REVISITING THE BLACK LIBERATION ARMY'S MESSAGE TO THE BLACK MOVEMENT IN RESPONSE TO THE KILLING OF GEORGE FLOYD

It is clear that the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 26, 2020, one day after African Heritage people across the globe celebrated African Liberation Day, has provoked the black community to conclude “enough!” The masses of black people are coming to the same conclusion that a revolutionary vanguard realized in 1971.

In 1975, the Black Liberation Army, the armed front of the black liberation struggle in America, stated,

“We, as blacks in North America must realize, that to seek inclusion into the prevailing socio-economic system is suicide in the long run, for the prevailing system cannot withstand the irresistible world trend of history which is opposed to continued U.S. exploitation, racist domination and subjugation. To fool ourselves into believing that "equal opportunity", "justice", and social equality is the same as the capitalist system is a grave mistake with genocidal implications for every person of color. Our first obligation is to ourselves, this means our first obligation is to secure our total liberation from those forces that maintain our oppressive condition. Related to this self-obligation (not distinct from it) is our obligation to all oppressed peoples throughout the world, for in striving to liberate ourselves we must abolish a system that enslaves others throughout the world. This, in essence, is our historical duty, we can either carry it out or betray it, but we most certainly will be judged accordingly by the world's peoples. . . .

In a society such as exists here today, law is never impartial, never divorced from the economical relationships that brought it about. History clearly shows that in the course of the development of modern western society, the code of law is the code of the dominant and most powerful class, made into laws for everyone. It is implemented by establishing "special" armed organs, that are obliged to enforce the prevailing class laws. In this historical period of human social development such is the objective function of "law". . . .

Under such conditions of the most powerful economic and political classes. But, what about the law in a democracy, especially one that claims that all its citizens can elect  their representatives who in turn  can create new laws? First of all such a democracy does not exist in North America, bourgeoisie democracy is essentially the dictatorship of what  used  to  be termed  the "national  bourgeoisie".  There are a combination of reasons as to why this form of democracy as such is merely a means of political control that evinces a design to subjugate its people, all of these reasons flow from the necessity to maintain exploitative capitalist relationships. Thus, the influence of corporate wealth on the politics of bourgeois democracy is merely an extension of private property's traditional influence and control of the so-called democratic process. . . .To a greater degree all social and political institutions in a class society are reflections of the class organization of that society of the reflection of a given technological-economical arrangement and its supporting value system. The political organization of the most powerful classes or economic groups in a class society has to be, and is, the control by these classes over the entire society and its political system. We have found the democratic process under capitalism to be merely a means by which capital controls the masses. It is a means of mass diversion, designed to keep the powerless classes politically impotent while at the same time fostering the illusion that real power can be gained through the electoral process. Black People should know better. In a nation based on the false principle of majority rule we are a marginal minority and therefore our right to self-determination cannot  be won in the arena of our oppressor.

The rejection of reformism however, is much deeper than the above reasons. For if reformism is a rejection of any meaningful change, it is also a rejection of revolutionary violence, and therefore reformism is a functional ignorance of the dynamics of Black liberation.

This is because the character of reformism is based on unprincipled class collaboration with our enemy.

The ideals of class collaboration do not stand in opposition to our peoples oppression, but instead consistently seeks to reform  the oppressive system.  Reform  of the oppressive system can never benefit its victims, in the final analysis the system of oppression was created to insure the rule of particular racist classes and sanctify  their capital.  To seek reform  therefore inevitably leads to, or begins with, the recognition of the laws of our oppressor as being valid.

Those within the movement who condemn the revolutionary violence of anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, and revolutionary Black nationalist groups are in essence weakening themselves.  These fools do not under stand the inter-active need for revolutionary violence with other forms of struggle, and because they do not understand the real dynamics involved they seriously inhibit the development of the liberation movement as a whole... These reformists in liberationist garb should understand that unless the movement cultivates its capacity to fight the enemy on all fronts, no front will secure any real victories. It is abysmal ignorance that imagines our oppression in any other terms than undeclared war. . . . We therefore do not view the "law" of our class enemies as valid, nor do we feel restricted in struggle to his laws. . . . .

Those who claim that revolutionary violence gives the enemy the opportunity to repress the movement in general are profoundly mistaken if they think the reactionary government needs such excuses for repression, or that the government does not recognize the real danger in allowing a.movement to develop the full blown capacity to wage armed struggle.

We have chosen to build the armed front, the urban guerrilla front, not as an alternative to organizing masses of Black people, but because the liberation  movement as a whole must prepare armed formations at each stage in its struggle. A failure to build these armed formations can be fatal to both the struggle and Black people. . . .

Our ultimate or strategic goal at this point in creating the apparatus of revolutionary violence is to, weaken the enemy capitalist state, creating at the same time objective-subjective conditions that are ripe for the formation of a National Black Liberation Front composed of many progressive, revolutionary, and nationalist groupings, and in this same process create the nucleus of the armed clandestine organs which such a front would need in order to carry out its political tasks. These are the broad reasons for our devotion to armed struggle.

The fact that no such national united front exists now, in no way precludes the fact that the creation of one  will become necessary in the future (as the contradictions of capitalist society increase repression, racism and social deterioration). We are of the opinion that subjective conditions are not ripe for such unity.”

Not only were the conditions not ripe for a United Black Front at that time, the black masses were not yet ready to support an armed struggle. According to Black Liberation Army veteran Jalil Muntaqim, who has been held as a political prisoner since 1971,

“The defensive-offensive launched in 1970-71 politico-military initiatives was based upon the degree of repression suffered in the Black community due to COINTELPRO police attacks. The politico-military policy at that time was to establish a defensive (self-defense) front that would offensively protect the interest of the aboveground political apparatus' aspiration to develop a mass movement towards national liberation. Again, it must be stated that in the early seventies, the Black underground was the armed-wing of the aboveground BPP, which, because of the split and factionalism prevented adequate logistics, communications between cadre(s) and focos in the Black underground in various parts of the country. It was this situation which caused the greatest problem to the advent of the Black Liberation Army, upon which the commencement of armed struggle could be said to have been premature. Premature in the sense that subjectively, our capacity to wage a sustained protracted national liberation war was not possible due to the split in the aboveground political apparatus, with the Black underground still depending on the aboveground for logistics and communications, and the Black underground comprising of militants who had not grown to political maturity, and without a politico-military structure and strategy to merge the Black underground into a national formation, employing both stable and mobile urban and rural guerrilla warfare, in conjunction with the rising militancy of the oppressed m:asses. In the same regards, the objective reality for armed struggle was present, that being a historical transition evolving from the civil rights movement, the riotous 1960s, the creation of the BPP chapters in Black communities across the country which fought bravely against police attacks, the mass mobilization in support of the Vietnamese national liberation war, etc. Hence, the commencement of armed struggle by our forces was according to the development of history.

By late 1971, it was ordered for the Black underground to enter a strategic retreat, to reorganize itself and build a national structure, but the call for the strategic retreat for many cadres was too late. Many of the most mature militants were already deeply underground, separated from those functioning with the logistics provided by BPP chapters who in the split served to support armed struggle. The repression by the State continued to mount, especially now that the Black underground was hampered by internal strife with the loss of the aboveground political support apparatus (with virtually no support coming from existing Black community groups and organizations). It should be stated, a major contradiction was developing between the Black underground and those Euro-American forces who were employing armed tactics in support of Vietnamese liberation struggle. By 1973-75, this contradiction became full blown, whereby specific Euro-American revolutionary armed forces refused to give meaningful material and political support to the Black Liberation Movement, more specifically, to the Black Liberation Army. Thereby, in 1974, the Black Liberation Army was without an aboveground political support apparatus, logistically and structurally scattered across the country without the means to unite its combat units, abandoned by Euro-American revolutionary armed forces, and being relentlessly pursued by the State reactionary forces - COINTELPRO (FBI, CIA and local police departments). Thusly, it was only a matter of time before the Black Liberation Army would be virtually decimated as a fighting clandestine organization.

