton” Smith
(later identified as a police informant) was also
arrested. Smith had been sent to Dallas by Huey
Newton and Elaine Brown to meet with ji Jaga. After
the arrests, Newton was encouraged by members
of his inner circle who were opposed to ji Jaga’s
influence and by secret operatives of governmen-
tal counterinsurgency campaigns to expel ji Jaga.
In January of 1971 Newton publicly denounced ji
Jaga, his wife Nsondi ji Jaga (Sandra Pratt), and
their comrades and co-defendants Stanford, Holi-

20
The PANTHER SPLIT and the BLACK LIBERATION ARMY

day, and Lloyd for exhibiting "counterrevolutionary
behavior.” A directive carrying Newton’s name but
written by Brown (at that time part of Newton’s in-
ner circle) stated, "Any Party member who attempts
to aid them or communicate with them in any form
or manner shall help to undermine and destroy the
Black Panther Party.” Newton's directive also im-
plied ji Jaga was a government operative loyal to
the CIA. Referring to ji Jaga's involvement in the
US Army's Special Forces prior to joining the Pan-
thers, the Oakland BPP's leader concluded, "He is
as dedicated to that Pig Agency as he was in Viet-
nam.” Needless to say, this attack caused major di-
vision and confusion in the BPP.

During the weeks following the suspension of ji
Jaga, tensions increased between the New York
chapter of the BPP and Newton and his followers,
in part because of an intensive counterinsurgency
campaign by the FBI. The tensions became public
after an open letter from incarcerated leaders and
members of the New York chapter (aka the Panther
21) to the Weather Underground, a white American
left clandestine organization. The "Weathermen”
had engaged in bombing of political targets primar-
ily concerning the Vietnam War and had officially
recognized the BPP as the vanguard of the revo-
lution in North America. The Panther 21 letter pro-
claimed the Weathermen as part of the vanguard
of the revolutionary movement inside the United
States while criticizing the national leadership of

21
REPRESSION BREEDS RESISTANCE

the BPP. In their letter of support to the Weather
Underground, the Panther 21 stated, "We feel an
unrighteous act has been done to you by the self
proclaimed 'vanguard’ parties by their obvious ne-
glect in not openly supporting you.... But they have
ignored us also.... these ‘omnipotent” parties are
throwing seeds of confusion, escapism, and have
lost much of their momentum by bad tactics.” The
Panther 21 sentiments refiected the views of many
members who believed it was necessary to respond
to state repression by strengthening the armed
clandestine capacity of the BPP,not abandoning it.
The incarcerated New York Panthers called for an
underground guerilla offensive because “racism,
colonialism, sexism and all other pig ‘isms'... can
only be ended by revolution.... ARMED STRUGGLE.”
They believed the Weather Underground was going
in the direction that the BPP should take. For their
open letter, the Panther 21 were expelled by the
national leadership. Remaining Panthers struggled
to maintain peace in the BPP and negotiate be-
tween the national leadership in Oakland and the
New York 21. Recognizing the confusion created by
the expulsions of ji Jaga and the New York 21, the
FBI determined to "more fully exploit” the ideolog-
ical and factional differences in the BPP. On Janu-
ary 28, 1971, FBI offices in Boston, New York, San
Francisco, and Los Angeles received the following
message from headquarters: "The present chaot-
ic situation within the BPP must be exploited and
receipts must maintain a high level of counter-in-

22
The PANTHER SPLIT and the BLACK LIBERATION ARMY

telligence activity. You should each give this matter
high priority attention and immediately furnish the
Bureau recommendations... designated to further
aggravate the dissension within BPP leadership.” It
is important to note that the inability of BPP leader-
ship to transcend their ideological differences was
magnified through the divide-and-conquer tactics
of a counterinsurgency campaign that manipulated
the insecurities of key Panther leaders.

On February 13, 1971, New York Panthers Michael
Tabor and Dhoruba Bin Wahad (aka Richard Moore)
and Newton’s personal secretary Connie Matthews
were expelled after they went underground. Later
that month, Panthers from northeastern chapters
called a press conference in Harlem calling for the
expulsion of Newton and Hilliard. The East Coast
Panthers recognized BPP national leaders Eldridge
Cleaver, Kathleen Cleaver, Donald Cox, and Bobby
Seale as the legitimate national leadership of the
BPP. At the time, the Cleavers and Cox were po-
litical exiles in Algeria, and Seale was incarcerat-
ed in Connecticut. New York would become the
headquarters for this faction of the BPP. After the
split, the East Coast Black Panther Party became
the aboveground apparatus of BPP members who
joined the BLA. From their New York headquarters
the East Coast BPP put out their newspaper Right
on, which became a public organ of the armed
movement. Through the Right On! newspaper, in-
structions on guerrilla warfare, news about airline

2
REPRESSION BREEDS RESISTANCE

hijackings and other military actions were dissem-
inated.

