The Black Liberators was a militant civil-rights organization formed in

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the Greater St. Louis, ...

, in the spring of 1968. The Liberators were led through most of their short existence by

Charles Koen Charles "Chuck" Koen (1945 – July 20, 2018) was an African-American minister and civil rights activist from Cairo, Illinois who served as prime minister of the Black Liberators and the executive directors of the Black United Front, Black United F ...

, who went on to organize a nationally noted civil-rights campaign in

Cairo, Illinois Cairo ( ) is the southernmost city in Illinois and the county seat of Alexander County. The city is located at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Fort Defiance, a Civil War camp, was built here in 1862 by Union General Ulysses ...

. The organization was strongly inspired by the

Black Panther Party The Black Panther Party (BPP), originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, was a Marxist-Leninist and black power political organization founded by college students Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton in October 1966 in Oakland, Califo ...

, which had established a firm base in the neighboring city of

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, adopting the party military-style uniforms, radical rhetoric, and black

self-determination The right of a people to self-determination is a cardinal principle in modern international law (commonly regarded as a ''jus cogens'' rule), binding, as such, on the United Nations as authoritative interpretation of the Charter's norms. It stat ...

. The Black Liberators group was formally established in the summer of 1968 by veteran St. Louis civil rights activist

opening a formal headquarters at 2810 Easton in downtown St. Louis. Just as the Black Panthers had adopted a

Ten-Point Program Ten Point Program may refer to: * Ten-Point Program (Black Panther Party), a set of guidelines to the Black Panther Party * PLO's Ten Point Program, the 1974 plan accepted by the Palestinian National Council for the liberation of Palestinian territ ...

, the Black Liberators adopted a five-point programme: #That we be given a chance to prove ourselves as other men have done. #That we gain enough living space to find ourselves and prove ourselves as full-fledged citizens. #That we plan to do for ourselves in all areas of human living. #That we move out and up into human dignity. #That we have sufficient funds to carry our creativity to fruition. On August 17, 1969, the Black Liberators served as protection for African-American Congressman

Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. (November 29, 1908 – April 4, 1972) was an American Baptist pastor and politician who represented the Harlem neighborhood of New York City in the United States House of Representatives from 1945 until 1971. He was t ...

who represented New York City's historically black

Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street (Manhattan), 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and 110th Street (Manhattan), ...

district. The following month the 9th Precinct of the Saint Louis Police Department was shot at by an unknown assailant and an African-American member of the police board had his real estate office firebombed, the metropolitan police suspected the Liberators. Following these events, the Black Liberators' headquarters were substantially damaged, according to witnesses, by plainclothes police officers. Matters escalated when, eight days later, police arrested Charles Koen and Leon Dent for carrying a concealed weapon during a traffic stop, which was later determined to be a comb. Following the arrest, Koen and Dent received strong public support from groups such as the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 688,

NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&nb ...

, and ''

St. Louis Argus ''St. Louis Argus'' is an African-American-oriented weekly newspaper founded in 1912 by brothers Joseph Everett Mitchell and William Mitchell. It began as a newsletter for an insurance company named Western Union Relief Association. The ''Argus'' ...

''. In response to the arrest, the Liberators voted in favor of Yusuf Shabazz to succeed Koen as prime minister of the group, resulting in the decline and eventual end of the group. Nine months following his inauguration, Shabazz was arrested for mail fraud, and during court proceedings it was revealed that Shabazz had been operating as an

informant An informant (also called an informer or, as a slang term, a “snitch”) is a person who provides privileged information about a person or organization to an agency. The term is usually used within the law-enforcement world, where informan ...

for the metropolitan police.

References

{{American New Left 1968 establishments in Missouri Activist groups based in St. Louis Activists for African-American civil rights American civil rights activists African and Black nationalism in the United States African-American history in St. Louis African-American history of Missouri Black Power Civil rights movement organizations COINTELPRO targets Defunct American political movements New Left Politics of St. Louis

See also

References