By 1974-75, the fighting capacity of the Black Liberation Army had been destroyed, but the BLA as a politico-military organization had not been destroyed. Since those imprisoned continued escape attempts and fought political trials, which forged ideological and political theory concerning the building of the Black Liberation Movement and revolutionary armed struggle. The trials of Black Liberation Army members sought to place the State on trial, to condemn the oppressive conditions from which Black people had to make out an existence in racist America. These trials went on for several years which the courts and police used to embellish their position as being guardians of society. The State media publications projected the Black Liberation Army  trials  as  justice  being  served  to  protect  Black  people  from

terrorism, to prevent these terrorists from starting racial strife between black and white people, and to protect the interest and lives of police who are responsible for the welfare of the oppressed communities, etc. The captured and confined BLA member was deemed a terrorist, a criminal, a racist, but never a revolutionary, never a humanitarian, never a political activist. But the undaunted revolutionary fervor of captured BLA members continued to serve the revolution even while imprisoned. By placing the State on trial, the BLA was more able to expose the contradictions between the philosophy of the State to protect the rights of all people, and the actions of the State which are to only protect the rights of the capitalist-class bourgeoisie. The BLA trials sought to undermine the State attempts to play-off the BLA as an insignificant group of crazies, and therefore the trials of BLA members became forums to politicize the masses of what the struggle and revolution is all about. The trials served to organize people to support those being persecuted and prosecuted by the State, as a means from which the oppressed masses would be able to protect themselves from future persecution. In this manner, the trials of the Black Liberation Army voiced the discontent, dissatisfaction, and disenfranchisement of Black people in racist America.

By late 1975, the Black Liberation Army established a Coordinating Committee, which essentially was comprised of imprisoned members and outside supporters gained during the years of political prosecution in the courts. The first task of the Coordinating Committee was to distribute an ideological and political document depicting the theoretical foundations of the political determination of the Black Liberation Army. This document was entitled, "A MESSAGE TO THE BLACK MOVEMENT -A Political Statement from the Black Underground." The Message to the Black Movement, put forth several political premises from which the BLA should be noted as a revolutionary politico-military organization fighting for national liberation of Afrikan people in the United States.”

The conditions were not right when Khalid Muhammad warned the black community in the 1990’s either.

However, the continued killing of Black men and boys has served to force the average black person in America to arm themselves. Whereas the conditions for a Black Liberation Army supported by the masses was not yet ripe in the 1970’s and in the 1990’s, regardless of whether or not the political consciousness has reached a high level, masses of Black people are already armed now.

The killing of George Floyd is the straw that broke the camel’s back. Nearly every black person is now triggered. The situation is similar to what happened in Newark on July 12, 1967. Two white Newark police officers, John DeSimone and Vito Pontrelli, arrested and beat a black cab driver, John William Smith. Residents of Hayes Homes, a large public housing project, saw an incapacitated Smith being dragged into the precinct and a large crowd soon formed outside the precinct.  The crowd threw rocks through the precinct windows and police then rushed outside wearing hard hats and carrying clubs. On July 12, a march was organized to protest Smith's beatings and police brutality in the city. For the next four days, the 26 people died, hundreds were injured. The riots caused about $10 million in damages ($77 million today) and destroyed multiple plots, several of which are still covered in decay as of 2017. The riot in Newark was followed by a riot in Detroit, each of which set off a chain reaction in neighboring communities. In the end, 159 urban rebellions followed that summer. On July 28, 1967, the President Johnson of the United States established the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (Kerner Commission) and directed it to answer three basic questions: What happened? Why did it happen? What can be done to prevent it from happening again?

To understand the black community’s response, you first have to understand the events that led up to it. Then we can properly assess what needs to be done in response to the killing of George Floyd.

SETTING THE CONTEXT

In 1962 Max Stanford (now Ahmad Muhammad) engaged with Malcolm X and told him he was a revolutionary interested in following him and the Nation of Islam. Malcolm X told Stanford that if he was truly revolutionary, he would be better off working outside the NOI. Stanford went forward to become a founding member of the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM).

RAM was the first group in the United States to synthesize the thought of Marx, Lenin, Mao, and Malcolm X into a comprehensive theory of revolutionary black nationalism. They combined socialism, black nationalism, and Third World internationalism into a coherent and applicable theory that called for revolution "inside the citadel of world imperialism," meaning the United States.

The Black Guard was a national armed youth self-defense group run by RAM that argued for protecting the interests of Black America by fighting directly against its enemies.The Black Guard, in Max Stanford's words, "[was] to stop our youth from fighting amongst themselves, teach them a knowledge of [black] history ... and prepare them ... to protect our community from racist attacks." In 1964, Malcolm X became a RAM officer. At that time, they published Soulbook: The Revolutionary Journal of the Black World. It was a radical black culture magazine edited by future black power activists Bobby Seale, Huey Newton, and Ernie Allen, among others.

CALL TO ACTION BY MALCOLM X, IMPLEMENTATION BY MILTON HENRY

People are getting it twisted. Whitewashed history tried to brainwash people into thinking that the Black Liberation Army was a bunch of lunatic, violent black people. However, The Republic of New Afrika's First Vice-President Milton Henry (Gaidi Obadele) was a Tuskegee Airman and graduated from Yale Law School in 1950. He served as a City Commissioner of Pontiac, Michigan from 1954 to 1960. His uncompromising exploits in defense of freedom, justice, and equality for black people were frequently covered by Black newspapers throughout America as well as a few white newspapers. According to his own testimony,

"I was one of seven City Councilmen representing a District.... And I sat there and of course one out of seven [that was black and interested in assisting this community]. I could see very readily that we really didn't have any ability to do much more than just trade on particular items. . . [The] municipal court remained almost completely white. The fire department was completely white. The police department had about four or five blacks on it and they felt they were doing their job. And the racism was rampant in the attitude of the place and . . . these are the things that you couldn't do very much about. . . . I was just wasting time. I was a figurehead. I was there as a black man representing black people and I could see that in reality I had no power. I couldn't make any changes in the thins that were important. They pulled me out for window-dressing. They'd have me sitting around at meetings talking, where most of the time they were trying to persuade me to vote for some nonsense that didn't have a damn thing to do with black people. So, I ultimately decided that I was going to walk off the Commission."

Where did he walk off to? Well, he went to Africa and traveled with Malcolm X to Cairo to meet with African leaders.

On April 12, 1964, Malcolm X returned to Detroit to support his friends, including Milton (Obadele) who had created the Freedom Now Party. That night, Malcolm X gave his famous "The Ballot or the Bullet" speech, stating,

"It is our intention to have a black nationalist convention which will consist of delegates from all over the country who are interested in the political, economic and social philosophy of black nationalism. After these delegates convene, we will hold a seminar; we will hold discussions; we will listen to everyone. We want to hear new ideas and new solutions and new answers. And at that time, if we see fit them to form a black nationalist party, we'll form a black nationalist party. IF IT IS NECESSARY TO FORM A BLACK NATIONALIST ARMY, WE'LL FORM A BLACK NATIONALIST ARMY."

Two days after the Civil Rights Act was passed, Milton's Group on Advanced Leadership (GOAL) took action. According to Milton's Brother Richard (Imari Obadele),

"The rifle clubs would be 'for going South in moments of siege' and for getting guns 'into the hands of willing and needy blacks in the fascist South, when the time comes.' The GOAL leader predicted that 'proportioned underground warfare' by Negroes would come to the South. When that happnes, [he] said, the northern rifle clubs would 'back Negroes in besieged towns under attack by whites seeking to retaliate for the acts of the underground.'"

(Note: NOW, NEARLY 60 YEARS LATER, IN THE WAKE OF GEORGE FLOYD'S MURDER, BLACK PEOPLE EVERYWHERE IN AMERICA ARE ARMED.)