After the expulsions of ji Jaga and key members
of the Los Angeles and New York Panthers, exiled
BPP members in Algeria entered the fray. One crit-
ical objective of the US government’s counterin-
surgency program was to create a split between
Newton and Eldridge Cleaver, head of the Interna-
tional Section of the BPP. The members of the In-
ternational Section were deeply concerned about
the expulsions of ji Jaga and the Panthers in Los
Angeles and New York, believing these actions
represented the ascendancy of authoritarian rule
by Newton and Hilliard. Particularly after the expul-
sion of ji Jaga, Cleaver appealed to Newton and Hil-
liard from Algiers to no avail. The International Sec-
tion was also concerned with the lack of support
for BPP members and supporters engaged in acts
of armed resistance. On February 26,1971 Newton
arranged a telephone conversation with Cleaver
on a San Francisco television show, intending to
demonstrate the unity of the two most visible BPP
leaders, in spite of the expulsions of Los Angeles
and New York Panthers. At the end of the televised
conversation, Cleaver called for the reinstatement
of the expelled Panthers in New York and Los Ange-
les and the resignation of BPP Chief of Staff David
Hilliard. After the television program, Newton called
the BPP international office in Algiers and expelled
the entire International Section. Supporting the

24
The PANTHER SPLIT and the BLACK LIBERATION ARMY

sentiment of expelled Panthers in Los Angeles and
New York, the International Section saw the radical
elements of the organization as the "true” Black
Panther Party, and criticized Hilliard and Newton
because they had "consciously set about to de-
stroy the underground.” Given the repression of
the BPP and the Black liberation movement, the
exiled Panthers centered in Algeria believed it was
“necessary... to advance the armed struggle... We
need a people’s army and the Black Panther van-
quard will bring that about.” The International Sec-
tion and the BPP factions centered in New York and
Los Angeles all aligned around a more radical pro-
armed struggle position than did Newton and the
Oakland-based BPP. The radical BPP no longer rec-
ognized Newton and the Oakland-based Panthers
as arevolutionary organization but considered it an
opportunist right-wing clique, the "Peralta street
gang” (after the street where the Newton-led BPP
was located in Oakland).

Ignoring his previous position, Newton would
blame the infiuence of Cleaver for the develop-
ment of pro-armed struggle currents in the BPP.
Newton argued that Cleaver's influence overem-
phasized the "gun” and moved the BPP into mili-
tary action without the support of the community.
As Newton's Oakland-based leadership moved in
a more reformist direction, some forces support-
ing the development of an underground military
presence maintained loyalty to the Oakland-based

25
REPRESSION BREEDS RESISTANCE

BPP. Within the California prison system, BPP Field
Marshal George Jackson attempted to transform
incarcerated Black men into revolutionary soldiers.
Jackson's published prison letters reveal his desire
to develop a clandestine army to defend and com-
plement the activity of the aboveground Black Pan-
ther Party under Newton's leadership. The murder
of Jackson on August 21,1971,and the disruption of
his recruits by government forces would eliminate
this potential clandestine army for the BPP.

While they did not engage in revolutionary violence,
Newton and his cohorts did see the need for a mil-
itary group. In 1972 the Oakland-based BPP creat-
ed a security force (aka "the squad”) to protect its
leadership. In time Newton would use the securi-
ty force as his personal "goon squad” to maintain
internal discipline and to pressure local enterpris-
es to contribute to the BPP. Newton envisioned
controlling legal and illegal activity in Oakland.
While the BPP became involved in local electoral
campaigns, the military elements loyal to Newton
struggled for control of drugs and prostitution in
Oakland. Increasingly, Newton's squad would be
used for intimidation and criminal activity.

In response to the development of the split with-
in the BPP, US government counterinsurgency op-
eratives employed a carrot-and-stick strategy in
dealing with both factions of the BPP. As the Oak-
land-based BPP moved in a more reformist direc-

26
REPRESSION of the EAST COAST PANTHERS
and the BLACK PANTHER PARTY

tion, the harassment, government-sponsored mili-
tary raids, and political internment subsided. Within
four years the Oakland-based BPP, then under the
leadership of Elaine Brown, would receive federal
and foundation funding. In 1976 Brown served as
a delegate to the National Democratic Convention.
Panther members and supporters associated with
the radical BPP factions, however, found them-
selves under greater surveillance and harassment
by federal and local police. As a result, the abo-
veground radical BPP factions were generally re-
duced to being defense committees for captured
BLA comrades or as a support and propaganda
mechanism for the underground. By 1975, within
four years of the split, the radical factions had no
visible aboveground presence.

