Ahmad Rahman was an activist, author, history professor, former political prisoner and a beloved teacher both inside and outside the traditional classroom. He died suddenly, after suffering a heart attack, on September 23, 2015 while preparing for a trip to Chicago to speak on a program related to Stanley Nelson’s new documentary on the Black Panther Party (BPP). He was 64 years old.
Ahmad joined the BPP as a teenager in Chicago and worked alongside Fred Hampton in 1969. He moved to Detroit soon after and continued his work with the Panthers. By this time, the organization was heavily infiltrated and under surveillance by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI)’s infamous COINTELPRO unit designed to disrupt and destroy the BPP and other militant groups. The Panthers believed that police were clearly not working to “serve and protect” poor Black communities and therefore they themselves had the obligation to do so. They embarked upon a dangerous and controversial practice of raiding and shutting down dope houses in the Black community because they viewed drug dealers as predatory. The growing heroin epidemic was destroying Black lives and families. During one such raid, a young white student was accidentally killed. According to Ahmad, a suspected FBI informant had directed the BPP group to the wrong house. Ahmad was on another floor when the fatal shot rang out but when the group was rounded up, he too was charged with murder. Defiantly refusing to cut a deal, he was sentenced to life without parole. The two other Panthers who participated in the raid, including the person who pulled the trigger, plead guilty, received shorter sentences and were released long before Ahmad. The state law at the time dictated that if a death occurred in the commission of a crime, and you were a party to the crime in any way, you could be charged with murder. Ahmad was convicted of felony murder and sentenced to life without parole. The law has since changed.
After 21 years behind bars, Ahmad was finally released in 1993. His sentence was commuted by the Michigan governor John Engler after years of protest, lobbying, and publicity around his case. Interestingly, the sister of the young man who was killed in the raid, later befriended Ahmad and sent a letter of support to his hearing praising his honesty and integrity. It is important to remember that Ahmad might have lived the rest of his life behind bars for a murder he did not commit, had it not been for the tireless efforts of his supporters. One of them was the amazing Gloria House (Aneb Kgostitsile), a professor at Wayne State University for many years who was also herself involved in the Black Freedom Movement as a member of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and other formations. The other critical advocate for Ahmad’s release was a reporter for the Detroit Free Press named James Ricci, who investigated and publicized the injustice of Ahmad’s sentence in an unrelenting series of articles, and in doing so rallied support and engendered sympathy for his case. Detroit and Ann Arbor activists also rallied around the case, and rallied around Ahmad once he was released.
In 1993, having spent his entire adult life in prison, Ahmad began the difficult process of starting anew. He was still political, still sharp, and not at all bitter. He had already obtained a bachelor’s degree from Wayne State University while incarcerated and had earned credits toward a Master’s degree. He resumed his education after his release, eventually obtaining his Ph.D. in history at the Michigan of Ann Arbor. He published his first book, The Regime Change of Kwame Nkrumah, and was working on a manuscript on the Detroit Black Panther Party. Ahmad was hired on the faculty at the University of Michigan Dearborn where was an Associate Professor. He also reconnected with family. Steeled by his experience but never pessimistic, Ahmad was determined to live a productive and meaningful life in struggle. His oldest son had grown up while he was incarcerated but he had not grown up without his father. Ahmad kept up a loving correspondence with his son, nurturing, encouraging and advising him over the years and across the barriers of bars and prison walls. Ahmad fell in love and married (more than once), had more children, and welcomed stepchildren into his life. He was proud of each one of them.
On a personal note, Ahmad was a colleague, a comrade, and a dear friend. I remember my last long conversation with him. I was driving back from the Movement for Black Lives conference in Cleveland (listening to Motown) and out of the blue he called me. We talked for a good long time about everything: life, current politics, history, books, aging, and popular culture. I have snapshot memories of him going back more than 20 years: standing in my kitchen eating chicken, at a birthday party with his family, at my daughter’s graduation party in my backyard, at a rally in Ann Arbor in the rain, chatting politics with my then teenage son, and standing in the back of the room at my father’s funeral looking solemn. He was a good man and the kind of committed, active, and radical intellectual that Souls seeks to hold up. We will miss him, but we are stronger because of him.