Milton and Malcolm, April 12, 1964

In the book, From Civil Rights to Black Liberation: Malcolm X and the Organization of Afro-American Unity, William Sales, Jr. notes,

“Paralleling these discussions, and in as much secrecy, were discussions Malcolm X had with RAM through its field secretary, Muhammed Ahmed. As Ahmed remembered it, in June 1964 he and Malcolm worked out the structure of a revolutionary nationalist alternative to be set up within the Civil Rights movement. They also outlined the role of the OAAU in this alternative.

‘The OAAU was to be the broad front organization and RAM the underground Black Liberation Front of the U.S.A. Malcolm in his second trip to Africa was to try to find places for eventual political asylum and political/military training for cadres. While Malcolm was in Africa, the field chairman [Ahmed] was to go to Cuba to report the level of progress to Robert Williams. As Malcolm prepared Africa to support our struggle, ‘Rob’ [Robert F. Williams] would prepare Latin America and Asia. During this period, Malcolm began to emphasize that Afro-Americans could not achieve freedom under the capitalist system. He also described guerrilla warfare as a possible tactic to be used in the Black liberation struggle here. His slogan ‘Freedom by an means necessary’ has remained in the movement to this day.’

These discussions, in fact, reflected the impact of Malcolm’s interaction with the representatives of national liberation movements and guerrilla armies during his trip to Africa. He was very much focused on establishing an equivalent structure within the African American freedom struggle. On June 14, 1964, the Sunday edition of the Washington Star featured an interview with Malcolm X in which he announced the formation of ‘his new political group,’ the Afro-American Freedom Fighters. In this interview Malcolm X emphasized the right of Afro-Americans to defend themselves and to engage in guerrilla warfare. A change of direction was rapidly made, however. As Ahmed reported, Malcolm’s premature public posture on armed self-defense and guerrilla warfare frightened those in the nationalist camp who feared government repression. They feared giving public exposure to organizing efforts for self-determination and guerrilla warfare. Malcolm agreed, and the name of the new organization became the Organization of Afro-American Unity.

The OAAU was to be the organizational platform for Malcolm X as the international spokesperson for RAM’s revolutionary nationalism, but the nuts and bolts of creating a guerrilla organization were not to take place inside the OAAU. The OAAU was to be an above-ground united front engaged in legitimate activities to gain international recognition for the African American freedom struggle.”

Malcolm X was assassinated on February 21, 1965 for calling for an international revolution and a black united front willing to use revolutionary violence. Said Malcolm,

“THE PRESENT AMERICAN ‘SYSTEM’ CAN NEVER PRODUCE FREEDOM FOR THE BLACK MAN. A CHICKEN CANNOT LAY A DUCK EGG BECAUSE THE CHICKEN’S ‘SYSTEM’ IS NOT DESIGNED OR EQUIPPED TO PRODUCE A DUCK EGG. . . .THE AMERICAN ‘SYSTEM’ (POLITICAL, ECONOMIC, AND SOCIAL) WAS PRODUCED FROM THE ENSLAVEMENT OF THE BLACK MAN, AND THIS PRESENT ‘SYSTEM’ IS CAPABLE ONLY OF PERPETUATING THAT ENSLAVEMENT. IN ORDER FOR A CHICKEN TO PRODUCE A DUCK EGG ITS SYSTEM WOULD HAVE TO UNDERGO A DRASTIC AND PAINFUL REVOLUTIONARY CHANGE. . . . OR REVOLUTION. SO BE IT WITH AMERICA’S ENSLAVING SYSTEM.”

THE REAL REASON THEY KILLED MALCOM X

In Reflections of a Resolute Radical, Donald Freeman writes,

“The Afro-American Student Conference was held in Nashville, May 1 -May 3, 1964. It was the first time that northern and southern African American militants convened about Black nationalism. It commenced the ideological conversion of many activists from civil rights to Black Power (Black nationalism). . . . By its end, RAM (Revolutionary Action Movement) convinced the conference that young revolutionary nationalists were the vanguard of a Black revolution in the United States which embodied cultural revolution and promoted Pan African socialism. . . .

Then Max (Stanford, aka Muhammad Ahmad) and Roland Snellings met with John Lewis, Chairman of SNCC, in Atlanta. Lewis them work as part of SNCC’s field staff, although he disagreed with RAM ideology. So they went to Greenwood, Mississippi and started a freedom school . . . .

Their nationalist and armed self-defense advocacy disturbed the White SNCC staff and evoked an intense internal debate. Concurrently the Klu Klux Klan (KKK) perpetrated church bombings and harassment throughout Mississippi. Thus, Max emphasized the urgency for a major meeting in Detroit, prior to Memorial Day, 1964.

Our proceedings occurred at the home of James and Grace Boggs. Based on a thorough assessment of the state of the struggle for Black America’s liberation in the North and South, we instituted a national organization with the name Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM). Max Stanford was elected National Field Chairman, I as Executive Chairman, James Boggs, Ideological Chairman, Grace Boggs, Executive Secretary, and Milton Henry/Paul Brooks, Treasurer. RAM’s international representatives were El Hajj Malik Shabazz (Malcolm X), International Spokesman, and Robert F. Williams, International Chairman. . . .

In December, 1964 Doug Andrews, Paul Brooks, Tom Higginbotham, Max Stanford, and other members met in Cleveland to refine RAM’s 1965 priorities and strategy. . . . We discussed how to galvanize the energy of young urban African Americans, thereby enhancing the applicability of Rob Williams’ explosive advocacy in the United States and our coordination with El Hajj Malik Shabazz’s Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU).

I was pleased with our youth and young adult penetration among college students stemming from the spring, 1964 Nashville conference and gangs, which was a byproduct of my work with others in Chicago during the summer. I hoped that this progress was the prelude to a significant conversation of young Black men and women to RAM’s ranks in 1965.

As January, 1965 began, Malik Shabazz was busy seeking the backing of Ghana, Algeria and more African government to bring about the condemnation of the United States’ oppression of Black America in the UN. Such internationalization of the African American liberation struggle as a human rights issue was a principal objective of the OAAU.

By that time Max Stanford had become one of Malik Shabbazz’s constant Harlem companions. Their communication was continuous. Hence RAM’s agenda was an integral part of his activities.

Then a series of ominous events beset El Hajj Malik Shabazz. In late November 1964 he had been invited to speak in France and Great Britain. February 8, 1965 he spoke again in London, but was not allowed to return to France the next day. On February 14th, his East Elmhurst, New York home was firebombed.

A further foreboding misfortune was the February 16th, 1965 New York City arrest of Walter Bowe, Robert Collier, Khaleel Sayyed, and Michelle Duclos, a French-Canadian woman, for allegedly plotting to bomb the Statue of Liberty.

What these menacing omens portended was actualized by the assassination of El Hajj Malik Shabazz at the Audubon Ballroom, on Sunday afternoon, February 21, 1965. The bourgeois (capitalist) mass media claimed that the Nation of Islam perpetuated that heinous crime. However, RAM asserted that its perpetrators were the CIA and FBI.

Decades later in ‘The 1960’s: From a Radical Perspective’, an article of mine published in Vibration, January 2000 – June 2000 Issue, I wrote ‘He (Malik Shabazz) was killed . . . . a few months before the major escalation of the United States’ military aggression in Vietnam during the spring of 1965.’

Such a sequence of events was probably not coincidental. The power elite of the American Empire did not want Malik Shabazz to still be around when they intensified the brutal imperialism in Indo-China. Therefore, they made sure that he was not on the scene to tell African American males not to go to Vietnam and die while carrying out the deadly orders of their oppressor.

El Hajj Malik Shabazz was the radical with the most mass media (television etc.) exposure and public appeal. Hence he was the political agitator with the potency to raise the consciousness of African Americans to the highest degree. His potential to radicalize Black America, especially youth and younger adults, made him an Ideological and political menace.

Such radicalization of Black Americans could have contributed to the emergence of a powerful liberation movement that would seriously destabilize the American Empire. That kind of turbulence could not be tolerated. His death precluded it.

The arrests of Walter Bowe, Robert Collier, Khaled Sayyed, and Michelle Duclos in the so-called bombing of the Statue of Liberty plot and the murder of Malik Shabbaz marked the prelude to the Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) of the FBI, which eventually engineered the liquidation of Fred Hampton, the head of the Black Panther Party (BPP) of Chicago.”