Repression of the East Coast Panthers
and the Black Panther Party

The BLA saw its purpose as to "defend Black peo-
ple, to fight for Black people, and to organize Black
people militarily, so they can defend themselves
through a people’s army and people’s war.” Within
the context of the Black community, the BLA waged
acampaign to eliminate and sanction internal ene-
mies, including thieves and drug peddlers. In New
York, the BLA initiated a campaign called "Deal with
the Dealer” to make it "difficult” and "unhealthy”
for drug peddlers to traffic in Black communities.
BLA units would identify the "hangouts” of prom-

27
REPRESSION BREEDS RESISTANCE

inent drug merchants and drug-processing facil-
ities and raid them. In some cases, drug dealers
were physically attacked and even killed. Both As-
sata Shakur and H. Rap Brown (aka Jamil Al-Amin)
were involved n trials related to Black underground
attacks on drug activity in the Black community.

BLA members also waged a "defensive/offensive”
campaign against police. Between 1971 and 1973,
nearly 1,000 Black people were killed by American
police. Of particular concern to the BLA were the
murders of Black teenagers and children at the
hands of police officers. These killings included
sixteen-year-old Rita Lloyd in New Jersey as well
as eleven-year-old Rickie Bolden and ten-year-
old Clifford Glover in New York City. BLA members
saw themselves coming to the defense of an op-
pressed and colonized people that were victims of
a genocidal war. American police were seen as the
occupation army of the colonized Black nation and
the primary agents of Black genocide. So the BLA
believed it had to "defend” Black people and the
Black liberation movement in an offensive manner
by using retaliatory violence against the agents of
genocide in the Black community. In the two years
after the BPP split, the US government attributed
the deaths of twenty police officers to the Black
Liberation Army.

In 1971 the BLA response to police repression and
violence was bold and intense. On May 19, 1971

28
ON of the EAST COAST PANTHERS
d the BLACK PANTHER PARTY

(the forty-sixth birthday of Malcolm X), the BLA
claimed responsibility for the shooting of two New
York police guarding the home of Frank Hogan, the
New York district attorney in charge of prosecut-
ing the New York Panther 21. Two days later, two
New York police officers were killed in an ambush
by BLA members. BLA activity was not confined to
New York. In August 1971 BLA soldiers carried out
several actions in San Francisco, including an at-
tack on two San Francisco police stations and one
police car that resulted in the death of one police
officer and the wounding of several others. These
actions and others were in retaliation for the shoot-
ing and death of incarcerated Black revolutionary
and BPP Field Marshal George Jackson on August
21,1971, and the FBI and Mississippi police raid on
the headquarters of the Provisional Government of
the Republic of New Afrika on August 18, 1971. On
November 3, 1971, police also suspected the BLA
of shooting a police officer in Atlanta, Georgia. On
December 21 of the same year, police accused BLA
combatants of participation in a grenade attack on
a police car in Atlanta, resulting in injuries to two
police officers.

In response to these and other actions claimed
by the Black Liberation Army, the FBI initiated new
counterinsurgency campaigns. One campaign in
particular was "NEWKILL” organized to inves-
tigate New York police killings for which the BLA
claimed responsibility or were suspected. NEWK-

29
REPRESSION BREEDS RESISTANCE

ILL would signal greater repression of East Coast
Panthers and their associates, allies, and support-
ers. In an FBI memorandum concerning NEWKILL, J.
Edgar Hoover stated, "The Newkill cases and other
terrorist acts have demonstrated that in many in-
stances those involved in these acts are individ-
uals who cannot be identified as members of an
extremist group.... They are frequently supporters,
community workers, or people who hang around
the headquarters of the extremist group or associ-
ate with members of the group. As part of its cam-
paign against the BLA, the FBI's domestic intelli-
gence division (aka Division Five) ordered its field
officers to detain East Coast Panthers and other
Black revolutionaries and to document the identi-
ties of "supporters and affiliates of these groups
with your file numbers on each....If you have nofile,
open files.” The selected targeting of East Coast
Panthers and affiliated radical organizations and
supporters forced even more Black revolutionaries
underground.

The FBI and local police also initiated a nation-
al search-and-destroy mission for suspected BLA
members, collaborating in stakeouts that were
the products of intensive political repression and
counterintelligence campaigns like NEWKILL. On
May 3,1973, BLA members Zayd Shakur, Sundiata
Acoli (Clark Squire), and Assata Shakur (Joanne
Chesimard) were stopped by New Jersey police on
the New Jersey Turnpike. A shootout ensued, and
ON of the EAST COAST PANTHERS
d the BLACK PANTHER PARTY

when the smoke cleared, one of the police officers
and Zayd Shakur were dead, and Assata Shakur
was severely wounded. After a "massive manhunt,”
Acoli was captured days later in New Brunswick,
New Jersey. Police hailed the capture of Assata
Shakur, calling her the "black Joan of Arc” and the
“high priestess” and "the soul” of the "cop-hating
BLA.” The FBI and the New York and New Jersey
police attempted to tie Assata to every suspected
action of the BLA involving a woman. Shakur and
her legal defense were able to win acquittals on all
charges for incidents prior to the shootout on the
New Jersey Turnpike. Shakur and Acoli were both
convicted by all-white juries (in separate trials) for
the murder of the New Jersey state trooper and of
Zayd Shakur, and sentenced by New Jersey judges
to life plus thirty years. No evidence was ever pre-
sented to confirm that Assata ever fired or handled
a weapon during the 1973 shootout. Indeed, evi-
dence was presented proving she was shot twice
in the back while her hands were up in the air in a
position of surrender.

