From One Generation to the Next: Armed Self-Defense, Revolutionary Nationalism, and the Southern Black Freedom Struggle

Abstract

The Black Power ideology revolutionary nationalism grew out of a pro-armed self-defense orientation that was composed of a network of the Marxist-Leninists and Black nationalists in the 1950s and early 1960s. The Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM) is the first organized expression of revolutionary nationalism. This article documents the connection between the pro-armed-self-defense orientation of the 1950s and early 1960s and the development of Black revolutionary nationalism. I also examine RAM's attempt to organize in Mississippi in 1964, and what this means for the development of Black Power.

Keywords:

• armed resistance
• Black power
• Civil Rights movement
• Mississippi freedom struggle
• Revolutionary Action Movement

Notes

Timothy Tyson's Radio Free Dixie: Robert Williams and the Roots of Black Power (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1999) gives an excellent description of Robert Williams and the Monroe movement. Freedom Archives' Robert and Mable Williams: Self-Determination, Self-Defense and Self Respect (San Francisco: AK Press, 2005) is an audio CD with essential primary sources in examining the Williams contribution to the Black Liberation struggle. I distinguish Robert Williams from his contemporaries in We Will Shoot Back: Armed Resistance in the Mississippi Freedom Movement (New York: New York University Press, 2013), 43–44, 48–49.

Robert Williams, “Can Negroes be Pacifists,” New Left Review, I, 1 (January–February 1960), http://newleftreview.org/I/1/robert-f-williams-can-negroes-afford-to-be-pacifists (accessed September 22, 2013).

Harold Cruse, The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual: A Historical Analysis of the Failure of Black Leadership (New York: Quill, 1984), 352.

Robert Williams quoted in James Ivy (editor), “The Robert Williams' Case: The Essential Facts,” The Crisis: A Record of Darker Races (June–July 1959), 6, 66, 324–326; Tyson, Radio Free Dixie, 147–149.

George Lavan, “Frame-Up Victims to Appeal Monroe ‘Kidnap’ Conviction,” The Militant (Monday, March 9, 1964), 28, 10, 1–2; “Memory of Mae Mallory: Fifth year commemoration of the transition of Mae Mallory (1929–2007),” http://exiledun.livejournal.com/163441.html (accessed September 22, 2013); Leigh David Benin, The New Labor Radicalism and New York City's Garment Industry, Progressive Labor Insurgents during the 1960s (New York: Routledge, 1999), 115; Truman Nelson, People with Strength: The Story of Monroe, N.C. (New York: Committee to Aid the Monroe Defendants, 1972), 32–33; Tyson, Radio Free Dixie, 203.

Jeanette Merrill and Rosemary Neidenberg, “Mae Mallory 1929–2007: Unforgettable Freedom Fighter Promoted Self-Defense,” Workers World, February 26, 2009, http://www.workers.org/2009/us/mae_mallory_0305/ (accessed September 22, 2013); “Monroe, NC,” International Socialist Review, (Fall 1961), 22, 4, http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/isr/vol22/no04/monroe.htm (accessed September 22, 2013).

Muhammad Ahmad, in discussion with author, December 25, 2012; Richard Fidler, “Robert Williams: Outspoken, Feared but Largely Forgotten,” http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/marxism/2006w06/msg00061.html (accessed September 22, 2013); Jack Barnes, “Tribute to the Life of a Black Rights Fighter,” The Militant (November 4, 1996), 60, 39, http://www.themilitant.com/1996/6039/6039_20.html (accessed September 22, 2013).

Ahmad discussion; Merrill, “Mae Mallory”; Muhammad Ahmad, We Will Return in the Whirlwind: Black Radical Organizations 1960–1975 (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr, 2007), 100; Barbara Ransby, Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2005), 214; Grace Lee Boggs, Living for Change: An Autobiography (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1998), 107.

Ahmad, We Will Return, 19, 21; Stephen Ward (ed.), Pages from a Black Radical's Notebook: A James Boggs Reader (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2011), 12–18, 37.

Timothy Tyson, Radio Free Dixie: Robert Williams and the Roots of Black Power (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1999), 204; Harold Cruse, Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, 356; Komozi Woodard, A Nation within a Nation: Amiri Baraka (Leroi Jones) and Black Power Politics (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina, 1999), 52.