In August of 1965, Robert F Williams, living in exile in Cuba, published an analysis on the Potential of A Minority Revolution in the USA.

On June 17, 1966, Stokely Carmichael, then Chairman of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) which was organized in April, 1960 by Balanta activist Ella Baker, formally announced Black Power as a political slogan during a speech in Greenwood, Mississippi. Afterwords, the Malcolm X Society was organized in 1967.

After the 1967 riots, the FBI and their COINTELPRO program targeted RAM for political destruction. However, RAM was just one of many civil rights or black nationalist groups targeted because of their politics. Tactics used to suppress RAM were also used to suppress and target Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the Black Panther Party, the Nation of Islam, the National Welfare Rights Organization, Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement (DRUM), Republic of New Afrika (RNA), Congress of Afrikan People, black student unions at universities all over the country, and black churches and community organizations. In this context of government repression, RAM transformed itself into the Black Liberation Party, and by 1969 had practically dissolved.

On March 31, 1968, the Malcolm X Society convened the Black Government Conference held in Detroit, Michigan. Attended by a few hundred people, the conference announced the formation of the Republic of New Afrika (RNA), which was to be composed of Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina. The Conference participants drafted a constitution and a declaration of independence. To fund the RNA, organizers planned to negotiate with the United States for reparations and for status under the Geneva Convention and by conducting a UN Sponsored Plebiscite for Self Determination. Giaid Obadele - formerly Milton Henry, an attorney whose politics were shaped by his travels with Malcolm X through Africa - reported that attendees voted to renounce their American citizenship and selected Robert F. Williams, an American fugitive living in China, as the RNA’s president. RNA’s strategists planned for a key land purchase in Mississippi and the inevitability of armed struggle.

On May 31, 1968 about 30 leaders of the RNA met at 40 North Ashland Avenue in Chicago to address some of the biggest issues facing the new government. Among them was,

“the legislative act that established the Black Legion, the RNA’s military. Similar to the income tax, the creation of this body was supposed to resolve another perceived problem - this time not just for the RNA but for the larger African American community as well. Specifically, the RNA tried to address the heightened security threats to the black community by the overt behavior of racist police as well as other members of the white community. This addressed a longer historical problem as well.

The creation of the Black Legion was also tied to the greatest repressive fear of the organization: being directly hit by an over, aggressive assault like that waged [upon] nonviolent civil rights activists (from whites in general and the police in particular). The RNA vowed that it would never be hit in such a direct manner without preparation. Two reasons existed for this. On the one hand, the RNA vowed never put themselves in a position where they were vulnerable to this type of attack (i.e., being out in the open, unarmed and unprepared). Instead, the RNA would try to build themselves in the minds of black folk and then step forward to claim the nation en masse. On the other hand, the RNA would prepare to defend themselves by creating an armed wing, trained in shooting, hand-to-hand combat, and diverse survival skills. This was the essence of the organization’s reappraisal - armed self-defense from overt general assault, both immediately after the attack and a ‘second strike,’ which would be delayed after the initial attack as retribution. The plans for the former were pretty straightforward, whereas the plans for the latter were never quite clear, seemingly on purpose. For example, there was always reference to people being ‘underground’ but nothing concrete - across source material.

As conceived, the Black Legion would be composed of selected citizens between the ages of sixteen and fifty, the men and women being in separate units for reasons that were not provided in detail. All were to engage in two hours of training per week, and once a month there would be practice on a field training site. In addition to this, all male citizens between the ages of sixteen and fifty and all female citizens between the ages of sixteen and thirty (without young children) were mandated to join the Universal Military Training Force. Similar to the state of Israel, in an effort to have as many soldiers as citizens, this force involved at least two hours of military training a month, when individuals would learn how to shoot, dress wounds, and otherwise take care of themselves in a conflict situation. Finally, to prepare RNA members as soon as possible and engage the whole family, there was to be a Junior Black Legion composed of all children between the ages of nine and fifteen. In these units, youth would undergo a less rigorous but largely similar program.“

At the second RNA Conference, on March 29, 1969, police raided the Detroit New Bethel Baptist Church. The police attempted to assassinate Gaidi Obadele and fired on conference participants with nearly a thousand rounds of ammunition.

At the Black Economic Development Council held a month later, former SNCC Executive Director James Forman issued the Black Manifesto. Forman closed,

“ALL ROADS MUST LEAD TO REVOLUTION/ UNITE WITH WHOMEVER YOU CAN UNITE/ NEUTRALIZE WHEREVER POSSIBLE/ FIGHT OUR ENEMIES RELENTLESSLY/ VICTORY TO THE PEOPLE/ LIFE AND GOOD HEALTH TO MANKIND/ RESISTANCE TO DOMINATION BY THE WHITE CHRISTIAN CHURCHES AND THE JEWISH SYNAGOGUES/ REVOLUTIONARY BLACK POWER/ WE SHALL WIN WITHOUT A DOUBT!”

On August 17, 1971, when police raided the RNA in Jackson, Mississippi, a police officer was killed. Eleven RNA members were arrested and imprisoned on a variety of charges, ranging from murder to sedition against the state of Mississippi. Among the “RNA-11” was President Imari Obadele, the former Richard Henry, Gaidi Obadele’s brother. Three other RNA members made the news when they hijacked a plane to Cuba after killing a New Mexico police officer. That same year, 1971, was consecrated as the year of the Revolutionary Youth.

Following the dismantling of the Black Panther Party by the FBI’s COINTELPRO program which used violent measures such as the murder of prominent Black Panther Party member Fred Hampton and dividing the Panther’s leadership, some members of the BPP sought a reformist approach to bring about the liberation of the black community, such as community service and politics. SNCC Executive Director James Forman and Balanta business leader John L Blake were recruited by President Nixon to lead such reforms. Other members sough a more revolutionary approach to bring about liberation, and these formed the Black Liberation Army which used the Balanta strategy of decentralized organization with no leader, first taught to the movement by Balanta activist and founder of SNCC, Ella Baker.

It is against this backdrop that the Black Liberation Army issued its Message to the Black Movement (included below in its entirety).

Given the outrage now felt and being expressed by Black people across the country, it is especially important to consider that,

“Crime in a capitalist society has  a class basis, and is punished in accordance with this class basis. The whole of capitalist society is predicated upon exploitative relations, and thus lower class crime is a reflection of ruling class criminal values and practices. In the black community the average inmate is exposed to, and preyed upon by these very criminal values. We knock each other in the head, rob each other, burglarize each other's apartments, sell dope as a means of "getting over" because we each want what the system of capital has defined as being of value, but has forbidden us to acquire in "legitimate" fashion. In a society that views a persons material things as determining his worth, we are the most hungry to be of "worth", crime is essentially illegitimate capitalism in such an arrangement.”

This is essentially the justification for killing George Floyd - his crime was “forgery”. He attempted to secure, by any means necessary, what was denied him by the capitalist system.

NOW IS THE TIME THAT EVERY BLACK PERSON ADDRESS THE ISSUES OF REVOLUTION - THE INVALIDITY OF THE OPPRESSOR’S LAW, THE CAPACITY TO ENFORCE JUSTICE OUTSIDE THE OPPRESSOR’S LAWS -

“Complementary to creating our own social force of "law" enforcement is the struggle to take over, dismantle, and weaken the oppressors police apparatus in our community. This apparatus must be neutralized at the same time that our own apparatus is being built.”

The Message to The Black Movement (below), written in 1971, is the best articulation of what we need to understand now.

EVERY BLACK PERSON IN AMERICA NEEDS TO READ AND UNDERSTAND IT

INTRODUCTION

The following is a political overview and statement of general political positions. We have written these political positions from the perspective of the Armed Front because we feel that such a perspective  is needed in the total revolutionary process for black liberation. We are general in our public statement because we arc essentially a military and political front, therefore it would not do to speak in any other terms, for the actions of the armed front will address themselves to the specifics of our peoples national oppression. We do not wish the ENEMY to gain tactical insight in carrying out his repressive campaigns, while on the other hand we do desire that the Black Liberation Movement understand the correct role armed struggle plays in a peoples struggle and how this role is in motion for us here in North America.

