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Title: Black Panther Radical Factionalization and the Development of Black Anarchism
Author: Dana M. Williams
Date: 2015
Language: en
Topics: Black Anarchism, Black Panther Party, history
Source: *Journal of Black Studies* 2015, Vol. 46(7) 678–703. DOI:10.1177/0021934715593053
Notes: Corresponding Author: Dana M. Williams, Department of Sociology, California State University, 400 West First

Dana M. Williams

Black Panther Radical Factionalization and the Development of Black

Anarchism

Abstract

Racial justice social movements often fragment when their goals do not

seem completely achievable. Former participants in the radical Black

freedom struggles of the 1960s and 1970s, most of whom were Black

Panther Party (BPP) members (and also participants in the Black

Liberation Army) and identified with Marxist-Leninism, became

disaffected with the hierarchical character of the Black Panthers and

came to identify with anarchism. Through the lens of radical

factionalization theories, Black anarchism is seen as a radical

outgrowth of the Black freedom struggle. Black anarchists were the first

to notably prioritize a race analysis in American anarchism. This

tendency has a number of contemporary manifestations for anarchism,

including Anarchist People of Color caucuses within the movement, and,

more indirectly, the many anarchist strategies and organizations that

share similarities with the BPP, prior to its centralization.

Introduction

The Black freedom movement evolved in a variety of directions, but why

did some former activists continue to radicalize as they witnessed

movement failure? I focus on some of these activists who converged upon

anarchist positions, only to discover that American anarchism was a

largely White movement. Racial minorities critiqued what they perceived

as a White majority anarchist movement. Black anarchism did not

originate within anarchism, but external to it, from the Black power

movement—where Marxist-Leninism was the most influential political

ideology—whereafter activists blended anarchist positions with their

revolutionary nationalism. Black anarchism may be seen as a third-order

variation of Black American movements for social change. They rejected

both the liberal assimilationism of the mainstream civil rights movement

and the radical Black power response to civil rights manifested in the

Marxist-Leninist Black Panthers.

In order to understand these transformations, this article utilizes

theories of radical organizational factionalization. First, the racial

composition of American anarchism (into which Black anarchism grew) and

the extent of its Whiteness is described. Then, the article describes

anarchism’s pre-1960s’ views of race and explores the participation of

people of color, emphasizing how race was more consciously synthesized

with anarchist thought after this period. Crucial to this history are

the experiences of the Black Panther Party (BPP), the Black Liberation

Army (BLA), and a variety of activists associated with these

organizations and the Black freedom movement,[1] who experienced

incarceration and began an ideological move away from Marxist-Leninism

and toward anarchism. Specifically, this article addresses from where

Black anarchism in the United States originated and why it emerged when

it did. Next, the article explores Black anarchism’s main foci and what

makes it unique from other strands of anarchism. Black anarchists have

found themselves in a unique and conflictual position within the

American Left, by critiquing the liberal civil rights movement, the

authoritarianism of Black power organizations, and racism in a currently

White majority anarchist movement. Most recently, Black anarchism has

led to a more thorough integration of race analysis into anarchism and

the formation of people of color caucuses within the anarchist movement.

This article utilizes an approach advocated by Clemens and Hughes (2002)

that triangulates various historical data sources (ranging from

already-compiled datasets, movement-based newspapers, interviews, and

original activist writings) to construct an accurate picture of Black

anarchism’s creation. The key figures of Black anarchism, who are the

focus of this study, are Ashanti Alston, Kuwasi Balagoon, Lorenzo

Kom’boa Ervin, Ojore Lutalo, and Martin Sostre. These individuals began

to discover anarchism during the period of the late 1960s through the

1970s, to develop their ideas into the 1980s, and then began to have an

influence upon American anarchism beginning in the 1990s. All except

Sostre were members of the BPP, and Alston and Balagoon participated

with the BLA. All spent time in prison for a variety of crimes

(including allegedly fabricated charges), which they and supporters

considered politically motivated crimes and prosecutions. None began

adulthood as anarchists, but all moved toward anarchist positions after

their participation in the Black freedom movements in the 1960s. Each

articulated a distinct version of Black anarchism, as they emphasized

different concerns, defined anarchism differently, advocated different

strategies for social change, and spoke to different

audiences—consequently “Black anarchism” appears to be a somewhat

heterogeneous ideological subvariant in anarchist thought and practice.

