revolutionary action movement (ram) - Michael Schwartz Library

CHAPTER FOUR
EMERGENCE OF RAM
The intent of this chapter is to present a descriptive historical
analysis of the growth and development of RAM into a
systematic organization
. It is also the intent of this chapter to describe the events and
personalities that contributed to that growth .
The Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM) evolved from the southern civil
rights movement of the early 1960's and the black nationalist movement in
Northern cities . As a result of the sit-ins, students in northern cities
organized solidarity demonstrations . Traditional civil rights organizations
like the NAACP and CORE held mass rallies in northern black communities
.
Black and white students demonstrated against Woolworth stores and
along with progressive clergy led economic boycotts .
Black students with
more radical leanings in the north, while supporting SNCC, had a tendency
to reject its non-violent philosophy . Some of these students joined CORE
to participate in direction action activities .
In the summer of 1961, at the time of freedom rides, Robert F . Williams,
president of the Monroe, North Carolina Chapter of the NAACP issued a
nation-wide call for Afro-Americans to arm for self-defense and go to
Monroe for a showdown with the KKK . 2
Williams also called for freedom
riders to go to Monroe to test non-violence .
1 Ebony Pictorial History of Black Americans, Vol . 3, (Chicago : Johnson
Publishing Company, 1970), p . 2 .~
2Haywood Burns, The Voices of Neqro Protest in America (New York :
Oxford University Press, 1963), p . 42 .
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