The tool of analysis is for us a further development of the Historical Materialist  method, the dialectical method. We will not even waste our time debating the values of Marxism with those who arc emotionally hung up on white people, hung up to the point of ideological blindness. We understand  the process o{ revolution, and fundamental to this understanding is this fact: Marxism is developed to a higher level when it is scientifically adapted to a peoples unique national condition, becoming a new ideology altogether. Thus was the case in China, Guinea Bissau, Vietnam, North Korea, the Peoples Republic of the Congo and many other Socialist nations. For Black people here in North America our struggle is not only unique, but it is the most sophisticated and advanced oppression of a racial national minority in the whole world. We are the true 20th century slaves; and the use of the dialectical method, class struggle and national liberation, will find its highest development as a result of us. This dialectic holds true not only for Marxism, but for revolutionary nationalism  as well, it  holds true for concepts of  revolutionary  Pan-Africanism, it is true of the theoretical basis in developing revolutionary Black culture.  All of  these ideological  trends will find their highest expression as a result of our advanced oppression. Yet, we must be ever mindful that the same objective process is true for reactionary refinement as a result of our struggle. This is the unity of opposites in struggle with each other. To defeat _our enemy and render his reactionary allies impotent  we must have a truly revolutionary perspective informed by concepts of revolutionary class struggle, a movement without such a perspective will fail to defeat our common oppressor. We are not afraid of white people controlling our movement, for our formations, guns, and ideas are  built  with our own hands, efforts and blood. With this in mind we address ourselves to the Black Liberation struggle, its activist elements and organizations. Our call is for UNITY, for a NATIONAL BLACK LIBERATION FRONT. We must build to win!

NYURBA

BLACK LIBERATION ARMY

AN OVERVIEW

 We will start with the basic fact that Capitalism and Imperialism as an economical system is in a deep crisis at home and abroad. The basis of this crisis is, of course, the exploitive relationships that capital must maintain in order to function. It is these economic, social and political relationships that signal the eventual doom of our oppressors and this system of oppression under which we all live.

 This crisis of Capitalism is of a protracted nature, by this we mean it is a long process of deterioration that is spread over a considerable length of time. The seeming material wealth which we see all around us in no way contradict this fac:t of decay, deterioration or the fact of crisis. In fact, overproduction and uneven distribution have led time and time again to a bloated market, cutbacks in employment, and all the attendant ills of an economy based on private ownership of socially produced commodities. Inflation, soaring prices, and inadequate wages are all symptoms of an economy that is based primarily on class exploitation at home and national domination of the Third World's resources abroad.

 The heightening of oppressed peoples struggles abroad have added to the crisis of the entire western world, and threaten to cut drastically its essential resources. We realize that the chief economical and military power in the western world and its ruling class, namely the United States of North America and its corporate-financial ruling circles, will never allow the demise of its empire without a desperate fight. We, as blacks in North America must realize, that to seek inclusion into the prevailing socio-economic system is suicide in the long run, for the prevailing system cannot withstand the irresistible world trend of history which is opposed to continued U.S. exploitation, racist domination and subjugation. To fool our­selves into believing that "equal opportunity", "justice", and social equality is the same as the capitalist system is a grave mistake with genocidal implications for every person of color. Our first obligation is to ourselves, this means our first obligation is to secure our total liberation from those forces that maintain our oppressive condition. Related to this self-obligation (not distinct from it) is our obligation to all oppressed peoples throughout the world, for in striving to liberate ourselves we must abolish a system that enslaves others throughout the world. This, in essence, is our historical duty, we can either carry it out or betray it, but we most certainly will be judged accordingly by the world's peoples.

 The B.L.A. as a result of realizing the economical nature of the system under which we are forced to live maintains the following principles:

1.          That we are anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, anti-racist and anti-sexist.

2.          That we must of necessity strive for the abolishment of these systems and for the institution of Socialistic relationships in which Black people have total and absolute control over their own destiny as a people.

3.          That in order to abolish our system of oppression we must utilize the science of class struggle, develop this science as it relates to our unique national condition.

 In a society such as exists here today, law is never impartial, never divorced from the economical relationships that brought it about. History clearly shows that in the course of the development of modern western society, the code of law is the code of the dominant and most powerful class, made into laws for everyone. It is implemented by establishing "special" armed organs, that are obliged to enforce the prevailing class laws. In this historical period of human social development such is the objective function of "law".

Under such conditions of the most powerful economic and political classes. But, what about the law in a democracy, especially one that claims that all its citizens can elect  their representatives who in turn  can create new laws? First of all such a democracy does not exist in North America, bourgeoisie democracy is essentially the dictatorship of what  used  to  be termed  the "national  bourgeoisie".  There are a combination of reasons as to why this form of democracy as such is merely a means of political control that evinces a design to subjugate its people, all of these reasons flow from the necessity to maintain exploitative capitalist relationships. Thus, the influence of corporate wealth on the politics of bourgeois democracy is merely an extension of private property's traditional influence and control of the so-called democratic process. The Constant co-optation by ruling classes of the masses of working peoples, coupled with their complete control of technology _and information, renders the so-called democratic process null and void.  To a greater degree all social and political institutions in a class society are reflections of the class organization of that society of the reflection of a given technological-economical arrangement and its supporting value system. The political organization of the most powerful classes or economic groups in a class society has to be, and is, the control by these classes over the entire society and its political system. We have found the democratic process under capitalism to be merely a means by which capital controls the masses. It is a means of mass diversion, designed to keep the powerless classes politically impotent while at the same time fostering the illusion that real power can be gained through the electoral process. Black People should know better. In a nation based on the false principle of majority rule we are a marginal minority and therefore our right to self-determination cannot  be won in the arena of our oppressor.

The rejection of reformism however, is much deeper than the above reasons. For if reformism is a rejection of any meaningful change, it is also a rejection of revolutionary violence, and therefore reformism is a functional ignorance of the dynamics of Black liberation. This is because the character of reformism is based on unprincipled class collaboration with our enemy. The ideals of class collaboration do not stand in opposition to our peoples oppression, but instead consistently seeks to reform  the oppressive system.  Reform  of the oppressive system can never benefit its victims, in the final analysis the system of oppression was created to insure the rule of particular racist classes and sanctify  their capital.  To seek reform  therefore inevitably leads to, or begins with, the recognition of the laws of our oppressor as being valid.

Those within the movement who condemn the revolutionary violence of anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, and revolutionary Black nationalist groups are in essence weakening themselves.  These fools do not under stand the inter-active need for revolutionary violence with other forms of struggle, and because they do not understand the real dynamics involved they seriously inhibit the development of the liberation movement as a whole... These reformists in liberationist garb should understand that unless the movement cultivates its capacity to fight the enemy on all fronts, no front will secure any real victories. It is abysmal ignorance that imagines our oppression in any other terms than undeclared war.

How will the movement as a whole be able to fight the oppressor in the future when all other "legal" methods are completely exhausted? How will we implement political struggle without the machinery and capacity for revolutionary violence-when it is abundantly  clear  that our oppressor  maintains armed  organs of violence for the enforcement of his rule? We as a movement will be unable to fight in the future if we do not develop the capacity for revolutionary violence in the present. But revolutionary violence is not an alternative to mass movement  and organization, it is complementary  to mass struggle, it is another front in the total liberation process. Those who put the question of revolutionary violence in "alternative" terms are guilty of crippled politics at best or reactionary politics at worst. Those involved in the total revolutionary' process, yet claim not to "endorse" revolutionary violence when it occurs, are attempting to "legitimize" their existence at the expense of the entire struggle. The only "legitimacy" these people can  possibly  be seeking in such cases is bourgeoisie legitimacy. These type people further confuse the masses, for revolutionary violence is not clarified and extended  in  order  to  undermine  the  psychological  dependence  black  people still have on racist reactionary "legality". This is the vilest of sins, one for which everyone will pay during heightened repression.