On November 14,1973 BLA member Twyman Mey-
ers was ambushed by a joint force of FBI agents
and New York police in the Bronx. As Meyers was
leaving a Bronx apartment, he was surrounded by
dozens of police. Meyers responded with gunfire,
and a firefight ensued between the twenty-three-
year-old Black revolutionary and the New York po-
lice and FBI. According to witnesses, Meyers ran

31
REPRESSION BREEDS RESISTANCE

out of ammunition and was then killed by police.
With the death of Meyers, New York Police Com-
missioner Donald Cawley announced that the cam-
paign of the FBI and local police had "broken the
back” of the Black Liberation Army. Between 1971
and 1973, police claimed responsibility for the
deaths of seven suspected BLA members and the
capture of eighteen others believed to be "key fig-
ures in the movement.”

Ideol

nd Consolidation

In the face of the capture and murder of its com-
rades, the BLA had to reevaluate its position. A BLA
communiqué issued in 1975 details the deaths and
capture of BLA combatants from 1971 to 1975.

With the deaths of Woody and Kimu we launched
assaults against the police that set them on edge;
their counter-attack saw us at the end of 1973
with four dead, over twenty comrades imprisoned
in New York alone. In New Orleans, Los Angeles,
and Georgia, BLA members were taken prisoner by
Federal agents working with local police to crush
the BLA. 1974 found the guns of the BLA quiet until
April, when with so many comrades imprisoned we
assaulted the Tombs in an effort to liberate some
comrades; the attempt was unsuccessful; and two
weeks later found three more comrades captured
in Connecticut. While our ranks outside were be-
ing diminished, our ranks inside started to grow.

32
IDECLOGY AND CONSOLIDATION

Within the prisons themselves comrades launched
numerous assaults and attempt escapes on a reg-
ular basis. Before 74 was over, another comrade
was shot and captured, victim of an informant. Now
in the third month of 1975 we have one dead, two
captured in Virginia, and another escape attempt
in New York.

The above quote was part of an assessment done
in 1975 by captured BLA militants, titled "Looking
Back,” in which the BLA reviewed its successes
and defeats. Part of their assessment was that "we
[the BLA] lacked a strong ideological base and po-
litical base.” In spite of its losses, BLA members
decided to assert themselves as a political force.
In the same year, incarcerated BLA members and
some of their supporters on the streets attempted
to consolidate the ranks of the movement under a
central command, the BLA Coordinating Commit-
tee (BLA-CC). "Get Organized and Consolidate to
Liberate” was among the primary slogans of the
BLA-CC, which published and distributed the polit-
ical document "A Message to the Black Movement”
to win support for the concept of armed struggle
and expand its political base. The BLA-CC also be-
gan to circulate a newsletter within the penitentia-
ries and movement circles to create dialogue and
ideological unity within the BLA.

Some BLA members began to unite with the politi-
cal objective of the Provisional Government of the
REPRESSION BREEDS RESISTANCE

Republic of New Afrika (PGRNA). (The RNA was a
movement initiated by 500 Black nationalists at the
Black Government Conference in Detroit in March
1968. The participants in this conference declared
their independence from the US government and
called for a Black nation-state to be formed in the
southern states of Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama,
Georgia, and South Carolina. This new nation state
would be called New Afrika.) The New York branch
of the PGRNA and the radical New York chapter of
the BPP developed a close working relationship
that included selling each other's newspapers and
jointly organizing forums and rallies, particularly
around the issue of political prisoners. Some New
York Panthers began to identify themselves as cit-
izens of the Republic of New Afrika and pledged
their loyalty to the PGRNA. Captured Black Libera-
tion Army members also began to support the New
Afrikan independence movement. In January 1975,
two captured BLA members declared they were
citizens of the RNA and that American courts had
no jurisdiction over them. Their positions and the
statements of others represented a clear ideologi-
cal trend developing within the ranks of BLA fight-
ers.

The adoption of a nationalist perspective by BPP
members who joined the BLA should not come as a
surprise. Besides the role of the underground and
armed struggle, another underlying ideological is-
sue in the BPP split was the issue of nationalism.