Thus, these individuals do not represent a conclusive or unified

configuration of anarchist thought, nor do any claim that they embody

the “correct” view of Black anarchism. Nonetheless, Black anarchism

began to exert an intellectual and activist influence upon American

anarchism in the 1990s, which helped to create the space and inspiration

for Anarchist People of Color (APOC) in the 2000s. A notable result of

Black anarchist thought and writing is the widening of legitimacy for

racially under-represented voices within anarchism (especially in the

United States), including from the Global South, thereby supplementing

the dominant European orientation of anarchist movements.

A Sociological Critique of the Black Power Movement

Numerous themes are relevant to interpreting the Black power movement,

but key among them would be liberalism’s shortcomings,

intersectionality, and revolutionary nationalism. Each of these themes

is briefly presented here with examples of their significance for

radical Panthers, while more evidence will be provided in subsequent

sections. First, and perhaps most importantly, the civil rights

movement’s failure to achieve de facto equality was interpreted as a

failure of liberalism (i.e., the emphasis upon individual rights). Black

power was initially a critique of integrationism, with early proponents

focused on electing Black politicians and forming Black nationalist

organizations (Joseph, 2006). Then, instead of focusing on how to

integrate racial minorities into the capitalist U.S. state, later Black

power emphasized the need for economic, political, and cultural

autonomy. Liberalism considered the problem of racial inequality to stem

from mere intolerance or exclusion, whereas Black power understood

racial inequality as the consequence of racial domination resulting from

a system of White supremacy (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001).

In critique of the 1960s’ civil rights movement, Ervin (1995) argues

that not all organizations were the same. For example, the Student

Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was “anti-authoritarian in that

it had no leadership.... Power was in the hands of the membership and

grassroots organisers” (Ervin, 1995, p. 206). SNCC’s

anti-authoritarianism—which was in part inspired by the organization’s

advisor, Ella Baker (Ransby, 2003)—only faded when the organization

weakened and “leadership egos” flared (Ervin, 1995). Comparatively,

Lutalo (2004) characterized the modern civil rights movement as

“corrupt” and “opportunist” but also argued that those qualities have

existed for decades, saying leaders are

“open” for a price, just like Martin Luther King; he accepted money

during the march on Washington, ... [and] the big six civil rights

leaders at that time.... They just want[ed] a place at the table.

Lutalo also proposes a class analysis of the movement, asserting, “They

[movement leaders] don’t have the interests of black people, per se, at

heart. Just look at how they live today and look at how we live.” Large

civil rights protests since the 1960s, as well as the Nation of

Islam-organized Million Man March in 1995, were “stage managed” affairs

and did not work to politically educate the Black masses (Ervin, 2000a).

The civil rights movement may also “have served white society ... more

than those who claimed victory,” as its focus on “rights” was more

procedural in focus than substantive and easily stalled by “narrow

interpretation, administrative obstruction, and delay” (Revolutionary

Anti-Authoritarians of Color, 2002).

The Black feminist and third-wave feminist analyses of a “matrix of

domination” (Collins, 1990), especially regarding race and class, are

central to the Black freedom movement’s evolution.[2] For example, the

Black Panthers did not simply criticize White supremacy but noted its

close interplay with an exploitive economic system that drained Black

communities of labor and wealth, and a government intent upon political

suppression in election booths and on city streets. The Panther’s “Ten

Point Program” articulated this matrix of race and class domination

clearly (Newton, 2009). Also, many—although not all—Panthers were

sensitive to the role of patriarchy in society as well as within the

Party itself (Cleaver, 2001). The Panthers and other Black power

exponents helped to build this “intersectional” analysis—critiquing

state domination, class, race, and gender inequality. Thus, there are

divergent interests among Blacks of different social classes, as well as

between Black men and women, an observation echoed by the analysis of

Black anarchists.