Eric McDuffie, “‘I Wanted a Communist Philosophy, but I Wanted Us to have a Chance to Organize Our People’: The Diasporic Radicalism of Queen Mother Audley Moore and the Origins of Black Power, ” African and Black Diaspora: An International Journal (July 2010), 3, 2, 186; Ahmad, We Will Return, 11; Tyson, Radio Free Dixie, 203.

Freedom Archives, Robert and Mabel Williams; Tyson, Radio Free Dixie, 205; Robert Cohen, Black Crusader: A Biography of Robert Franklin Williams. (Secaucas, NJ: Lyle Stuart, Inc., 1972), 132.

Notes from Gwendolyn Hall tribute session at American Historical Association, January 4, 2012; “Gwendolyn Midlo Hall,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwendolyn_Midlo_Hall (accessed September 22, 2013).

Harold Cruse, Revolution or a Rebellion? (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota, 2009), 46–48.

Ahmad, We Will Return, 95–98; Robin D. G. Kelley, Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination (Boston: Beacon, 2003), 75–76.

Robert F. Williams, “USA: The Potential of a Minority Revolution,” The Crusader Monthly Newsletter 5, no. 4 (May-June 1964), 1–7, Freedom Archives, http://freedomarchives.org/Documents/Finder/DOC513_scans/Robert_F_Williams/513.RobertFWilliams.Crusader.May-June.1964.pdf (accessed September 22, 2013).

Ahmad discussion (December 25, 2012); Ahmad, We Will Return, 22.

Ahmad discussion with author, November 20, 2011, Atlanta, GA; Baba Lumumba, in discussion with author, January 20, 2013, Atlanta, GA; Kelley, Freedom Dreams, 75–76.

McDuffie, “I wanted a Communist philosophy, but I wanted us to have a chance to organize our people,” 186–187; Ahmad, We Will Return, 100–101, 103–104, 113–114.

Grace Lee Boggs, Living for a Change: An Autobiography (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1998), 125; Ahmad discussion (December 25, 2012); Ahmad, We Will Return, 99, 116, 124–129.

Iyaluua Ferguson, An Unlikely Warrior Herman Ferguson: Evolution of a Black Nationalist Revolutionary (Holly Springs, NC: Ferguson-Swan, 2011), 131–132, 160–161.

Peniel E. Joseph, Waiting for the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America (New York: Henry Holt, 2006), 58–59; Boggs, Living for Change, 125; Ahmad, We Will Return, 242; Robin Kelley and Betsy Esch, “Black Like Mao: Red China and Black Revolution,” Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture, and Society, 1, 4, 16.

Ward, Black Radical's Notebook, 22, 166–168; Grace Lee Boggs, “The Malcolm X I remember,” The Boggs Blog, http://conversationsthatyouwillneverfinish.wordpress.com/2012/05/19/the-malcolm-i-remember-by-grace-lee-boggs/ (accessed September 22, 2013); John Bracey, in discussion with author (telephone conversation), January 11, 2012.

Gwendolyn Hall introduction in Harry Haywood, A Black Communist in the Freedom Struggle: The Life of Harry Haywood (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2012), xxi, xxii; Haywood, Black Communist, 271; Harry Haywood, “The Two Epochs of Nation Development: Is Black Nationalism a Form of Classical Nationalism,” Soulbook (Winter 1965–1966) 1, 4, 257; Harry Haywood, Black Bolshevik: Autobiography of an Afro-American Communist (Chicago: Liberator Press, 1978), 598–604.

Hall, Black Communist, xx–xxi; Haywood, Black Bolshevik, 604.

Kelley, Freedom Dreams, 76; Marvin X, “Mamadou Lumumba Memorial Service,” The Best of Dr. Marvin (online blog) (Wednesday, December 2, 2009), http://marvinxwrites.blogspot.com/2009/12/mamadou-lumumba-memorial-service.html (accessed September 22, 2013).

Harry Haywood, “Is the Negro Bourgeoisie the Leader of the of the Black Liberation Movement?,” Soulbook 5 (Summer 1966), 70–75.

Kelley, Freedom Dreams, 76.

Haywood, Black Bolshevik, in Acknowledgements section (np); Author learned this history from Mamadou Lumumba and other founders of the House of Umoja as a member of the organization.