34
IDECLOGY AND CONSOLIDATION

At its inception, the BPP described its ideology
as revolutionary nationalism. The BPP saw people
of African descent in the United States as a colo-
nized nation. In 1968, the BPP demanded a Unit-
ed Nations supervised plebiscite to determine the
political destiny of the colonized Black nation. One
cause of tension between the New York BPP chap-
ter and the national leadership based in Oakland
was the issue of nationalism: As noted earlier, the
Oakland-based leadership had a history of conflict
with nationalist organizations, like RAM, while the
New York BPP enjoyed cooperative working re-
lationships with Black nationalists. After leaving
prison in 1970, Newton began to distance himself
from the plebiscite demand. In his philosophy of
intercommunalism, articulated in early 1971, New-
ton argued that nations and struggles for national
self-determination were no longer relevant. Many
Panthers in New York disagreed with Newton's
ideological shift away from Black Nationalism. New
York Panther Assata Shakur commented, "Political-
Iy, I was not at all happy with the direction of the
Party. Huey went on a nationwide tour advocating
his new theory of intercommunality. The essence
of his theory was that imperialism had reached a
degree that sovereign borders were no longer rec-
ognized and the oppressed nations no longer ex-
isted, only oppressed communities. The only prob-
lem was that somebody forgot to tell oppressed
communities that they were no longer nations.
Even worse, almost no one understood Huey's

35
REPRESSION BREEDS RESISTANCE

long speeches on intercommunalism.” After the
split, New York Panthers and Panthers in the BLA
maintained their radical nationalist viewpoints. For
many BPP and BLA members, support for the ob-
jective of an independent Republic of New Afrika
was a logical conclusion.

The BLAis Not Dead: The Liberation of Assata

On November 2, 1979, members of the BLA con-
ducted an armed action at Clinton Correctional
Institution for Women in New Jersey, resulting in
the escape of Assata Shakur. Prison authorities de-
scribed the action as "well planned and arranged.”
Three days later on Black Solidarity Day in New
York, a demonstration of 5,000 marched from Har-
lem to the United Nations Building under the slogan
of "Human Rights and Self-Determination for the
Black Nation.” Hundreds of the marchers carried
signs stating, "Assata Shakur Is Welcome Here” At
the rally that day, blocks away from the United Na-
tions Building, a statement was read from the BLA:
"Comrade-Sister Assata Shakur was freed from
racist captivity in anticipation of Black Solidarity
Day, November 5th, iK in order to express to the
world the need to Free All Black Prisoners is of fun-
damental importance to protection of Black Human
Rights in general.... In freeing Comrade-Sister As-
sata we have made it clear that such treatment and
the criminal ‘quilt’ or innocence of a Black freedom
fighter is irrelevant when measured by our people’s

36
THE BLAIS NOT DEAD: THE LIBERATION OF £

history of struggle against racist domination.”

A statement written by Assata a few days prior to
her liberation from the Clinton state prison was
also circulated at the rally. Assata’s statement con-
demned US prison conditions and called for free-
dom for political prisoners, support for human rights
and an independent New Afrikan nation-state. De-
spite the boasts of the FBI and police of "breaking
the back” of the BLA six years prior, the BLA had
certainly achieved a victory; one of its most sought
after and well known members had escaped cap-
tivity through the actions of her comrades. Despite
the casualties suffered from 1971 to 1975, the BLA
was not dead.

Assata's liberation was hailed by the activist and
progressive elements in the national Black com-
munity as a heroic event. In December of 1979 the
Amsterdam News, a New York-based, Black-owned
newspaper, published an article, "Run Hard Sister,
Run Hard,” by the Reverend Herbert Daughtry, the
leader of the National Black United Front. Daughtry
applauded the BLA soldiers who participated in the
freeing of their sister comrade, stating, "They say
three brave brothers and a sister went to fetch As-
sata from the cold confines... where she had been
held fast against her will.... Who the four were, | do
know not. But, every Black person knows them and
has met them in the collective unconscious mind
of the race. Their heroic deed will be told and re-

REPRESSION BREEDS RESISTANCE

told around a million years to come... where Black
people gather to reminisce about heroes and hero-
ines, great acts of courage and daring deeds, their
exploits will be remembered.” In January 1980,
supporters of Shakur also placed a half-page ad-
vertisement in the Amsterdam News proclaiming
support for the fugitive Black revolutionary. The
ad, entitled "Peace to Assata Shakur (aka Joanne
Chesimard),” urged Shakur to "stay strong and
free” and offered her moral support.

The liberation of Assata alsoled to a renewied cam-
paign of repression by federal and state police
agencies. One week after the liberation of Assata,
a joint FBI and New York police force raided the
home of New York Panther Sekou Hill, a friend of
Shakur, who was arrested and held without bond
for three weeks. Evidence produced at Hill's bail
hearing proved that he was in Brooklyn at the time
of Assata’s escape. Hill was released, and eventu-
ally charges were dropped.

