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Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, who as H. Rap Brown defined Black militancy in the 1960s with a call to arms against white oppression, and who later lived quietly as a Muslim cleric and shopkeeper until his arrest in 2000 in the murder of a sheriff’s deputy, died on Sunday in a federal prison hospital in North Carolina. He was 82.
His death, at the Federal Medical Center, Butner, was confirmed by Kristie Breshears, the director of communications for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which operates the hospital. She did not specify a cause. In February, The Washington Informer reported that Mr. Al-Amin had multiple myeloma and that his health was deteriorating.
He had been serving a life sentence without parole.
Before converting to Islam and changing his name in the 1970s, Mr. Al-Amin was one of the most incendiary orators among the Black Power activists who emerged in the late 1960s to challenge the leadership and nonviolent strategy of the civil rights movement.
With his trademark black beret and sunglasses, dexterous mind and imposing 6-foot-5 inch frame — 7 feet, with his Afro — he was a persuasive and charismatic figure to many, adept at rallying Black audiences to his cause while alarming many white listeners.
Elected chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in May 1967, he made an immediate mark by getting the word “nonviolent” removed from its name, persuading the organization’s leaders to change it to the Student National Coordinating Committee.
That summer, as riots erupted in Black neighborhoods in more than 100 American cities, Mr. Al-Amin made himself known to a wider audience through speeches that gave voice to Black anger and righteous indignation over a century of unfulfilled expectations since the end of slavery.
“Black folk built America, and if it don’t come around, we’re gonna burn America down,” he would say, a call-to-arms he delivered hundreds of times from 1967 to 1969 on street corners and college campuses and in meeting halls across the country.
After five days of rioting in Detroit that left 43 people dead and some 2,000 buildings destroyed in July 1967, Mr. Al-Amin declared that violence would be the new language of race relations. “I don’t think you could articulate the sentiments of Black people any better than they just did in Detroit,” he said.
The rhetoric gave him a high profile in the news media, made him the target of F.B.I. surveillance and led to his repeated arrest on gun-related, arson and conspiracy charges. His actions also helped ensure passage in 1968 of the first law in the nation’s history to make it illegal “to incite, organize, promote or encourage” a riot.
Conservatives in Congress attached the provision to the landmark 1968 fair housing law as a condition of their support. Though they were reacting to riots in Detroit, Newark and the Watts section of Los Angeles, in which Mr. Al-Amin had played no known role, they called the measure the “H. Rap Brown Federal Anti-Riot Act.”
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His death, at the Federal Medical Center, Butner, was confirmed by Kristie Breshears, the director of communications for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which operates the hospital. She did not specify a cause. In February, The Washington Informer reported that Mr. Al-Amin had multiple myeloma and that his health was deteriorating.
He had been serving a life sentence without parole.
Before converting to Islam and changing his name in the 1970s, Mr. Al-Amin was one of the most incendiary orators among the Black Power activists who emerged in the late 1960s to challenge the leadership and nonviolent strategy of the civil rights movement.
With his trademark black beret and sunglasses, dexterous mind and imposing 6-foot-5 inch frame — 7 feet, with his Afro — he was a persuasive and charismatic figure to many, adept at rallying Black audiences to his cause while alarming many white listeners.
Elected chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in May 1967, he made an immediate mark by getting the word “nonviolent” removed from its name, persuading the organization’s leaders to change it to the Student National Coordinating Committee.
That summer, as riots erupted in Black neighborhoods in more than 100 American cities, Mr. Al-Amin made himself known to a wider audience through speeches that gave voice to Black anger and righteous indignation over a century of unfulfilled expectations since the end of slavery.
“Black folk built America, and if it don’t come around, we’re gonna burn America down,” he would say, a call-to-arms he delivered hundreds of times from 1967 to 1969 on street corners and college campuses and in meeting halls across the country.
After five days of rioting in Detroit that left 43 people dead and some 2,000 buildings destroyed in July 1967, Mr. Al-Amin declared that violence would be the new language of race relations. “I don’t think you could articulate the sentiments of Black people any better than they just did in Detroit,” he said.
The rhetoric gave him a high profile in the news media, made him the target of F.B.I. surveillance and led to his repeated arrest on gun-related, arson and conspiracy charges. His actions also helped ensure passage in 1968 of the first law in the nation’s history to make it illegal “to incite, organize, promote or encourage” a riot.
Conservatives in Congress attached the provision to the landmark 1968 fair housing law as a condition of their support. Though they were reacting to riots in Detroit, Newark and the Watts section of Los Angeles, in which Mr. Al-Amin had played no known role, they called the measure the “H. Rap Brown Federal Anti-Riot Act.”
More at the link:
