SPECIAL: The Long Sixties - Black Power, Third World Solidarity, & Into the Underground (1960-1971)

This special explores revolutionary movements during "the long 1960s" in Amerikkka. We trace the development of two revolutionary traditions: an anti-imperialist third worldist solidarity tradition alongside a party-building revolutionary model for achieving revolution. We examine key organizations including SNCC, RAM, the Black Panther Party, SDS, and the Weather Underground, alongside influential figures like Robert F. Williams, Muhammad Ahmad (Max Stanford), Malcolm X, and Kwame Ture.

We analyze how these organizations responded to global events like the Bandung Conference, the Cuban Revolution, and independence movements across Africa and Asia. This is the first in a series exploring revolutionary history in Amerikkka.

TIMESTAMPS

0:00: Introduction

3:20: Part 1: The late 1950s

6:05: Civil Rights Movements and its limitations (SNCC)

10:20: Robert Williams, NAACP and RAM

14:20: El-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz (Malcom X)

20:19: Muhammad Ahmad (Max Stanford) and Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM)

31:20: Kwame Ture and Black Power

37:42: Black Panther Party

46:51: Global 1968

1:00:15: David Gilbert 

1:08:10: SDS Split

1:31:10: 1970s, Widespread repression, & COINTELPRO

1:40:33: Panther 21 Open Letter to Weather Underground.

REFERENCES/RESOURCES

• Jericho Movement

• Revolutionary Nationalism and the Afro-American (1962)- Harold Cruse

• Malcolm X: Message to the Grassroots (1963) 

• SNCC Statement on ‘Vietnam’ Jan. 1966

• RAM’s “World Black Revolution” [1966]

• Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM): A Case Study of an Urban Revolutionary 

• We Must Destroy the Capitalism System Which Enslaves Us - Kwame Ture in Cuba (1967)

• U.S. Imperialism by David Gilbert and David Loud (1968)

• "You Don't Need A Weatherman To Know Which Way The Wind Blows" by RYM leadership (The Weathermen) (1969)

• Young Lords 13-Point Program (1970)

• "New Morning - Changing Weather" by the Weather Underground, 1970

• George Jackson: Black Revolutionary by Walter Rodney (1971)

• Remembering the Real Dragon: An Interview with George Jackson (1971)

• Open Letter to the Weather Underground - the New York Panther 21 (1971)
• ⁠On the Black Liberation Army - Jalil Muntaqim, 1979/1997⁠

• A Brief History of the Black Panther Party. It’s Place in the Black Liberation Movement - Sundiata Acoli, 1995

• Ignore Gore, Bush – Remember Jackson by Jonathan Farley, 2000

• Revolution is Illegal: Revisiting the Panther 21 at 50 by Orisanmi Burton (2021)

BOOKS AND THESES

• Movement in Western Capitalist Society. Max Stanford’s MA Thesis, May 1986. Includes Selected RAM Documents.

• Black Like Mao: Red China and Black Revolution by Robin D.G. Kelley and Betsy Esch

• Outlaws of America: The Weather Underground and the Politics of Solidarity (2006) by Dan Berger

• Love and Struggle: My life in SDS, the Weather Underground, and Beyond - Davild Gilbert (2012)

• Enemies of the State: An Interview with Anti-Imperialist Political Prisoners (David Gilbert, Laura Whitehorn, Marilyn Buck)

• Look for Me in the Whirlwind: From the Panther 21 to 21st-Century Revolutions (2017)

• Revolution in the Air: Sixties Radicals Turn to Lenin, Mao, and Che by Max Elbaum (2018)

• A History of the Revolutionary Action Movement - John Jones, Thesis, 2019

• Free the Land: The Republic of New Afrika and the Pursuit of a Black Nation-State by Edward Onaci (2020) (review from AAIHS editors)

• Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt - Orisanmi Burton (2023)

AUDIO/VIDEO

• A Look Back at the 1968 Democratic Convention and its Relevance Today - PBS (2024)- Link here. 9 min PBS video (3:15 min-onward).

• long interview with Kwame Ture on SNCC/Black political struggle in the 1960s, late 1980s

• David Gilbert - A Lifetime of Struggle, [1998]: link here.

• Exclusive: Freed Panther Sekou Odinga on Joining the Panthers, COINTELPRO, & Assata Shakur’s Escape

• Audio of Michael Cetewayo of the New York chapter of the BPP reads his essay “Capitalism Plus Dope Equals Genocide” (in Look for me in the Whirldwind.