On April 19, 1980, fifty armed federal agents en-
gaged in a predawn raid of a Harlem apartment
complex. Police ransacked the homes of residents
in an apparent search for Shakur. Without warrants,
police forced their way into residences, breaking
down doors, detaining residents, and searching
through personal items. One resident, Ebun Ade-
lona, a doctoral student at Columbia University,
was awakened by police, with guns pointing in her

38
THE BLAIS NOT DEAD: THE LIBERATION OF ASSATA

face, and forced into the hallway of the complex.
The police "suspected” that Adelona was Shakur.
In the hallway, federal agents demanded she raise
up her nightgown so they could search her body
for gun shot wounds. In the summer of 1980, fed-
eral agents and local police maintained intense
surveillance of a Brooklyn community center called
“the Armory.” which housed several grassroots
programs including Uhuru Sasa (Kiswahili for Free-
dom Now) school, one of the premier Black Na-
tionalist freedom schools in the United States. Due
to its long history and community support, police
officials were hesitant about raiding the Armory.
To collaborate more efficiently, the FBI and New
York police decided to form the Joint Terrorist Task
Force (JTTF), which would serve as the coordinat-
ing body in the search for Assata and the renewed
campaign to smash the BLA.

In the midst of the JTTF campaign to capture As-
sata, during November 1980, the hunted BLA sol-
dier herself released a taped message from clan-
destinity. This message was played at community
programs and grassroots public affairs radio shows
across the United States. Titled "From Somewhere
in the World,” it detailed acts of white supremacist
violence that had occurred in the United States in
1979 and 1980. Due to those acts of violence, As-
sata concluded, "Our backs are up against the wall
and more than any time of our history... of being
captives in America, we need an army... to defend

39
REPRESSION BREEDS RESISTANCE

ourselves and to fight for our liberation.” She also
thanked "the many sisters and brothers who have
opened their doors” to her after her liberation from
captivity. She described those who offered refuge
to her as part of the "underground railroad.”

In response to the new wave of repression, Black
activists organized a campaign to challenge the
JTTF's counterinsurgency efforts and win support
for the Black underground, particularly for Assata
Shakur. On July 18, 1981, the National Committee
to Honor New Afrikan Freedom Fighters mobilized
1,000 people for the first New Afrikan Freedom
Fighters Day, to honor Assata Shakur and the Black
Liberation Army. Throughout Black sections of New
York, "Assata Shakur is Welcome Here” posters
were plastered i visible outdoor spaces and hung
in homes.

The Revitalization of the Armed Strug

On October 20, 1981, an incident occurred that
would eventually reveal that there had been a sig-
nificant resurgence of BLA activity within four years
of police claims of the revolutionary organization’s
demise. Three white revolutionaries "C Judy Clark,
David Gilbert, and Kathy Boudin "C and one Black
man with radical associations, Solomon Brown,
were arrested in the aftermath of an attempted
holdup of a Brinks armored truck and a subsequent
shootout at a police roadblock in Rockland County,

40
The REVITALIZATION of the ARMED STRUGGLE

New York. Several Black men escaped the scene
of the shootout. The holdup and shootout result-
ed in the death of one Brinks guard and two po-
lice officers. The JTTF immediately followed a trail
of physical evidence that led them to members of
the Black underground. On October 23, 1981, in the
Queens section of New York City, police pursued
two Black men they suspected of being involved
in the Rockland holdup. A shootout between the
police and the Black men ensued, resulting in the
death of one of the men, Mtayari Shabaka Sundiata,
and the capture of the other, Sekou Odinga. Odin-
ga, the former Bronx BPP section leader, had been
a fugitive since January 1969 on charges related
to the New York Panther 21 case. After his capture,
Odinga was taken to a police precinct where he was
tortured to extract information from him concern-
ing the Black underground and the whereabouts
of Assata Shakur. Police beat and kicked Odinga,
burned his body with cigars, removed toenails from
his body, and forced his head into a toilet bowl full
of urine, repeatedly flushing the toilet. Throughout
the torture, Odinga defiantly remained silent. As
result of this brutality, Odinga’s pancreas was se-
verely damaged, and the Black revolutionary had to
be fed intravenously for three months.

In the days, weeks, and months following Odin-
ga's capture several others, including many former
members of Panther chapters, were arrested by
the JTTF, and others were forced underground. By