Finally, the Black power movement emphasized the importance of

revolutionary nationalism in any analysis of race. Central to the

pursuit of revolutionary nationalism is the value of cultural, economic,

and political separation or autonomy from White society. Black

nationalism, particularly the BPPs, argued that Black Americans should

look to their own communities for their freedom (Alston, 2002a). While

the BPP may be the best known example of an organization that included

revolutionary nationalism,[3] it was not the only one; other left-wing

nationalist examples from the same time period include the Republic of

New Africa, Revolutionary Action Movement, League of Revolutionary Black

Workers, and the BLA (see Ahmad, 2007).[4] Some of these revolutionaries

advocated “armed struggle,” a political position that argues that

violence is assumed to play a role in racial domination, but that

violence was also a legitimate means of self-defense and social change.

Since the Party’s beginnings, an armed-struggle wing had existed, which

aimed to serve as a future military unit for Black America. On the East

Coast, many Panthers slowly begin to transfer over to the BLA, as the

principal armed-struggle component of the Black power movement (Umoja,

1999)[5] and Black anarchists Alston and Balagoon were affiliated with

the BLA. The BLA’s militancy (manifested as armed struggle) occupied the

“radical cusp” between social movement collective action and political

terrorism (see Beck, 2007). The armed-struggle elements of the Black

freedom movement are usually absent from movement histories and

narratives, just as they are in other countries (e.g., South Africa;

Seidman, 2001).

These themes are crucial for understanding why and how Black anarchism

emerged from the Black power movement. Next, I provide an overview of

the recently White-dominated anarchist movement that Black anarchists

were eventually to join. Following World War II, there was notable

cross-fertilization between U.S. anarchists and Black activists. The

civil rights movement in the 1950s was influenced by anarcho-pacifism,

which was based around a number of newspapers that were edited and

written by former conscientious objectors. For example, Martin Luther

King contributed articles to Liberation magazine, alongside anarchists

David Wieck, Dave Dellinger, and Paul Goodman. And the famous Black

activist Bayard Rustin was fired in 1951 by the Fellowship of

Reconciliation due to his homosexuality but was soon after hired by the

anarchist-led War Resisters’ League (Cornell, 2012). The anarchist

aesthetic was active, even if unconsciously, in other Black freedom

movement organizations. Paul Goodman was alleged to have described the

SNCC as an “anarchist organization” (cited in Ervin & Abron, 2001),

whose advisor Ella Baker was an advocate for self-determination and

famously stated, “Strong people don’t need strong leaders” (Ransby,

2003, p. 188). Although Baker encouraged youth involved in SNCC to

remain independent of the mainstream civil rights organizations

(especially the Southern Christian Leadership Conference) and influenced

SNCC’s decentralized structure, she never identified as an anarchist.

In certain respects, the Panthers were influenced by anarchism: They

reprinted the pamphlet The Catechism of a Revolutionist (often

attributed to Mikhail Bakunin, but most likely authored by Sergei

Nechaev; Leier, 2006)[6] and adopted a variation of the anarchistic San

Francisco Diggers’ free food distribution for their own well-known free

breakfast program for children (Carr, 2002). Further illustrating

patterns of cross-fertilization, the contemporary anarchistic

organization Food Not Bombs (FNB) has since taken inspiration from both

the Diggers and the Black Panthers in their own free food distribution

efforts since the 1980s in protest of militarism and poverty (Heynen,

2009). More on the Panthers’ impact upon contemporary anarchism will be

discussed later in the article.

In the aftermath of the 1960s’ Black freedom movement, very few Black

political formations emulated anarchist methods. The closest may have

been the MOVE organization in Philadelphia. Even though MOVE was very

deferential to their charismatic leader, Ervin (1995) claimed that

their politics are anarchist, including environmental and animal rights

platforms, they’re against government as an institution, in favour of

autonomous communities, co-operative lifestyle and society.... MOVE were

the first organization since the BPP to advocate black armed self

defence and I have great respect for them. They have all the essentials

of an anarchist political formation. (n.p.)

