Revolutionary Action Movement
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Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM) was a US-based revolutionary black nationalist group in operation from 1962 to 1969. They were the first group to apply the philosophy of
Maoism Maoism, officially called Mao Zedong Thought by the Chinese Communist Party, is a variety of Marxism–Leninism that Mao Zedong developed to realise a socialist revolution in the agricultural, pre-industrial society of the Republic of Chi ...
to conditions of black people in the United States and informed the revolutionary politics of the Black Power movement. RAM was the only secular political organization which
Malcolm X Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little, later Malik el-Shabazz; May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965) was an American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a prominent figure during the civil rights movement. A spokesman for the Nation of Is ...
joined prior to 1964. The group's political formation deeply influenced the politics of
Huey Newton Huey Percy Newton (February 17, 1942 – August 22, 1989) was an African-American revolutionary, notable as founder of the Black Panther Party. Newton crafted the Party's ten-point manifesto with Bobby Seale in 1966. Under Newton's leadership ...
,
Bobby Seale Robert George Seale (born October 22, 1936) is an American political activist and author. Seale is widely known for co-founding the Black Panther Party with fellow activist Huey P. Newton. Founded as the "Black Panther Party for Self-Defense", ...
, and many other future influential
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 ...
founders and members.


Group formation

In 1961, students at
Central State University Central State University (CSU) is a public, historically black land-grant university in Wilberforce, Ohio. It is a member-school of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund. Established by the state legislature in 1887 as a two-year program for te ...
, a historically black university in
Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
, came together to form "Challenge," a small conglomerate group of
Students for a Democratic Society Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was a national student activist organization in the United States during the 1960s, and was one of the principal representations of the New Left. Disdaining permanent leaders, hierarchical relationships ...
(SDS),
Congress of Racial Equality The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) is an African Americans, African-American civil rights organization in the United States that played a pivotal role for African Americans in the civil rights movement. Founded in 1942, its stated mission ...
(CORE), and
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, often pronounced ) was the principal channel of student commitment in the United States to the civil rights movement during the 1960s. Emerging in 1960 from the student-led sit-ins at segrega ...
(SNCC). Largely made up of formerly expelled students and veteran activists, Challenge was created to further political awareness, particularly in relation to the black community. At the request of Donald Freeman, who was enrolled at
Case Western Reserve University Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) is a private research university in Cleveland, Ohio. Case Western Reserve was established in 1967, when Western Reserve University, founded in 1826 and named for its location in the Connecticut Western Reser ...
at the time, Challenge read
Harold Cruse Harold Wright Cruse (March 8, 1916 – March 26, 2005) was an American academic who was a social critic and teacher of African American studies at the University of Michigan until the mid-1980s. ''The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual'' (1967) ...
's essay "Revolutionary Nationalism and the Afro-American" and thereafter shifted its focus from educating their participants to creating a mass black working-class nationalist movement in the North. After this drastic change of agenda, Challenge soon evolved into the Reform Action Movement, as they believed use of the word ''revolutionary'' would stir fear in the university administration.Kelley, Robin D. G. ''Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination.'' Boston: Beacon Press, 2003. Print. Led by Freeman, Wanda Marshall, and Maxwell Stanford, RAM became a study/action group that hoped to turn the
Civil Rights Movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...
into a worldwide black revolution.


Leadership


Max Stanford

Max Stanford (now Muhammad Ahmad) was one of the founding members of RAM, and served as both its national chairman and Philadelphia head for much of the group's existence. He was a Philadelphia native, and one of
James James is a common English language surname and given name: *James (name), the typically masculine first name James * James (surname), various people with the last name James James or James City may also refer to: People * King James (disambiguat ...
and
Grace Lee Boggs Grace Lee Boggs (June 27, 1915 – October 5, 2015) was an American author, social activist, philosopher, and feminist. She is known for her years of political collaboration with C. L. R. James and Raya Dunayevskaya in the 1940s and 1950s. In th ...
' "adopted" kids, youth who spent a lot of time at the Boggs household and connected with their circle of activists. Prior to joining them, Stanford had been involved with militant civil rights activism since his teenage years. Through the lively discussions of revolutionary politics that thrived in the Boggs household, he developed a sharp critical consciousness and an impressive grasp of theory by adulthood. In 1962, Stanford engaged with Malcolm X and told him he was a revolutionary interested in following Malcolm in the
Nation of Islam The Nation of Islam (NOI) is a religious and political organization founded in the United States by Wallace Fard Muhammad in 1930. A black nationalist organization, the NOI focuses its attention on the African diaspora, especially on African ...
. Malcolm told Stanford that if he was truly revolutionary, he would be better off working outside the NOI.