41
REPRESSION BREEDS RESISTANCE

the end of November 1982, several members of the
New York Panther chapter, including Kuwasi Bala-
goon, Abdul Majid, Jamal Joseph, Bilal Sunni Ali,
and New Jersey Panther Basheer Hameed, were all
captured and charged with acts linked either to the
events on October 20,1981, in Rockland County o
to other expropriations and suspected BLA activi-
ty. Members of the Provisional Government of the
Republic of New Afrika, including Mutulu Shakur,
Nehanda Abiodun, and Fulani Sunni Ali were also
charged with acts related to BLA activity. Abiodun
was forced underground and surfaced in Cuba in
1994. The Cuban government granted Abiodun
political asylum. Criminal charges were dropped
against Fulani Sunni Ali when it was proved she
was in New Orleans during the October 20, 1981,
incident in Rockland. Even after being cleared of
criminal charges, Sunni Ali and several others were
interned in a federal prison for refusing to testify to
afederal grand jury investigating their friends and
comrades in the movement. Besides Clark, Gilbert,
and Boudin, other whites were subsequently arrest-
ed and charged, including Silvia Baraldini and Mar-
ilyn Buck. Baraldini, an Italian national, was active
in solidarity efforts among white anti-imperialists
with the New Afrikan and Puerto Rican movements.
Buck had been underground since 1977, and she
was charged and convicted of purchasing ammu-
nition for BLA members. Many other white anti-im-
perialists were also interned by the federal grand
jury for refusing to testify against the BLA and the

2
The REVITALIZATION of the ARMED STRUGGLE

New Afrikan and anti-imperialist movement.

On November 5, 1981, members of the Black Liber-
ation Army issued a communiqué to put into politi-
cal context the events in Rockland County and the
subsequent arrests. The October 20, 1981, holdup
was described as an "expropriation,” the seizure
of property by political or military forces. One BLA
member defined expropriation as "when an op-
pressed person or political person moves to take
back some of the wealth that's been exploited from
him o taken from them.” The BLA communiqué
stated that the attempted expropriation was the re-
sponsibility of the Revolutionary Armed Task Force
(RATF), a "strategic alliance... under the leadership
of the Black Liberation Army” of "Black Freedom
Fighters and North American [white] Anti-Imperial-
ists.” The whites in the RATF not only participated
in armed actions but also infiltrated right wing and
white supremacist organizations to gain informa-
tion for the BLA. This alliance was racially diverse
and politically diverse; the RATF included under-
ground fighters who identified themselves as rev-
olutionary nationalist, Muslim, anarchist, or com-
munist under the leadership of clandestine forces
from the New Afrikan Independence Movement
(NAIM). This ideologically diverse alliance came to-
gether in response to an escalation of acts of white
supremacist violence in the United States during
the late 1970s and early 1980s, including the mur-
ders of Black children in Atlanta and of Black wom-

43
REPRESSION BREEDS RESISTANCE

en in Boston, the shooting of four Black women in
Alabama, and the acceleration of paramilitary ac-
tivity by the Ku Klux Klan and other white suprem-
acist organizations. According to the communiqué,
the RATF initiated a "decentralized intelligence
strategy” to establish the strength and capability
of white supremacist paramilitary forces and their
networks, which extended into the US military as
well as federal, state, and local police forces. The
RATF believed this white supremacist upsurge was
connected to right wing and pro-fascist financial
and political elites. Through expropriations from
American capitalist financial institutions, the RATF
hoped to acquire the resources needed to sup-
port a resistance movement to oppose the right-
wing, white supremacist upsurge; they planned to
“accumulate millions of dollars under the political
control of iK revolutionary elements” to establish
self-defense units and community cultural, health,
and educational institutions in Black communities
throughout the United States. Due to the political
character of the actions of the RATF, the commu-
niqué stated, "the comrades who are in jail are not
criminals. They are Prisoners of War.... They are
heroes struggling against RACISM, FASCISM, AND
IMPERIALISM.” Supporters of the defendants in
these cases argued that proceeds from the expro-
priations were being used for "the maintenance of
the Army and certain other causes.” These causes
included grassroots youth and, community health
programs and political mobilizations. Movement

4
The REVITALIZATION of the ARMED STRUGGLE

literature also stated that proceeds were contrib-
uted to Afrikan liberation movements, particularly
the struggle against settler colonial rule in Zimba-
bwe.

The JTTF and federal prosecutors determined that
the Rockland County incident was one of several
expropriations by the BLA and its white allies from
1976 until December 1981. Besides bringing New
York State criminal charges related to the RATF ex-
propriation in Rockland County, federal prosecu-
tors charged several captured revolutionaries and
political activists with RICO (Racketeer-Infiuenced
Corrupt Organization) act conspiracy charges orig-
inally designed for the Mafia and other criminal
organizations. Charges related to the liberation of
Assata Shakur and the providing of refuge to BLA
and the RATF were also linked to RICO conspiracy
charges.

While not pleading guilty to participation in any
particular act, in their legal defense, Sekou Odinga
and Mutulu Shakur (in two separate trials) argued
that the acts of the BLA and RATF, including expro-
priations and the liberating of Assata Shakur, were
political acts, not criminal offenses. Since the BLA
units Involved in the RATF were committed to fight-
ing for an independent New Afrikan nation, Odin-
gaand Shakur argued these acts were actions of a
national liberation movement. The two New Afrikan
liberation fighters and their legal defense teams

45
REPRESSION BREEDS RESISTANCE

argued that under international law, these actions
of combatants of a national liberation movement
should be tried by an international tribunal, not by
domestic criminal courts.