After previously adopting certain anarchist influences, the Black

freedom struggle in return influenced anarchism during the 1960s and

1970s, the Black Panthers being the best example. After discussions

about race occurring throughout the 1970s and 1980s, one of the first

large, nationwide, and explicitly anarchist organizations in the United

States to vigilantly discuss and prioritize the relationship of race

with anarchism in the post-1960s’ period was the Love and Rage

Revolutionary Anarchist Federation in the 1990s.[7] In fact,

philosophical and political disagreements over race were one of the

impetuses for the organization’s eventual devolution (San Filippo,

2003). Ervin belonged to the organization and Alston wrote for its

newspaper. Many in Love and Rage (1990–1998)—itself an organization

predominantly populated by White members—adopted “race traitor” and

“White abolitionist” perspectives in response to race domination in the

United States.[8] The NYC Love and Rage chapter wrote in its 1997

handbook (Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation, 1997) that

[t]he system of racial power and privilege known as white supremacy was

built up over the past 500 years through the process of the European

conquest, colonization, genocide, and enslavement of the peoples of

Africa, Asia and the Americas. Elements of racist ideology can be traced

to before the period of European expansion and those ideas have since

been adapted to the needs of non-European oppressor groups around the

world. (p. 30)

While this was the first time that many noticed the American anarchist

movement directly grapple with issues of race and to put racial

domination on par with forms of domination that derive from capitalism

and the state, it was not the first such attempt since the 1960s to do

so. Black activists, most formerly affiliated with the Black Panthers or

other Black power organizations, did so earlier, formulating a “Black

anarchism” borne out of their reaction to certain qualities of the BPP.

Next, this article focuses upon activists from the Black freedom

struggle who defected from the BPP’s Marxist-Leninism and Maoism (see

Brown, 2011) to anarchist positions. To understand this socio-political

development, I utilize ideas from radical factionalization theories. I

conduct a historical analysis on movement documents, memoirs, and press.

I also utilize new and pre-existing interviews with key figures close to

the Black anarchist tradition. For this analysis, I rely upon figures

who were prominent self-identified anarchists, many of whom also wrote

in detail about Black anarchism, including Alston, Balagoon, Ervin,

Lutalo, and Sostre.[9]

Radical Factionalization

Radicalization—for example, of certain Black Panthers toward anarchist

political positions and identities—has been a topic of focus for social

movement scholars. It is not uncommon for social movements to fracture

into different ideologically oriented or tactically based

configurations—especially when factions compete for the same

constituencies, in an environment lacking in cooperation (Della Porta &

Diani, 2006). For movement organizations representing a society’s

numerical minority, complete victory is often rare and much debate

occurs about the “proper” way to achieve goals. In this view,

liberalism’s perceived shortcomings often lead to movements developing a

broader set of processes that involve mainstreaming, majority cleavages,

and strategic re-orientations. Factionalization has typically occurred

when movements witness their progress stymied and activists must

re-evaluate their methods. Even successful organizations often re-assess

previous strategies, sometimes with drastic means. For example,

organizations as diverse as the American Federation of Labor, Earth

First!, Students for a Democratic Society, and the SNCC experienced

internal fissures—often facilitated by external environmental

factors—that led to substantial membership flight (Balser, 1997).

Although the oligarchization of formalized social movement organizations

is not necessarily guaranteed, less formalized or centralized groups are

more likely to become radical (Rucht, 1999). Membership flight and

oligarchization both occurred with the Black Panthers and led directly

to the creation of Black anarchism.

According to Della Porta and LaFree (2012), radicalization is “an

escalation process leading to violence” (p. 6). While a somewhat

hyperbolic definition, Della Porta and LaFree wisely regard such

radicalization as part of a pattern of behavior and attitude, not just

affecting isolated individuals but people who exist in the context of

organizations and other social structures. Thus, radicalization occurs

in a broader web of interaction with societal conditions, and often in

conflictual relations with state forces, especially police.

Radicalization within the Black freedom movement did not always

translate into calls for violence (let alone actual violence) but did

involve a polarization of political attitude. Much of this

radicalization was driven by perceived shortcomings of the liberal civil

rights movement and by police violence against the movement (Umoja,

1999). Armed struggle—as advocated by the BLA and many Black

anarchists—is best seen as “a means of last resort, employed after all

other forms of political action have been met with severe state

repression” (Dudouet, 2012, p. 99), as happened very visibly to the

Black Panthers.

