Institutional Affiliation
University of Pittsburgh, Bradford
Start Date
16-1-2025 3:30 PM
End Date
16-1-2025 5:00 PM
Proposal Type
Presentation
Proposal Format
Virtual
Proposal Description
From 1970 to 1983, it is estimated that the Black Liberation Army (BLA), by way of armed resistance in the name of revolutionary justice, was responsible for expropriating the lives of dozens of police officers across the United States of America. Yes, as unbelievable, and as extra-terrestrial as it might sound today, there was a very brief period in U.S. history when there were consequences for indiscriminate acts of police violence against the Black community. However, in the fields of conflict resolution and peace studies, the BLA is invisible. As a Black man who was born and raised in the womb of the Black Power Movement in 1960s Chicago, and an ethnographic Black Male Studies scholar on Black armed resistance and counterinsurgency violence, I am often asked, what served as the intellectual inspiration of the Black Liberation Army? Was there a sort of “book list” to become a soldier in the BLA?
Based on a series of Freedom of Information Privacy Act (FOIPA) requests over a 36-month period, I received and analyzed nearly 1,000 pages of over 14,000 previously undisclosed pages of declassified FBI documents on the Black Liberation Army. What I discovered confirmed not only that the BLA was the evolutionary vanguard of theoretical and pragmatic tactics of conflict resolution, but that they had mastered how to revolutionize global knowledge for the purpose of liberation. Based on primary source documents and oral histories, this paper presentation will unearth sixteen books the BLA was reading, as they prepared to declare war against direct, structural, and metaphysical violence.
Included in
Other International and Area Studies Commons, Other Political Science Commons, Peace and Conflict Studies Commons, Political Theory Commons, Politics and Social Change Commons, Public Affairs Commons
How to Become a Soldier in the Black Liberation Army: Sixteen Tomes
From 1970 to 1983, it is estimated that the Black Liberation Army (BLA), by way of armed resistance in the name of revolutionary justice, was responsible for expropriating the lives of dozens of police officers across the United States of America. Yes, as unbelievable, and as extra-terrestrial as it might sound today, there was a very brief period in U.S. history when there were consequences for indiscriminate acts of police violence against the Black community. However, in the fields of conflict resolution and peace studies, the BLA is invisible. As a Black man who was born and raised in the womb of the Black Power Movement in 1960s Chicago, and an ethnographic Black Male Studies scholar on Black armed resistance and counterinsurgency violence, I am often asked, what served as the intellectual inspiration of the Black Liberation Army? Was there a sort of “book list” to become a soldier in the BLA?
Based on a series of Freedom of Information Privacy Act (FOIPA) requests over a 36-month period, I received and analyzed nearly 1,000 pages of over 14,000 previously undisclosed pages of declassified FBI documents on the Black Liberation Army. What I discovered confirmed not only that the BLA was the evolutionary vanguard of theoretical and pragmatic tactics of conflict resolution, but that they had mastered how to revolutionize global knowledge for the purpose of liberation. Based on primary source documents and oral histories, this paper presentation will unearth sixteen books the BLA was reading, as they prepared to declare war against direct, structural, and metaphysical violence.