Donald Freeman

Don Freeman was black student at Case Western who originally organized Challenge at Central State and then went on to be one of the leaders of the Cleveland branch of RAM. He questioned, however, during RAM's early years, the validity of RAM as a Marxist organization since traditional Marxist theory focused on class, while ignoring racism. So although Freeman believed in collectively owned black enterprises, he also argued that white "socialists and Marxists do not possess the solutions to the ills of black America."


Structure

Though it initially started as a small student group at Central State College and Case Western Reserve University in Ohio, RAM at its peak had chapters all over the nation. The full spread of RAM remains hard to discern because RAM was semi-clandestine in nature. Chapters in New York, Oakland, Cleveland, and Detroit went by pseudonyms so as to decrease public scrutiny, while the Philadelphia chapter continued to operate under RAM's name. The decision to go underground was made by leadership after they judged that the ultra-right was preparing to crush the movement and that they could no longer be public without endangering noninvolved people and exposing them to violence. RAM implemented a "system of rotating chairmen" to foster veteran leadership that would help educate the younger, less experienced members. There were three levels of membership in RAM. The first consisted of members who were "professional, full-time field organizers." The second level was made up of members who paid their dues to the organization and "met the standards for the main criteria for cadre." The third group included undisclosed members who only donated money to RAM. The overall structure of RAM was organized into three types of cells or units: area units, work units, and political units. Area units were designed to gain community influence by organizing around local issues. Work units were set up in factories or other industrial type settings, and the League of Black Workers, the predecessor to the
League of Revolutionary Black Workers The League of Revolutionary Black Workers (LRBW) formed in 1969 in Detroit, Michigan. The League united a number of different Revolutionary Union Movements (RUMs) that were growing rapidly across the auto industry and other industrial sectors ...
, was eventually created through these units. Political units were used to gain access into the Civil Rights Movement and transform it into a movement for black liberation.


Ideology

The Afroamerican revolutionary, being inside the citadel of world imperialism and being the Vanguard against the most highly developed capitalist complex has problems no other revolutionary has had. His position is so strategic that victory means the downfall of the arch enemy of the oppressed (U.S. imperialism) and the beginning of the birth of a new world. --"The African American War of National-Liberation," RAM's Black America
RAM was the first group in the United States to synthesize the thought of
Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 p ...
,
Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 19 ...
, Mao, and
Malcolm X Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little, later Malik el-Shabazz; May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965) was an American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a prominent figure during the civil rights movement. A spokesman for the Nation of Is ...
into a comprehensive theory of revolutionary black nationalism. They combined socialism,
black nationalism Black nationalism is a type of racial nationalism or pan-nationalism which espouses the belief that black people are a race, and which seeks to develop and maintain a black racial and national identity. Black nationalist activism revolves ar ...
, 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 revolutionary nationalists of RAM believed that colonized peoples around the world must rise up and destroy the "universal slavemaster". They also believed that all people have a right to self-determination, including the "internal black colony" of the United States. In their opinion, African Americans had to gain control of land and political power through national liberation and establish revolutionary socialism in sovereign, liberated lands. They emphasized creating a black nation on land in Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Texas, Virginia, South Carolina, and North Carolina that, in their eyes, rightfully belonged to black people. This push for a sovereign black nation was in some ways a reiteration of an old black leftist line from the 1930s. Many RAM activists derived their ideology from an older generation of revolutionary black leftists:
Harry Haywood Harry Haywood (February 4, 1898 – January 4, 1985) was an American political activist who was a leading figure in both the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). His goal was to connect ...
, Queen Mother Audley Moore,
Harold Cruse Harold Wright Cruse (March 8, 1916 – March 26, 2005) was an American academic who was a social critic and teacher of African American studies at the University of Michigan until the mid-1980s. ''The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual'' (1967) ...
, and Abner Berry as well as James Boggs and
Grace Lee Boggs Grace Lee Boggs (June 27, 1915 – October 5, 2015) was an American author, social activist, philosopher, and feminist. She is known for her years of political collaboration with C. L. R. James and Raya Dunayevskaya in the 1940s and 1950s. In th ...
. Many of these older revolutionaries played a role of ideological and political mentorship to RAM activists.


Black internationalism

The revolutionary spirit of black Americans in the 1960s was by no means the sole example of rebellion in the world at that time. The decade brought forth revolutions and mass uprisings in countries all over the world, and though the people were protesting in different regions, most of these movements sought to achieve a similar goal: the universal elimination of racism and capitalism.Lazerow, Jama, and Yohuru Williams. ''In Search of the Black Panther Party: New Perspectives on a Revolutionary Movement.'' Durham: Duke University Press, 2006. Print. Members of RAM understood that black nationalism, the formation of an independent nation of blacks in the US, was a concept inseparable from black internationalism, which had the goal of ending
white supremacy White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White su ...
through a conjoined effort of all oppressed groups to overthrow pan-European racism and the exploitative global capitalist system.Bush, Roderick D., ''The End of White World Supremacy: Black Internationalism and the Problem of the Color Line.'' Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2009. Print. The movement had a global vision, bigger than just the race relations of the United States. They saw the main battle as being between Western imperialism and the oppressed
Third World The term "Third World" arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact. The United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Western European nations and their allies represented the " First ...
within US borders and around the world. The context of black liberation was the entire world revolution, rather than cultural nationalism, which RAM considered reactionary and bourgeois. RAM members saw themselves as colonial subjects fighting a "colonial war at home." The theory of black internationalism was first publicized in W. E. B. DuBois' '' Dark Princess'', where he argues that the black nation in America is just one faction of what he refers to as the "Land of the Blacks," a conglomeration of all racially subjugated groups around the world. RAM spokesman Malcolm X later described the black revolution in the United States as part of a "worldwide struggle of the oppressed against the oppressor." Several other political figures openly supported black internationalism, calling for people to join the revolution and be fully in conjunction "with the people in the great struggle for Africa and of suffering humanity".


Influence of Maoism and Maoist ethics

Some RAM activists saw themselves as an all-black cadre of Mao's Red Army, and related their black freedom struggle to Mao's strategy of encircling capitalist countries to challenge imperialism. In solidarity and fighting alongside anti-colonial struggles in
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
,
Zanzibar Zanzibar (; ; ) is an insular semi-autonomous province which united with Tanganyika in 1964 to form the United Republic of Tanzania. It is an archipelago in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of the mainland, and consists of many small islands ...
,
Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...
,
Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...
,
Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
, and
Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , relig ...
, RAM activists saw themselves as playing a global role. Some RAM materials about their revolutionary code of ethics take quotations nearly verbatim from The Little Red Book. When Robert F. Williams, chairman of RAM, came back from his exile in China, he also emphasized that all young black revolutionaries must "…undergo personal and moral transformation. There is a need for a stringent revolutionary code of moral ethics. Revolutionaries are instruments of righteousness." RAM called for a "cultural revolution" of sorts: one that would purge the
slave mentality A colonial mentality is the internalized attitude of ethnic or cultural inferiority felt by people as a result of colonization, i.e. them being colonized by another group.Nunning, Vera. (06/01/2015). Fictions of Empire and the (un-making of imper ...
from black people in the United States. They were for the creation of a new, revolutionary culture through the reclamation of African aesthetics, creation of art only in the service of the revolution, and active attempt to root out habits, traditions, customs, and philosophies taught to black people by white oppressors.