Different processes can combine together to propel radicalization.

According to Alimi’s (2011) application of Charles Tilly’s “relational

dynamics” theory, radicalization results from competition for power

between movement actors, an unfavorable ratio of opportunity to threat

between a movement and the political system, and

response/counter-response escalation between a movement and the state.

Within the Black freedom movement, there were struggles between

proponents of nonviolence, self-defense, and armed struggle, and between

those who wanted civil rights from the state and those who wanted

autonomy from the state. By the late 1960s, the U.S. state was less

willing to provide the Black freedom movement with concessions,

especially as the movement went into Northern states and began focusing

on issues of poverty and social class. Frustrated by a lack of progress,

many movement activists became more assertive with their demands and

strategies, only to find local police forces and the Federal Bureau of

Investigation (FBI) arrayed against them. As the 1960s progressed,

shoot-outs between police and Panthers became more common (although far

more Panthers were negatively affected by this interplay) and the full

weight of state control—especially the FBI’s Counter-Intelligence

Program (CointelPro)—arrayed against the movement.[10]

Radicalization of the Black freedom movement had curious effects. The

growing influence of militants in SNCC and the Congress on Racial

Equality principally benefited moderate groups (e.g., the Urban League

and National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). For

example, urban riots encouraged corporations to donate money to

organizations like the Urban League and not more radical ones (such as

the Black Panthers), in the hopes of stemming further radicalization of

Blacks and disruption (Haines, 1984).

Factionalization occurred in a variety of Black freedom organizations.

In the case of the Black Panthers, the Party fragmented into at least

three groupings: an electorally oriented group in Oakland, autonomous

Panther groups throughout the United States, and a New York–based group

affiliated with Eldridge Cleaver who formed “the heart of the BLA”

(Rosenau, 2013). Some of those who fractured from the Party—and not just

those affiliated with the BLA—were to become anarchists after receiving

their political baptisms in the Party. Of course, most factionalization

sent BPP activists in directions other than anarchism, including toward

cultural nationalism, community organizing, the Revolutionary Communist

Party, and the Democratic Party.

Initially, Balagoon writes favorably of his early contact with the

Panthers: “when the Panthers came to New York, I checked them out, and

found the ten-point program unquestionable, and the fact that it was

community-based a good thing” (Balagoon, 1971, p. 270). But, eventual

Black anarchists, including Balagoon, later criticized the Panther’s

leadership model and decision-making structures, reflecting an

anti-authoritarian analysis. According to Ervin (1993),

I feel [the Black Panther Party] partially failed because of the

authoritarian leadership style of Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale and others

on the Central Committee ... [M]any errors were made because the

national leadership was so divorced from the chapters in cities all over

the country, and therefore engaged in “commandism” or forced work

dictated by leaders ... There was not a lot of inner-party democracy,

and when contradictions came up, it was the leaders who decided on their

resolution, not the members. (pp. 92–93)

Balagoon (2001) was to later characterize the Party as a “hierarchy”

that had undeserved pretensions of grandeur (p. 115). What devastated

the Party’s effectiveness most was when it

turned away from its purposes of liberation of the black colony to

fundraising. At that point, the leadership was imported rather than

developed locally and the situation deteriorated quickly and sharply ...

The leaders began to live high off the hog while the rank and file sold

papers, were filtered out leaving behind so many robots who wouldn’t

challenge policy.... (pp. 75–76)

With the decline of the BPP, former leaders like Bobby Seale “sold-out”;

according to Sostre (1976), “After advocating destroying the pig system,

[Seale] tried to join it” (p. 13). Alston (n.d.) later identified his

own uncritical acceptance of BPP leadership:

I realized that there was a problem with my love for people like Huey P.

Newton, Bobby Seale, and Eldridge Cleaver and the fact that I had put

them on a pedestal. After all, what does it say about you, if you allow

someone to set themselves up as your leader and make all your decisions

for you? What anarchism helped me see was that you, as an individual,

should be respected and that no one is important enough to do your

thinking for you. (n.p.)

