revolutionary action movement (ram) - Michael Schwartz Library

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marches were organized against the precinct with thousands in the community
participating . Stanford returned to Cleveland and reported what
was developing in Detroit . From Cleveland he returned to Philadelphia .
By mid-July, sixty-three local
grass roots activists were talking
about marching on Washington and bringing the capital to a standstill .
Freeman decided the time had come to call the various revolutionary
nationalist cadres together in what was called a Black Vanguard Conference .
The Black Vanguard Conference was to be a
secret, all-black, all-male conference
to draft strategy for the proposed march on Washington and the
direction of the movement .
The conference was held in early August in
Cleveland, Ohio .
Activists attended from Chicago, New York, Philadelphia,
and Cleveland . Detroit was barred because of a security leak in the cadre
there .
Freeman presided over the conference .
Discussion centered around
changing the existing civil rights movement into a revolutional nationalist
movement .
It was discussed that the cadre could achieve this by infiltrat
ing the existing civil rights groups (CORE, SNCC, NAACP, SCLC) . The march
on Washington was also discussed .
It was decided that an organizer would
be sent into Washington prior to the march to decide what kind of a strategy
the cadre should take during the march .
During the discussion on what form the coalition of activists should
take, the beginnings of an ideological split emerged . Chicago and New
York favored using the name RAM since RAM had established a mass break
through of developing community support .
Those advocating this position
wanted a tight-knit structure based on disciplined cells, with rules and
organization based on democratic centralism .
Freeman argued against this
position and advocated a loose coalition called the Black Liberation Front .