Haywood, “Negro Bourgeoisie,” 73.

Max Stanford, “Revolutionary Nationalism and the Afro-American Liberation Movement,” Papers of the Revolutionary Action Movement 1962–1996 (microfiche), Folder 010629-001-0270, Jan 01, 1963– Dec 31, 1963, UPA Collections, Lexis-Nexis.

Donald Freeman, “Black Youth and Afro-American Liberation,” Black America (Fall 1964), 15–16, Martin Luther King Center Archives, Box 1, File 3; Muhammad Ahmad, We Will Return in the Whirlwind: Black Radical Organizations 1960–75 (Chicago: Clark Kerr Publishing, 2007), 102, 117, 123.

Matthew Countryman, Up South: Civil Rights and Black Power in Philadelphia (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2006), 140.

Photo by Alan Koss, in Muhammad Speaks (August 16, 1963), 2, 24, 14.

Elijah Muhammad, “The Right of Self Defense,” Muhammad Speaks (June 7, 1963), 2, 19, 1, 8.

Max Stanford, “As Others See It: New Group Blasts White Power Block,” Muhammad Speaks (August 16, 1963), 2, 24, 14.

Max Stanford, “Revolutionary Nationalism, Black Nationalism, or Just Plain Blackism,” in ed. John Bracey, August Meier, and Elliot Rudwick, Black Nationalism in America (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1970), 508; Robert Brisbane, Black Activism: Racial Revolution in the United States 1954–1970 (Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 1974), 181–182; Cohen, Black Crusader, 211–213, 223–224, 225–226.

Baba Lumumba discussion; Freeman, “Black Youth,” 15–16; Ahmad, We Will Return, 117–119; Muhammad Ahmad (Max Stanford Jr.), in discussion with the author, November 20, 2011, Atlanta, Georgia; Askia Ture (Roland Snellings), in discussion with the author, September 3, 1994, Atlanta, Georgia.

Muhammad Ahmad discussion (November 20, 2011); Ahmad, We Will Return.

Brisbane, Black Activism, 182; Maxwell C. Stanford, “Revolutionary Action Movement: A Case Study of an Urban Revolutionary Movement in Western Society” (Masters Thesis), Atlanta University, May 1986, 91–93.

Muhammad Ahmad discussion (November 20, 2011); Askia Ture discussion; Tyson, Radio Free Dixie, 204, 233; Keith Gilyard, John Oliver Killens: A Life of Black Literary Activism (Athens, GA: University of Georgia, 2011), 14.

The Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) was a coalition of Civil Rights organizations operating in Mississippi, including the NAACP, SNCC, CORE, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Ahmad, discussion; A. Ture, discussion; Ahmad, We Will Return, 118, 121; Roland Snellings, “The Long Hot Summer,” Black America (Fall 1964), 13–14, Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change Archives, Black Revolutionary and Black Power Organizations 1964–68, Box 1, File 3.

“Staff Meeting Minutes”; A. Ture, discussion.

Ahmad, discussion (November 20 2011); A. Ture, discussion; Ahmad, We Will Return, 54–5, 121–2; “The Colonial War at Home,” 1–13.

Stanford “Revolutionary Action Movement,” 93; Roland Snellings, ” The Long Hot Summer,” Black America (Fall 1965), 13–14; Askia Ture, interviewed by author, December 1994, Atlanta, Georgia; MacArthur Cotton, in discussion with author, July 23, 1994, Jackson, Mississippi.

“Greenwood, MS,” Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission Online, 2-45-2-12-1-1-1, Mississippi Department of Archives and History, http://mdah.state.ms.us/arrec/digital_archives/sovcom/result.php?image=/data/sov_commission/images/png/cd02/010755.png&otherstuff=22|45|2|12|1|1|1|1052 (accessed September 22, 2013).

Ransby, Ella Baker, 211–215.

Kwame Ture, in discussion with author, tape recording, February 9, 1994, Atlanta, Georgia; Forman, Black Revolutionaries, 375.

Askia Ture, “Askia Ture talks to Konch,” http://www.ishmaelreedpub.com/articles/toure.html (accessed September 22, 2013).

William Sales, From Civil Rights to Black Liberation: Malcolm X and Organization of Afro-American Unity. (Boston: South End, 1994), 41–43.