revolutionary action movement (ram) - Michael Schwartz Library

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Philadelphia voted with Freeman, and because Freeman had more experience
than most of the activists there, the rest voted on calling the gathering
the Black Liberation Front (BLF) .
Chicago also raised the question of
whether the BLF should be a
Marxist-Leninist formation, but there was no
consensus or agreement ; so it was decided that the BLF would be revolutionary
nationalist .
At the March on Washington, the cadre met again . The BLF organizer
who had
been sent to Washington reported that the march did not have support
from the majority of the local black community there .
From his con
versations with people on the street, many did not know a march was being
planned for D .C . It was also observed that the army was posted at strategic
places in the city and was on alert to move in case of trouble . On the
basis of the report, it was decided just to--participate in the march and
observe .
By chance, while cadres were handing out leaflets in the community,
they ran
into Donald Warden, who was then chairman of the Afro-American
Association (AAA), a nationalist organization based in Oakland, California .
A meeting was set up with Warden, who explained what the AAA was about for
about 2a hours .
After the meeting, it was decided that the cadre would
stay in touch with Warden, but Freeman concluded that Warden was a
bourgeois
nationalist .
It was decided that the cadre would go back to their
respective locales and build bases .
After the March on Washington, several
events occurred which shaped
the civil rights movements and later the black liberation movement . One
was the bombing of four black girls in a church in Birmingham, Alabama .
The news of this both angered the black community and sent waves of demoralization
inside the civil rights movement . It was like a mortal blow