revolutionary action movement (ram) - Michael Schwartz Library

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must be organized as well . The movement in the North and South have to be
consolidated and transformed into a national struggle for liberation . 36
In 1966, the RAM document, The Struggle for Black State Power in the
U .S ., emphasized the need for self-help programs in every area of black
life .
Black people would have to learn to produce the goods of a self
sufficient nation and build alternative, independent institutions .
Black
people's congresses, self-defense groups and a black army, an underground
network, a black national party of the masses built by 1972 and a black
Internationale were the priorities put forth in this paper . 37
The Black Panther Party and the Mississippi Freedom Labor Union opened
up new levels for the development of a national movement, RAM stated in
1966 . But they would have to become revolutionary movements if the nation
al struggle was to succeed . The most important issue facing the Black
Panther Party was that of armed self-defense . Economic development and
an overall program that sopke to the real needs of black people would also
be crucial . The Panther Party had to be expanded in the North and the
South .
RAM felt that revolutionary black nationalists must do this in
order to seize the initiative of the struggle . Black America had to be
organized by 1968 . 38
RAM's program did not include a point on the role of black women except
in point seven where Women's Leagues, made up of women who work as
domestics in white homes was suggested . Black women were seldom mentioned
36 Nation Within a Nation, 1965, p . 2 .
37 T he Struggle for Black State Power in the U .S . , July-August, 1966,
pp . 8-9 .
38Steps Towards Organizing a National Movement in the African-American
Struggle for National Liberation, Part II , August, 1966, p . 1 .