Political activities

There were three main branches of RAM: the founding branch in Cleveland, Ohio; the headquarters branch in
Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
, Pennsylvania; and a west coast branch in Oakland, California. Though the branches all had different local goals and accomplished different things, RAM engaged in several unifying national political activities. All branches helped distribute Robert Williams' magazine, ''The Crusader'', after it had been banned within the United States. They also took a two-pronged approach to advocating their policies among other civil rights groups: disparaging those that did not advocate for armed self-defense and, simultaneously, infiltrating them to try to spread their revolutionary ideology. Because RAM was made up of mostly college-educated intellectuals (though many dropped out to organize full-time), they thought a lot about who they were trying to mobilize, eventually settling upon the black ''
petit bourgeoisie ''Petite bourgeoisie'' (, literally 'small bourgeoisie'; also anglicised as petty bourgeoisie) is a French term that refers to a social class composed of semi-autonomous peasants and small-scale merchants whose politico-economic ideological ...
'' youth and black working-class youth. RAM thought that the black ''petit bourgeoisie'' particularly embodied the contradictions of racial capitalism, and if properly brought into the movement, this group could form a "revolutionary intelligentsia capable of leading black America to true liberation." They also used public street meetings to try to attract as many black working-class youth as possible to their organization, particularly gang members. RAM thought gang members had the most revolutionary potential of the population, because they could be trained to fight not against each other but against white power structures. They believed they could create a fighting force of former gang members on the model of the Congolese Youth guerrilla army and the Mau Mau guerrillas. In mid-1965, before opposition to the
Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
gained momentum, RAM blazed an ideological trail, expressing solidarity with the
Vietnamese National Liberation Front , , war = the Vietnam War , image = FNL Flag.svg , caption = The flag of the Viet Cong, adopted in 1960, is a variation on the flag of North Vietnam. Sometimes the lower stripe was green. , active ...
in their fight against imperialism. At the same time RAM was explicitly anti-draft, arguing and organizing around the hypocrisy of drafting black Americans to fight in a war against, in their eyes, other people victimized by US imperialism. The
Black Guard The Black Guard or ''‘Abid al-Bukhari'' ( ar, عبيد البخاري, lit=Slaves of al-Būkhārī; also known as ''‘Abīd al-Dīwān'' "slaves of the diwan", ''Jaysh al-‘Abīd'' "the slave army", and ''‘Abid al-Sultan'' "the sultan’s ...
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, " asto stop our youth from fighting amongst themselves, teach them a knowledge of
lack Lack may refer to: Places * Lack, County Fermanagh, a townland in Northern Ireland * Lack, Poland * Łąck, Poland * Lack Township, Juniata County, Pennsylvania, US Other uses * Lack (surname) * Lack (manque), a term in Lacan's psychoanalyti ...
history ... and prepare them ... to protect our community from racist attacks." Everywhere except for Philadelphia, RAM operated as a semi-clandestine group, existing behind front organizations, and under multiple names and branches. Due to this underground status, RAM focused more on producing
agitprop Agitprop (; from rus, агитпроп, r=agitpróp, portmanteau of ''agitatsiya'', "agitation" and ''propaganda'', "propaganda") refers to an intentional, vigorous promulgation of ideas. The term originated in Soviet Russia where it referred to ...
and less on actual community organizing. As a result, RAM has received less attention from historians than the Black Panther Party, even though they blazed the 1960s revolutionary black nationalist ideological trail and heavily influenced the Panthers. Malcolm X became a RAM officer in 1964. Max Stanford has claimed that Malcolm X's
Organization of Afro-American Unity __NOTOC__ The Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU) was a Pan-Africanist organization founded by Malcolm X in 1964. The OAAU was modeled on the Organization of African Unity, which had impressed Malcolm X during his visit to Africa ...
(OAAU) was intended to be the popular front organization to RAM's underground black liberation army.


Philadelphia

Despite numerous chapters all over the country, by 1964, RAM's home base in Philadelphia was the main branch available to the public eye. The Philadelphia chapter was responsible for the publication of RAM's bimonthly newspaper, ''Black America'', and the single-page newsletter ''RAM Speaks''. During their time in the city, RAM actively supported Leon Sullivan's 1962 selective patronage campaign. This was the beginning of the "don't buy where you can't work" method of direct boycott action that serves as an example of the effectiveness of the black masses to black liberation. Throughout its existence, RAM supported mass action all over Philadelphia, canvassed to try to listen to community needs, and provided public services that they thought were lacking. These actions ranged from responding to local residents' medical emergencies to providing weekly black history classes. By making their presence known throughout the streets and establishing a consistent presence throughout black neighborhoods in the city, RAM was able to effectively mobilize people for anti-union discrimination protests in 1963. RAM also advocated for the black students in Philadelphia's Bok High School in 1968 by providing protection and political education to students while they protested unequal conditions and a lack of community control in their educational environment.


Cleveland

In Cleveland, Ohio, RAM was governed by a secret committee named the "Soul Circle", which was essentially a small selection of black men involved in the local community, as well as civil rights, and student groups. In 1962, a policy-oriented think tank named the Afro-American Institute was founded in Cleveland. Through this organization, RAM members held free public lectures and worked with other activists to improve the black community in Cleveland. The following year, Max Stanford and other RAM members traveled to Cleveland and joined CORE{{who to assist in demanding better healthcare for black hospital patients and more inclusion of Black history in the Cleveland public school curriculum. The Afro-American Institute organized lectures by revolutionary black artists and intellectuals, and distributed leaflets to inform and inculcate the public in their revolutionary opinions. The subjects of the leaflets were wide-ranging, from elections to the
arms race An arms race occurs when two or more groups compete in military superiority. It consists of a competition between two or more states to have superior armed forces; a competition concerning production of weapons, the growth of a military, and t ...
to the black struggle, and eventually the leaflets became the newsletter ''Afropinion''. In Cleveland, RAM's most notable accomplishment was their open protestation against
Mae Mallory Mae Mallory (June 9, 1927 – 2007) was an activist of the Civil Rights Movement and a Black Power movement leader active in the 1950s and 1960s. She is best known as an advocate of school desegregationMelissa F. Weiner''Power, Protest, and the Pub ...
's incarceration. Mallory was a Black woman arrested for her relationship with Robert F. Williams, the future international chairman of RAM who, at the time, had fled to Cuba after being exiled from the United States. Working with the institute and its allies, RAM petitioned the governor of Ohio to revoke the extradition warrant{{Clarify, reason= extradition to where?, date=November 2020 against Mallory and held a large demonstration in front of the county jail, insisting on Mallory's immediate release.