Accordingly, Alston (2004) observed that the Marxist-oriented liberation

movements of the 1960s became “less inclusive, less spontaneous, less

democratically participatory” (p. 5).[11] Sostre (1976) stated that many

Marxist-Leninists defended “repression and restrictions on human

rights,” in pursuit of overthrowing capitalism (p. 28). As noted by

Dragadze (1996), separatists have often rejected Marxists’ appeals to

unify in the fight against capitalist imperialism, instead choosing to

wage this fight independently of Marxists (p. 345).

Consequently, former BPP members who later dissented and became

anarchists characterized the BPP’s key problem as oligarchization.

According to Johnson (1998), who borrows from Robert Michels’s (1949)

“elite theory,” the Panthers declined, in part, due to their

organizational centralization and cult of personality.[12] Specifically,

the Party changed from a large, decentralized, revolutionary

organization to a small, highly centralized, reformist group. By 1974,

great responsibility had been placed in the hands of a single

individual—Huey P. Newton—who often used this power irresponsibly and

destructively. (p. 392)

Ervin (1993) observed that “many times leaders have one agenda,

followers have another” (p. 93). Thus, it is unsurprising that the

“leaders” of the Black freedom struggle were not among those who would

drift toward anarchism but rather members of the movement’s

rank-and-file.[13] The discomfort felt by some rank-and-file with the

Panthers’ organizational and authority structure provoked reflection

that eventually resulted in Black anarchism.

Origins of Black Anarchism

Black anarchism did not emerge autonomously within the largely White

anarchist movement in the United States, but instead fractured away from

the Marxist-Leninist-oriented Black freedom struggle. Certain conditions

seemed to aid in this process. First, many Black anarchists had

comparable experiences of incarceration, which in some cases created

favorable opportunities for political transformation. Due to government

suppression (particularly the FBI’s CointelPro), former Panthers faced

uniquely high incarceration rates among 1960s’ movement activists

(Churchill & Vander Wall, 1988). This was particularly true for those in

the most militant wings of the Black freedom struggle (Muntaqim, 2002).

The geographic and spatial distance from outside movements and extra

time to re-assess previous strategies may have played a key role for the

creation of Black anarchism. Balagoon (2001) states, “Once captured for

armed robbery, I had the opportunity to see the weakness of the [Black

Panther] movement and put the state’s offensive in perspective” (p. 75).

Prison-based transformation is not unique to the Black anarchists.

Malcolm X famously converted to the Nation of Islam while in prison (X,

1990), which was one of Malcolm’s many “reinventions,” according to

Marable (2011). Prison activist and BPP member George Jackson originally

was politicized once in prison (Jackson, 1994).[14] Former Weather

Underground member David Gilbert (personal correspondence, October 21,

2012) states that prisons in the 1960s and 1970s were less distracting

for inmates than the outside world, thus encouraging political

reflection and reading—also beneficial were the period’s active social

movements and lack of TVs in cells. Still, the impoverished and

dominated conditions of prisons and urban Black neighborhoods were so

analogous that the radicalization taking place within communities

outside of prisons easily translated to and seeped into prison

communities (Johnson, 1975).

Word-of-mouth was a key pathway to the adoption of anarchism for these

Black activists. While Ervin (1993) mentions encountering anarchism when

arrested in East Germany and then receiving anarchist literature while a

prisoner in 1973, he says his first serious consideration of anarchism

occurred through meeting Martin Sostre in 1969.[15] Sostre, who owned an

Afro-American bookstore in Buffalo, New York, and was sentenced to

prison on trumped-up drug charges (see Copeland, 1970), may have been

the first Black anarchist convert in the post-1960s’ wave of the

movement:

Believing that a Black audience would have difficulty accepting the

language of anarchy, in 1972 [Sostre] wrote of his unwillingness “to

introduce foreign terms [such as anarchy] into the ghetto-colony which

sisters and brothers cannot relate to” ... As an anarchist, he admitted

to being a novice. By 1972 he had read only “sketches of Kropotkin,

Bakunin and others [and] as yet have never read an entire book on

anarchism.” (Schaich & Hope, 1977, pp. 294–295)

Sostre (1976) felt that the problem was the Marxist-Leninist

“party-line” and “the whole structure” (p. 28), which replaced ruling

elites but did not further human freedom. Alston (2002b) adopted

anarchism via his relationship with Frankie Ziths (who was to become a

renowned photographer later in life):

My own independent studies, provoked by Panther Frankie Ziths ... gave

me my first anarchist reading ... Frankie’s hand-written notes on the

sides of these readings would always relate the “lessons,” for example,

on the Maknovists’ betrayal by the Russian communists, to our possible

betrayal by white communists and other privileged white activists. (p.