We therefore do not view the "law" of our class enemies as valid, nor do we feel restricted in struggle to his laws. On the other hand, we understand the "tactical" value of using the law and consequently we understand the tactical value of reform in the liberation process. For example, school takeovers by community parents, rent strikes by tenants, labor union takeovers by dissident members, etc.; utilizing their systems and built-in safeguards to obtain certain goals that place the enemy at a temporary disadvantage. But we maintain· there is only tactical value to reform when there exists other forms of revolutionary struggle against the whole  of the capitalist structure. Reform as such is inherently reactionary and perpetuates psychological  dependence on the enemy, while confusing the true class contradictions between ourselves and the enemy.  Considering these factors, we maintain that reform can never  be anything more than a tactic, never a complete strategy, never offering in itself any revolutionary change. While it may offer the Black bourgeois rewards, it can never be the road to self-determination for the entire black populace.

We also strongly condemn those who claim to be progressive, yet depreciate revolutionary violence of an oppressed peoples in their struggle for liberation. There can be no conditions on our fight for freedom except those set by the oppressed themselves.    Those who claim that revolutionary violence gives the enemy the opportunity to repress the movement in general are profoundly mistaken if they think the reactionary government needs such excuses for repression, or that the government does not recognize the real danger in allowing a.movement to develop the full blown capacity to wage armed struggle. The B.L.A. has undertaken the task of building just such a capacity, along with other comrades on the clandestine level. ..

WHY BUILD THE ARMED  FRONT

 We have chosen to build the armed front, the urban guerrilla front, not as an alternative to organizing masses of Black people, but because the liberation  movement as a whole must prepare armed formations at each stage in its struggle. A failure to build these armed formations can be fatal to both the struggle and Black people.

Our ultimate or strategic goal at this point in creating the apparatus of revolutionary violence is to, weaken the enemy capitalist state, creating at the same time objective-subjective conditions that are ripe for the formation of a National Black Liberation Front composed of many progressive, revolutionary, and nationalist groupings, and in this same process create the nucleus of the armed clandestine organs which such a front would need in order to carry out its political tasks. These are the broad reasons for our devotion to armed struggle.

The fact that no such national united front exists now, in no way precludes the fact that the creation of one  will become necessary in the future (as the contradictions of capitalist society increase repression, racism and social deterioration). We are of the opinion that subjective conditions are not ripe for such unity.

Because of objective conditions, namely, enemy activity and the relative low degree of unity within the black struggle, we have decided to build the apparatus separate and distinct (organizationally) from all other mass type groups. This is a tactical necessity,  but this tactical necessity  does not contradict  our strategic call for all groups in the Black Liberation movement to form a national united front, with the principle of armed action as one of many "legitimate" forms of political policy.

At present the contradictions that any B.L.A. activities may cause are not to be avoided. Every progressive should welcome the exposure and development of contradictions, for it is through the development of contradictions that we will all move forward.  Every  brother, every sister on  the side of liberation  should and must support the struggle on all fronts, and clarify to our people the acts of revolutionary violence committed against our common oppressors and class enemies of all colors. This means that revolutionary violence must  be supported  by those in the movement on all levels.  While such support will be difficult at  first, objective conditions and time will remove much of this difficulty which is primarily ideological myopia to begin with.  We know from experience  that  because of  the class nature of our struggle and its racist aspect, many of our actions may very well be tactical actions or a purely military-psychological nature, and because of this clear political support may seem quite difficult.  Nonetheless we intend  to clarify all acts of revolutionary violence and accept responsibility for these acts. The important factor, however, is that the progressive movement, the liberation movement, and comrades on all levels of struggle understand that failure to support the armed urban guerrilla front (materially, politically) is a failure to support the mass front, is a failure  to support  the "legal" thrusts of our struggle in "civil rights", and  in  the final analysis, an abdication of responsibility. Cowardice can  be understood,  but not opportunism  and an abdication of commitment  to our total liberation.

RACISM  AND CLASS

Our recognition of the class nature of our struggle has led us to certain objective conclusions which have been borne out by actual conditions. We have for some time now observed how the influence of certain class values determine how one acts or reacts in society. We have observed the class differences among the majority white population  in the  United States, and the reflection of  these differences among black  people. As we have said years before this, the class differences among black people are differences in consciousness, attitudes, and behavior, but unlike these same class differences among whites, economic status or economic position is not the major determinant. The overwhelming majority of blacks (with the exception of very few) are essentially in the same economic class, and suffer essentially the same relationship to the productive forces of capital.

Despite this fact however, the differences in consciousness and in attitudes are real, and  therefore must  be dealt with as if  these attitudes were economic class distinctions.  The reality of our people tells us that not only are there black enemies of black  people, but that  these  black enemies are first and foremost class enemies of our struggle for liberation. It is their class values, ideas, and class ideals that make them what they are, coupled with the fact that they are black, or of a so called "sub-culture".  When  this factor of culture  is considered in proper perspective, we find that these enemies in black fact can hide among us, spreading their various reactionary liberal philosophies of gradualism, black capitalism, "integration", cultural nationalism, reformism, etc.

The reason why these black class enemies find acceptance are many. The first and foremost reason is our unique social psychology, or our emotional response to racism.  This racist reflex has primed us to think  in terms of color first just as it has programmed whites to view color as a determinant factor) and when such thinking becomes culturally typical of us, we are vulnerable to class infiltration by black enemies of our struggle. We tend to blame the color and not the class values of our oppressor when we are betrayed or exploited by one of our own people. Thus when a black  person  betrays or hurts us we say, "niggahs ain't shit", (this also indicates self-hatred and/or self-pity), instead, what we should say is that "certain classes of niggahs ain't shit".

Why should we have such a class perspective, and maintain class vigilance for ruling class lackeys?

The first reason is that in a class society such as the one that we suffer under, every brand of thought, every form of behavior, are stamped with the mark of a particular class. This has deep meaning for us, for the dominant classes in this country are white and their culture racist. We as blacks reflect in our thinking the values, and ideas of these dominant classes, as well as the defensive response to their social-cultural racism manifested in their system of rule. For these reasons we are vulnerable, we can easily be misled, abused and misused. We become easy targets for the racist  ploys of  our collective  enemy.  The enemy  can  use skin color to confuse us into thinking that if we attack another black we are necessarily attacking ourselves, when it may very well be the other way around we are attacking him! It is to our advantage to have a clear principled class view. It is to the oppressors disadvantage if we are principled class conscious individuals, opposed to unprincipled class collaboration.

 If we look at most of the organizations on the scene today, and their philosophies, leadership, and methods of struggle, we will see the reflection of certain class ideals, ideas and values. Overwhelmingly these groups each reflect the goals of a particular class of black folks. Without a revolutionary class perspective we who are striving to acquire total emancipation.from the forces which enslave the whole of our people, will  be unable to distinguish true friends from true enemies, those who are confused from those who are conscious tools of the oppressor, and we will not be able to win potential allies.

This brings us to the dialectical role of culture, for if we understand that as members of a class society (or victims) we all are influenced by the class perspectives of that society, and for black people this means the values, standards, etc., of the dominant racist classes, then we must understand the tool by which we are programmed into these perspectives of class. Culture is the tool. We view culture as the means by which a dominant class programs the whole of society into that classes ideals, values, and standards, thereby perpetuating its dominance.

This objective class function of "culture" should not lead us to the incorrect conclusion that if we adopt a "cultural" orientation in our fight for liberation that such would be sufficient. This is the essential view of the cultural nationalists who orient all around culture, such a view is incorrect. For it does not deal with the economic, class, and psychological basis of the struggle between two opposing cultural entities.

The dominant reactionary culture must be destroyed before any revolutionary culture can truly manifest itself.  In other words, it is in the active struggle  of  the two that  the seeds of a revolutionary  culture are laid. Not in the passive creation of an alternative "culture". Such could only be an alternative life style, allowed to exist at the will of the dominant capitalist culture. In this sense cultural nationalism is bourgeois nationalism because it does not propose the abolishment of the capitalist system and culture.