Northern California

RAM's Northern California branch operated under the name the "Soul Students' Advisory Council" and started after then-member of the
Afro-American Association The Afro-American Association (AAA) was an influential organization founded in 1962 that started as a study group teaching African history, African and African-American history, African American history, later hosting speakers, meetings, forums, and ...
and future-Black Panther, Ernie Allen, went on a trip to Cuba in 1964. There Allen traveled alongside the future organizers of Uhuru, the
Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement The Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement (DRUM) was an organization of African-American workers formed in May 1968 in the Chrysler Corporation's Dodge Main assembly plant in Detroit, Michigan. History Detroit labor activist Martin Glaberman est ...
, and the
League of Revolutionary Black Workers The League of Revolutionary Black Workers (LRBW) formed in 1969 in Detroit, Michigan. The League united a number of different Revolutionary Union Movements (RUMs) that were growing rapidly across the auto industry and other industrial sectors ...
. He also coincidentally met and talked to Max Stanford, who was in Cuba visiting Robert Williams at the time. This confluence of events resulted in Allen establishing a branch of RAM in Oakland at
Merritt College Merritt College is a public community college in Oakland, California. Merritt, like the other three campuses of the Peralta Community College District, is accredited by the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges. The college e ...
through the Soul Students' Advisory Council. The Soul Students' Advisory Council published a widely distributed prose and poetry journal called ''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. The Soul Students' Advisory Council, in its interaction with RAM, exposed Seale and Newton to anti-imperialism, socialism, and revolutionary nationalism for the first time, which was critical in their political development.