19)

Lutalo credits Balagoon for introducing him to critiques of

Marxist-Leninism in 1975, specifically the “ineffectiveness of Marxism

in our communities along with repressive bureaucracy that comes with

Marxism” (“Free Ojore Lutalo,” 1992).

Anarchism began to make sense to some former Panthers who were

frustrated with the oligarchical direction of the Party. According to

Balagoon’s former prison mate David Gilbert (personal correspondence,

October 21, 2012), Balagoon not only was critical of bureaucracy and the

repressiveness in Marxist-Leninism, but he also “was [a] free spirit in

many ways, often very creative and not one to boss people around ...

[He] had a lot of faith in people’s ability to take charge of their own

society.” Likewise, Alston (2011) writes that he increasingly wanted

“power to the people where it stays with the people.” Lutalo (2004)

described his new anarchist beliefs saying,

I just believe in the consensus process, I believe in the autonomous

process. I believe that people are intelligent enough to govern their

own lives and make their own decisions without somebody collecting

untold billions of dollars of taxes and telling you what should and

shouldn’t be. Most organizations of the Left and the Right they want to

repress, they have power ambitions, they power hungry, money hungry. And

they’ll do anything to retain that particular power. They don’t consult

with the lower class people, they make decisions for them and I feel

that’s wrong. So that’s why I became an anarchist.

This more micro-analysis of BPP leadership led these individuals to

identify with anarchism, as opposed to macro-level and philosophical

rejection of the legitimacy of sovereign states. While some—notably

Ervin in his widely read Anarchism and the Black Revolution—described

themselves as “Black anarchists,” other labels were also used. Balagoon

and Lutalo identified as “New Afrikan anarchists,” to note that they

were Africans, who happened to be living in America, and thus were not

“African Americans” (Balagoon, 2001; Ervin, 1994). Alston adopted the

label of an anarchist Panther, which also became the name of the ’zine

he published during the 2000s.[16] While their identifications as

anarchists is a key observation to make, just as crucial is that—unlike

many other anarchists—they also had an important racial identity to

assert; thus, the “Black,” “New Afrikan,” or “Panther” monikers attached

to their broader political labels.

Black Anarchism’s Vision and Relationship With White Anarchists

The vision of Black anarchism reflects some of the Black power

movement’s skepticism of liberal reform, an emphasis upon the matrix of

domination in its analytical lens, and the prioritization of

revolutionary nationalism. Crucially, as hinted above, Black

anarchism—as with more mainstream anarchism—is resistant to the

influence and intervention of so-called leaders, even if only

charismatic authority figures. This analysis was a principal reason for

Black anarchist’s radical fracturing away from the BPP. Alston (1999)

writes that

Top-down organizations [and] leadership organization[s] are

relationships based on some being the brains and most being brainless

and therefore IN NEED OF those with the brains. I reject that. I love

myself and I love People and therefore we all got brains and together

are smarter than any small group of muthafuckas claiming to be my/our

leaders. (pp. 3–4, emphasis in the original)

Even while rejecting the BPP’s authoritarianism, the Black anarchists

retained the Panthers’ emphasis upon community organizing. Ervin (1995)

advocated an anarchism that implemented “survival programmes,” which

would win anarchists “respect” among disadvantaged populations.

Consequently, these populations must not only be protected, but they

must be thoughtfully self-organized. Ervin (2000b) states that “we

should arm [the people] then not just with guns, but with revolutionary

ideology. They make the revolution, not a vanguard underground force.

There are no heroes or condescending saviors; we must act as our own

liberators” (p. 25).