 In dealing with the objective function of culture then, we understand its social role in maintaining certain class relationships. A racist culture does this and more. A racist culture programs not only the members of the dominant racial group into class ideals, standards, and values, but it also psychologically creates the necessary racist attitudes needed to maintain these class perspectives as a whole, against the targets of that racism. Thus the feelings of superiority, fear of blacks, and hostility toward the strivings of black people (and all third-world peoples in general) is deeply ingrained into the white psyche along with the class phobias and standards. Even more than this, the victims of the racist culture are programmed into feelings of self-hatred, inferiority, and impotency. Very often this creates a mental social state that views the prevailing system as eternal and everlasting. Coupled with the class values of the dominant culture, black folks are constantly torn between wanting what the oppressor defines as desirable, and the inability to get it. Or to get it and then realize that it was only a hoax, he is still as black as ever. All of this is crippling for the oppressed black man, for it ties his brain irrevocably to his oppressor for salvation, often leading to the clownish pursuit of all that is defined as "good" by his standards.

 In order to break these psychological-class chains of 20th century enslavement, we must build a revolutionary culture. A culture that not only programs our minds out of oppression, but at the same time impels us against the enemy classes and culture. The B.L.A. contribution in building such a culture will be to strive to create an armed tradition of resistance to our oppression, and to create a soda-psychological frame of mind on both oppressed and oppressor alike that will lead to our eventual self-determination as a people.

 We therefore make few distinctions based on the color of our enemies. The same treatment will be meted out to white ruling class enemies and their lackeys as will be meted out to black bootlickers and black class enemies of our struggle. Our only consideration is that our armed formations and leadership are of our own people.

DESTRUCTIVE SUB-CULTURE, CRIME AND PRISON

The Black: communities of the United States are the tragic results of class/race subjugation, an oppressive situation created and exploited by the rich white capitalist class of this corrupt country, and systematically perpetuated and reinforced through their various institutions. The wretched  conditions that are inherent within these ghettos continue to exist not because there are no means of erasing them, but rather because they have proven profitable to the class that created them.

 The ruling class of the racist descendants of the chattel slave holders. They have amassed a vast portion of the world's wealth through their rapacious practice of profiting off  the misery  and discomfort of humanity in general, and Third World people in particular. They use this enormous concentration of wealth to buy, bribe, steal, influence, murder, enslave, blackmail, control, and repress any nation, organi­zation, group, or individual that would speak out against, or offer any serious opposition to their self-imposed right to power.

 In order to maintain the present mis-arrangement, the social imbalances, the bourgeois class continues to use repressive tactics in various forms. The effects of this repression becomes clearly evident upon examination of the destructive sub-culture (the black community) born out of American politics.

 This sub-culture materialized out of the need of Black folks for security and a sense of belonging that had been denied them since their arrival in this country; an attempt by the rejected and dispossessed -a totally de-culturalized people-to integrate bourgeois society by imitating the life-style,  and  adopting the value system of their oppressors.

 The destructive nature of this sub-culture manifests itself in the living reality of Black folks attitudinal and philosophical outlook on life. The self-preserving quality of unity is almost totally absent in the black community. In its place there is an unhealthy atmosphere of individuality which is detrimental, and inconsistent with the needs of our people; for it is precisely this thinking that has kept us divided and un-organized for so long.

 It would seem that brothers and sisters would recognize the fact that by accepting and perpetuating the values of the class that oppresses us, that they are only aiding in their own genocide. They have all the physical evidence necessary to prove that the values that they now cherish so dearly are not complimentary to their best interests.

 In our community we continuously come face-to-face with the reality of our situation: The dilapidated, fire-hazard tenements; the black mother with her un-fed child; the brother overdoses from the C.I.A.'s right to free enterprise; the sister that sells herself to an abominable pleasure-seeking fool; the un-employed/ unskilled/mis-educated remains of a once beautiful people.

 It's sickening to listen to "negrows" talk about how much profit they've made from selling dope and pimping sisters; about the brand-name automobile they're driving, while their children are starving because they have ceased to be men; or to hear some bad-talking, chicken-hearted punk describe how he has ripped off some poor Black's life savings because he does not have the courage to take it from the criminals who oppress us.

 We can't afford to continue as we have for the past one hundred years if we expect to ever be in the position to determine the quality of our own lives, and more important,  the lives of our children.  Already the influence of the negative images projected by some Black folks have filtered down to our offspring. In their attempts to emulate their elders, Black kids are beginning to take on the psychological posture of the street wise.  They are being taught (through  words and action) that the only way to  get ahead in this world is to "get the money" and "go for self". Such values are mere reflections of a potentially destructive subculture organized within the social order of a modern technological society. What we must understand is the institutional process that is constantly at work in our daily lives. Only with such ah understanding can we begin to make the struggle for liberation a part of our peoples everyday life, uniting the large objective struggle for liberation with our peoples subjective struggle, and make them one continuous movement.

 Every institution in this racist class society serves the intended or unintended purpose of maintaining the attitudes, mores, and relationships of our destructive sub-culture. Welfare, housing agencies, systems programs, courts, prisons and countless other ruling class institutions reinforce negative relationships among blacks. Our relationship and  dependence  on  these enemy institutions is total, and only with  their collapse can true alternative institutions prosper, but the process must begin now. We must not only build alternative social, economic, and political institutions, but  we must intentionally  sabotage, overload, and  destroy existing ruling class institutions in the process.

 Part of our socialization  process is the reality of prison  and "crime".  Crime in a capitalist society has   a class basis, and is punished in accordance with this class basis. The whole of capitalist society is predicated upon exploitative relations, and thus lower class crime is a reflection of ruling class criminal values and practices. In the black community the average inmate is exposed to, and preyed upon by these very criminal values. We knock each other in the head, rob each other, burglarize each other's apartments, sell dope as a means of "getting over" because we each want what the system of capital has defined as being of value, but has forbidden us to acquire in "legitimate" fashion. In a society that views a persons material things as determining his worth, we are the most hungry to be of "worth", crime is essentially illegitimate capitalism in such an arrangement.

We are socialized into this distorted existence and can hardly see the root causes that make our community havens for dope sellers, mackmen, and hustlers.

 The reality of the Black experience in America has not only socialized us into living illegitimate lives (in terms of capitalist law) but it has programmed us to  expect and look  to  the very institutions  that created this socialization in the first place, for solutions to our plight.  We ask for  more police in our community,  when it is the police that serve a repressive role in maintaining our oppression. We condone and glorify traitors and snitches, when in the future our very survival  will depend on ideals contrary to such vile acts.  We ask for  stiffer jail sentences for those convicted as "criminals" when it is prisons that help maintain destructive social relations in our community. The fact that all of America is a prison escapes us. This reality has enabled black folk to adapt so readily to the transition from "street life" to life behind the walls. There is a dialectical and fundamental relationship between the two that reinforces the destructive aspect of black social relationships.

 The weakening of the Black family, the socialization of exploitative male-female relationships, the basic fabric that supports cultural genocide can all be found in the social role that prisons and crime play in a destructive sub-culture. Hardly a black family, hardly a black person is without at least one relative or friend behind prison walls, or know of someone in human cold storage. Our social acceptance of this cold fact is in reality our cultural response to the effect of powerlessness as a people. We must begin to  determine our lives by creating community institutions of revolutionary justice outside the structure of capitalist law. This means  we must create armed political organs in our community to enforce our community interest, and create new values based on our peoples social interest. It will not do to forego this vital aspect of our struggle, we must build it now.

 Why is the construction and maintenance of community based political armed cadres necessary?

