revolutionary action movement (ram) - Michael Schwartz Library

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that a historical lesson was offered in the plantation system, which was
totally dependent on black labor and not on the white masters . Black
workers today, it continued, have the same capacity to run the economy if
they recognize that a corrupt system is causing their suffering and they
have the power to act to destroy it . The state will attempt to repress
this movement through the use of "Uncle Toms" who will try to establish an
illusion of progress or will use force to crush the people . Black workers
can reply with : strikes and demonstrations, occupation, and retaliation,
and operation and liquidation . 22
The Vang uard :
Black Youth
Although black workers were considered the most radical
class within
the black community, and organizations like the League of Revolutionary
Black Workers (DRUM) the most positive development in the organizing of
wokers, RAM split the class along age lines . 23 RAM saw black youth as the
most revolutionary sector of the black community because they had
the most
sustained resentment against the system and the highest level of frustration
. Youth were presented as the key to the revolution in Towards Revolutionary
Action Movement Manifesto (April, 1964) . There were part of the
worldwide revolutionary forces, such as, those in Angola and the Congo,
where the youth made up the majority of the troops .
The first point of the The 12
Point Program of RAM (Revolutionary
Action Movement) , 1964, concerned black students . It stated that the goals
of the Afro-American Student Movement (ASM)
were to educate Afro-Americans
about oppression, to develop unity with Afro-Americans in the U .S . and
22 Ibid ., p . 29
p . 5 .
23 The Formation of a National Centralized Black Liberation Party , 1969,