revolutionary action movement (ram) - Michael Schwartz Library

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Eleven members of the RNA including Imari were imprisoned . The RNA eleven
remain black political prisoners .
During this period, the RAM leadership decided that a mass revolutionary
action movement had been created but that there was ideological
confusion within it . It was felt that a revolutionary nationalist party
had to be created . A news release was sent out announcing the formation
of the African-American Party of National Liberation that would be popularly
known as the Black Liberation Party .
Several
meetings with cadres were held to explain the program and
tactics of the party . The Party's program was the same as the RNA's : selfdetermination
of the black nation in the Black Belt South and the secession
of the
states of Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina, Louisiana and Alabama
to become an independent black socialist republic .
This was a major ideological shift for the RAM leadership in that
they dropped the black dictatorship of the U .S . concept . The nationalist
position had gained prominence within the organization .
The Founding of Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement ;
DRUM
During the summer of 1968, RAM cadres and others had formed a black
caucus of workers in the Dodge Hamtramck plant in Detroit around a newspaper
called Inner City Voice . On May 2, 1968, a walkout of 4,000 workers
occurred at the Hamtramck Assembly Plant which stemmed from a gradual
speed
up of the production line .
We decided we would do somthing about organizing black workers
to fight the racial discrimination inside the plants and the
overall oppression of black workers . . . . And this was the
beginning of DRUM . 30
30 James A . Geschwender, "The League of Revolutionary Black Workers ."
The Journal of Ethnic Studie s . Vol . 2, No . 3, (Fall 1974), p . 4 .