Political suppression


FBI and COINTELPRO

{{Quote, text=The purpose of this new counterintelligence endeavor is to expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize the activities of black nationalist, hate-type organizations and groupings, their leadership, spokesmen, membership, and supporters, and to counter their propensity for violence and civil disorder ... Intensified action under this program should be afforded to the activities of ... Revolutionary Action Movement ... Particular emphasis should be given to extremists such as
Stokely Carmichael Kwame Ture (; born Stokely Standiford Churchill Carmichael; June 29, 1941November 15, 1998) was a prominent organizer in the civil rights movement in the United States and the global pan-African movement. Born in Trinidad, he grew up in the Unite ...
, H. "Rap" Brown,
Elijah Muhammad Elijah Muhammad (born Elijah Robert Poole; October 7, 1897 – February 25, 1975) was an African American religious leader, black separatist, and self-proclaimed Messenger of Allah, who led the Nation of Islam (NOI) from 1934 until his de ...
, and Maxwell Stanford., author=
J. Edgar Hoover John Edgar Hoover (January 1, 1895 – May 2, 1972) was an American law enforcement administrator who served as the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He was appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation  ...
, 25 August 1967 As exemplified by police repression of RAM in Philadelphia in the summer 1967, the
FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...
and their
COINTELPRO COINTELPRO ( syllabic abbreviation derived from Counter Intelligence Program; 1956–1971) was a series of covert and illegal projects actively conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveilling, infiltrati ...
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 The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, often pronounced ) was the principal channel of student commitment in the United States to the civil rights movement during the 1960s. Emerging in 1960 from the student-led sit-ins at segrega ...
(SNCC),
Southern Christian Leadership Conference The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is an African-American civil rights organization based in Atlanta, Georgia. SCLC is closely associated with its first president, Martin Luther King Jr., who had a large role in the American civi ...
(SCLC),
Congress of Racial Equality The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) is an African Americans, African-American civil rights organization in the United States that played a pivotal role for African Americans in the civil rights movement. Founded in 1942, its stated mission ...
(CORE), the Black Panther Party, the Nation of Islam, the
National Welfare Rights Organization The National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO) was an American activist organization that fought for the welfare rights of people, especially women and children. The organization had four goals: adequate income, dignity, justice, and democratic p ...
,
Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement The Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement (DRUM) was an organization of African-American workers formed in May 1968 in the Chrysler Corporation's Dodge Main assembly plant in Detroit, Michigan. History Detroit labor activist Martin Glaberman est ...
(DRUM),
Republic of New Afrika The Republic of New Afrika (RNA), founded in 1968 as the Republic of New Africa (RNA), is a black nationalist organization and black separatist movement in the United States popularized by black militant groups. The larger New Afrika movement ...
(RNA),
Congress of Afrikan People The Congress of Afrikan people (CAP) was a proponent of black nationalism. Active in the 1970s, CAP's ideology was set around Maoist theory and practice. Its activities illustrate fluidity and changing nature of black radicalism in this period. It l ...
, black student unions at universities across the US, and black churches and community organizations.{{Cite book, title=War at Home: Covert Action against U.S. Activists and What We Can Do about It, last=Glick, first=Bryan, publisher=South End Press, year=1989, location=Boston, Massachusetts{{Rp In 1967, following an exposé on RAM in ''
Life Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energ ...
'' magazine,{{Cite magazine, author=Russell Sackett, page=100-112, title=Plotting a War on "Whitey", magazine=Life, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rlUEAAAAMBAJ, date=10 June 1966, publisher=Time Inc, issn=0024-3019 Max Stanford and 16 other RAM members were arrested on conspiracy charges and for allegedly plotting to assassinate the
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 ...
's
Roy Wilkins Roy Ottoway Wilkins (August 30, 1901 – September 8, 1981) was a prominent activist in the Civil Rights Movement in the United States from the 1930s to the 1970s. Wilkins' most notable role was his leadership of the National Association for the ...
and the
Urban League The National Urban League, formerly known as the National League on Urban Conditions Among Negroes, is a nonpartisan historic civil rights organization based in New York City that advocates on behalf of economic and social justice for African Am ...
's
Whitney Young Whitney Moore Young Jr. (July 31, 1921 – March 11, 1971) was an American civil rights leader. Trained as a social worker, he spent most of his career working to end employment discrimination in the United States and turning the National Urban ...
. Stanford went underground to avoid arrest and indictment, but the rest of the Queens 17, as they were called, went to trial and had to pay a $200,000 bail bond.


Dissolution of RAM

In this context of government repression, RAM transformed itself into the Black Liberation Party, and by 1969 had practically dissolved. Many of its members went back to their communities or joined other civil rights groups to continue pushing their ideology of black internationalism and armed self-defense.


Criticisms of RAM

On multiple occasions, FBI director
J. Edgar Hoover John Edgar Hoover (January 1, 1895 – May 2, 1972) was an American law enforcement administrator who served as the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He was appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation  ...
condemned RAM, describing the organization as a "militant black nationalist hate group." During its existence, RAM was the target of denigration from a wide range of critics, including
Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist, one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968 ...


Revisionism

Though RAM claimed to be a Maoist organization, some scholars, such as
Robin Kelley Robin Davis Gibran Kelley (born March 14, 1962) is an American historian and academic, who is the Gary B. Nash Professor of American History at UCLA. From 2006 to 2011, he was Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Sout ...
, have critiqued it for not sticking to Mao's philosophies. He writes: "Mao's insistence on the protracted nature of revolution was not taken to heart; at one point they suggested that the war for liberation would probably take ninety days. And because RAM's leaders focused their work on confronting the state head on and attacking black leaders whom they deemed reformists, they failed to build a strong base in black urban communities. Furthermore, despite their staunch internationalism, they did not reach out to other oppressed 'nationalities' in the United States." Amidst the sectarianism of the New Left, other activists and black liberation organizations also criticized RAM. In particular, the Black Panther Party said that although RAM led the development of black nationalist thought in the US, examples of their application of revolutionary ideas was few and far between, and mostly limited to students, rather than the black underclass "lumpenproletariat" they claimed to represent. RAM often struggled to meld theory and practice.


References

{{Reflist {{Authority control {{DEFAULTSORT:Revolutionary Action Movement African-American organizations African-American socialism Anti-racist organizations Black Power Black political parties in the United States COINTELPRO targets Communism in the United States Defunct Maoist organizations in the United States New Left Organizations disestablished in 1968 Organizations established in 1962 1962 establishments in the United States 1968 disestablishments in the United States Organizations based in Philadelphia Defunct organizations based in Pennsylvania