Because the enforcement of revolutionary justice in our communities is first a political question that cannot be answered by the existing oppressive system, but outside its control. Secondly, the very nature of corruption, crime in our communities, the negative class role of the courts, prisons, and other related institutions, must be combated with enforcement of our own laws, laws beneficial to our people and our struggle for liberation. Thirdly, if we construct our own agencies of revolutionary  justice, arm  them  and politicize their ranks, we are creating the necessary machinery of survival, while actively repressing those values and elements in our community that prey on our people. Finally, we should realize that until our powerless, poor, and unconscious people can call someone else other than the oppressors storm troopers for protection, we are ineffective as a revolutionary movement.

Complementary to creating our own social force of "law" enforcement is the struggle to take over, dismantle, and weaken the oppressors police apparatus in our community. This apparatus must be neutralized at the same time that our own apparatus is being built. The two are dialectically opposed to each other, yet there is a complementary aspect. Community control of police, residence of the police in the community in which they work are all reform issues that tactically are complementary to building our own system of community revolutionary justice. These reform issues should be the continued target of the mass front, while the creation of community-based armed cadres for the enforcement of revolutionary justice is the proper province of clandestine activity.

We maintain that in the social revolution for black liberation, it is a principled necessity that any creation of a national Black front must first and foremost deal with the social effects of a destructive sub­culture by creating and directing a system of revolutionary justice that will protect and defend our people against reactionary behavior. This is the social aspect of Black Liberation for the immediate future.

LEADERSHIP OF THE STRUGGLE

 It is important that the leadership of our struggle come from among our own people, just as it is crucial that we build the necessary machinery that will develop this leadership. The problem of leadership has always been a vexing one for black people. We must break with the old style of leadership forced upon us by the prevailing class standards or we will fail in our struggle. Nonetheless, leadership is important, especially to black people, and without it we will never triumph in our struggle.

 It is past time that black intellectuals, professionals, and so called black scholars assumed a more active role in the leadership of the liberation struggle, instead of laying back theorizing and writing essays in a vacuum, or in various black bourgeoisie publications.

 We realize that many of our black scholars have their minds in pawn to the ruling class, we are not primarily addressing ourselves to these particular individuals, but to those brothers and sisters who have a relatively high level of awareness (political) and to those black intellectuals who are anti-imperialist, anti­-capitalist, and pro-black liberation. It is these black intellectuals who must assume new positions of leader ship in our struggle by helping to build the necessary revolutionary apparatus that will forge our total liberation.

On the armed front it is these intellectuals who must become the political leadership and work in creating a far reaching and effective apparatus. Our struggle for black liberation is a revolutionary  struggle, for it implies the transformation of the whole of American society if it is to succeed, and black intellectuals have a clear obligation to this process. We have seen how the capitalist state uses its intellectuals and institutions of "higher education" in order to continue its exploitative policies, and we as a people must utilize our professionals and intellectuals in the total process of liberation and destruction of capitalistic society.

Our principled call for a national Black revolutionary front will never become a reality without such leadership of Black intellectuals with concrete and clear revolutionary politics. The B.L.A. will never subordinate itself to such a front unless leadership of this caliber is evident. Our intellectuals must make a firm commitment  to improving the quality of our struggle on all fronts, military, mass front, electoral  politics, legal front, etc. For us the creation of a revolutionary front and its military arm are worthy tasks for our intellectuals to pursue in the revolutionary process. There can be no struggle without sacrifice, and our black intellectuals must begin to apply this principle to themselves as well as others.

 It is clear to us that the so-called lumpen class cannot carry our liberation struggle forward on its own. This is because of their class nature:  undisciplined, dogmatic, and easily prone to diversion.  This class however will supply some of the most dedicated comrades to the struggle. But we must clarify our view of the lumpen class as a whole. The traditional concept of lumpen as a category of the lowest social strata in an industrialized society, unemployed, etc., is a description that fits not only brothers and sisters that hang out in the street all day long and survive in that fashion, but it also fits a great segment of black people who are marginally employed and who for various socio-economical reasons think essentially the same as the classical "lumpen". Therefore, we must make a clear distinction between the economic defi­nition of lumpen (the relationship of that class to the means of production) and the attitudinal, behavioral definition which can readily apply to a larger proportion of our people. When we use the term lumpen we are using the broad definition.

The unemployment rate among black people is a little over twice that of the white population, placing it roughly at 20%. This to us is still a conservative estimate.  But if we consider the population ratio of blacks to whites, such a high rate of unemployment represents a considerable number of the total amount of black people.  Therefore, in strictly social terms, the lumpen class represents a very large segment of the black population, a segment who in our estimation will be the first to grasp the realities of capitalist repression. This as it may be, we still realize the limitations of this class in moving our struggle forward, their class tendencies make them ideal targets of the enemy, as agents, infiltrators as well as some of these same tendencies contribute to making the lumpen class staunch comrades in struggle. When we realize the real limitations of this class, we as a movement will begin to create a more dynamic revolutionary process.

 The black bourgeoisie (from which most black intellectuals, professionals come) cannot by themselves lead our struggle, not because they are incapable of leadership but because their class nature is more reactionary than revolutionary. The tendency to vacillate, compromise with the ruling class enemy, opportunism, and lack of commitment to any revolutionary principles are typical traits of this class. It is from this class that  the enemy has drawn  the majority of so called "endorsed" spokesmen, and it is this class from which the majority of poverty pimps spring forth.

 But this class can supply the movement with some dynamic leadership as well as devoted comrades. Those truly progressive elements of the black bourgeoisie that can be won over to the side of the liberation struggle should be focused on by the movement and principally dealt with. The failure of the liberation movement to put the black bourgeoisie principally against the wall is inexcusable. For if people are to understand the impotency of our _bourgeoisie, its opportunism, and the role they are made to play in maintaining our collective oppression, the movement as a whole must create conditions that will lead to such an understanding.

 We have witnessed the ruling class crisis of Watergate, and the division it has caused within the ruling circles. This division was essentially based on repairing the body politic of capitalist rule. The "crisis of confidence in government" was a crisis for the ruling economical circles, for they had to not only restore "faith" in their system of rule, (political system) but they also had to find a political front man upon which they all could agree, and in whom the masses would have some degree of confidence. Yet the revelations of Watergate (which were essentially of a political nature dealing with the ruling class parties) had profound implications for our struggle. It hinted at the extent to which our movement has and is repressed by the reactionary government. An ideal opportunity existed for the movement as a whole to put our so-called "elected leaders" of the black bourgeoisie against the wall. But the movement never seized the opportunity presented. No consistent  widespread  call was put to  black politicians to conduct  a unilateral investigation into the government repression of the black liberation struggle, and into political espionage against the black movement. Such a demand could have revealed glaring repression (and thereby weaken the mental residual belief in our oppressors "fair" system) or as was more likely, the real impotency of our black elected officials would have been clearly revealed (thereby weakening the confidence in bourgeois electoral politics to effect change). Of course no such widespread call was made, and therefore no such result. It is this lack of practical class struggle that inhibits the growth of the mass front. The black bourgeoisie must be put into objective conditions that can benefit our struggle, or enhance the peoples awareness as to what they are truly about.

Only in this was can those progressive elements within their ranks come to the fore.

 The majority of black people are workers and as such suffer all the exploitation  of  the working class in a capitalist society. In addition to this, however, black workers suffer the vicious effect of institutionalized racism. Black workers are the lowest paid, the most marginally employed, and the most economically insecure.

The impact of technology will further erode the employability of the black worker, for in the majority of cases the educational background of black workers are lower than their white counterparts. Education for blacks has always been another method of programming black people into the lowest strata of capitalist society, insuring generations of exploitable and marginal labor.

 We view the black working class as the basis for the success of our struggle, not because of its political consciousness (which is still very low) and not because of its class nature (more disciplined, industrious) but because of its sheer numbers and because of its economic role in the  black  community.  We do not  think  that black workers relationship to  the  productive  fortes of  this society  is essentially  different  from  any  other class of blacks due to racism. Although there are some differences  there seem  to  be no essential differences.  Black folks in total suffer the same relationship to capitalist productive forces, some more so than others, but  all essentially the same.

Malcolm X in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania in 194. The African Liberation Committee of the OAU was in Dar Es Salaam at that time.