The investigations of the JTTF led to three sep-
arate trials. Balagoon, Clark, Boudin, and Gilbert
were convicted by a Rockland County jury on mur-
der and armed robbery charges for the October
20,1981, expropriation by the RATF. Federal pros-
ecutors held two federal RICO conspiracy trials. In
the first, the defendants were charged with twen-
ty-eight counts of criminal conduct. After a five-
month trial, a jury of eight Blacks and four whites
returned not guilty verdicts on twenty-two of the
twenty-eight counts. Bilal Sunni Ali was acquitted
of all charges in the RICO conspiracy case. In the
same case, Joseph and former PGRNA worker Chui
Ferguson were acquitted of racketeering conspir-
acy, murder, and robbery charges but convicted of
acting as accessories, and Odinga and Baraldini
were acquitted of robbery and murder but convict-
ed of racketeering and racketeering conspiracy.
Federal judge Kevin Duffy sentenced Odinga and
Baraldini to forty-year terms. In the second RICO
trial, Marilyn Buck and Mutulu Shakur, captured in
1985 and 1986 respectively, were convicted of fed-
eral racketeering conspiracy, murder, and armed
robbery. New York federal judge Charles Haight
sentenced Buck and Shakur to fifty and sixty years
respectively.

46
While federal prosecutors acknowledged Odinga
was not part of the events in Rockland County, they
viewed the Black revolutionary as the leader of
the BLA units responsible for organizing the RATF.
Odinga, who escaped a police raid attempting to
capture him in 1969, was granted political asylum
by the Algerian government in 1970 and served as
a member of the International Section of the BPP.
Federal investigators estimate Odinga reentered
the United States around 1973. A profile on Odinga
in movement literature asserts, "In the mid-1970's,
Sekou returned to the US to organize... and help
build the Black Liberation Army.” During the peri-
od when federal and local police believed they had
destroyed the BLA, 0dinga and other Black revolu-
tionaries rebuilt the organization's capacity as an
effective radical underground network. The focus
of the "revitalization” BLA units during this period
(197110 1975); in the first period, it seemed to be
on retaliation against police, the occupying army of
the colonized nation, while in the second period, it
seemed to be the development of the infrastruc-
ture of the armed clandestine movement and sup-
port for aboveground institutions, organizing, and
mobilization.
REPRESSION BREEDS RESISTANCE

The BLAand fhe Legacy of the Black Panther Pary:
The Struggle Confint

The BPP participation in the BLA clearly shows
multiple responses to repression by Party leaders
and rank-and-file membership. The Oakland-based
BPP led by Huey Newton determined that it was
necessary to subordinate BPP's association with
armed struggle and emphasize community service
programs and participation in the electoral arena.
Other BPP factions believed that due to the intense
repression against the BPP and the Black liberation
movement, it was necessary to go underground
and resist from clandestinity through the vehicle of
the BLA. Possibility the most important issue was
not whether the BPP emphasized a reformist or
radical agenda in response to counterinsurgency,
but its inability to maintain its organizational unity
and cohesiveness in the face of repression.

After the split in BPP, several BPP members joined
the ranks of the BLA. While the BLA may have
pre-dated the BPP, the infiuence of the BPP on its
ranks cannot be denied. Party members who went
underground saw themselves continuing the rev-
olutionary agenda of the BPP from clandestinity.
The radical expression of the BPP through the BLA
has a history as long s the Oakland-based BPP,if
not longer. Scholars of the BPP argue that its or-
ganizational expression continued until June 1982,
the year its last program in Oakland, the Oakland

48
The BLA and the LEGACY of the BLACK PANTHER PARTY
The STRUGGLE CONTINUES

Community School, closed. According to the JTTF,
the last known actions of the Panthers involved in
the BLA was in December 1981, six months prior
to the closing of the Oakland Community School.
Even in captivity, captured BLA members continue
to forward political agendas consistent with their
involvement in the BPP. For example, in November
1993, former BPP members and associates, includ-
ing Jalil Muntagim, Sekou Odinga, Sundiata Acoli,
Geronimo ji Jaga, and Mutulu Shakur made a call
to revolutionary nationalist organizations, collec-
tives, and individuals to form a New Afrikan Liber-
ation Front. After months of dialogue and debate,
inspired by the call of prisoners, seven revolution-
ary organizations united to form the New Afrikan
Liberation Front (NALF). In 1997, from prison, for-
mer Panther and BLA member Jalil Muntagim made
acall for "Jericho 98,” a march and rally demanding
amnesty for political prisoners in the United States.
On March 27,1998, the NALF and the PGRNA spon-
sored Jericho 98, mobilizing 5,000 people, the
largest demonstration in the United States for the
freedom of political prisoners. Despite incarcera-
tion, death, and exile, the revolutionary legacy of
the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army
continues.