A key component to the new Black anarchism was its critique of multiple

institutions of domination.[17] For example, Balagoon (2001) noted that

anarchists were not merely anti-statists but refused to “recognize

borders” and were thus anti-imperialists, too (p. 118). More broadly,

Black anarchism is intersectionalist.[18] Capitalism and racism were

clearly enemies of Black anarchists, but ultimately “all kinds of

negative ‘isms’” warranted fighting against (Alston, 2002a). Ervin

(1993) makes these connections even more explicitly:

Anarchism means that we will have more democracy, social equality, and

economic prosperity. I oppose all forms of oppression found in modern

society: patriarchy, white supremacy, capitalism, state communism,

religious dictates, gay discrimination, etc. (p. 98)

The way for Black Americans to fight these multiple forms of domination,

according to Ervin, who Heynen and Rhodes (2012) refer to as an organic

Black intellectual, is to engage in time-tested anarchist methods of

resistance, such as a popular refusal to pay taxes, participation in

rent strikes and general labor strike, to boycott American businesses,

and end police brutality. Community needs should instead be provided by

community members themselves—and if the community is a Black community,

then Blacks should be the ones in control of these efforts. Ervin

advocates constructing local community councils to make political

decisions, the creation of mutual aid banking societies and housing

cooperatives, and exerting community and worker control over food

systems, workplaces, and educational institutions (Ervin, 1993). These

efforts amount to revolutionary Black nationalism, whereby community

members supplant the state and capitalism to provide for their own

needs.

For Alston (2002a), even with the shortcomings of Black nationalism

(“historical sexism, hierarchy, or its modernist trappings”), it was

still the force that routinely unites Black Americans and provides

important resources and direction for social change struggles. Alston

views nationalism as being potentially anti-state (like anarchism). Any

hierarchies internal to a nationalist movement are the obligation of

revolutionary nationalists (who belong to that “nation”) to solve.

Therefore, Black anarchism is “black” in a similar way that Black

feminism is—it places an emphasis upon Blackness in the anarchist

milieu, or a “pole” from which to critique White privilege in that

milieu. Not all anarchists are comfortable with the introduction of

nationalist themes into anarchism, particularly insofar as nationalism

leads to the formation of new states or the simple swapping of dominant

and subordinate groups.

While “there is a new understanding among at least some Anarchists about

how White supremacy is both structurally and ideologically a weapon

which prohibits the building of a true freedom movement in this land”

(Ervin, 1993, p. 3), Black anarchists and their emphasis upon racism

were not always accepted by all fellow American anarchists. Struggles

faced by some racially under-represented participants in the American

anarchist movement illustrated the need for emphasizing anarchism’s

intersectional analysis, particularly of racial domination. Today, it is

most likely the case that most anarchists (White or otherwise) accept

the Black anarchist focus on racism, but more are critical of the

revolutionary nationalist themes that may accompany it.

Balagoon was critical of

the predominantly white North American anarchists who didn’t support

national liberation for the oppressed and who were generally weak on

racism and in not understanding the deep structure of white supremacy. A

lot of his [Balagoon’s] focus in his last year [before his death] was on

arguing anti-racism to the anarchist movement. (D. Gilbert, personal

correspondence, October 21, 2012)

As Alston (2002a) has argued, perhaps this is because the majority of

[White] American anarchists do not understand Black Americans’

experience in a White supremacist society.

Such ignorance affected the ability of White anarchists to be good

anti-racist allies to Black Americans. According to Ervin, the

anarcho-syndicalist union Industrial Workers of the World and the Love

and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation were resistant to Ervin’s

attempts to create “Black/people of color workers organizing” groups or

“semi-autonomy people of color organization[s]” within both larger

organizations. He felt he received “chastisement” from key activists and

that his proposals were rejected for advocating “separatism” (Ervin &

Abron, 2001). This hesitancy and unwillingness to incorporate people of

color on their own terms has led to “real serious problems in [the

anarchist movement’s] inability to interact with peoples of color,” as

well as expressions of “outright racism,” and “condescension and

pandering” (Ervin & Abron, 2001).[19] Consequently, Ervin expressed

feeling out-of-place within the movement, despite his anarchist

politics.[20] “The Anarchist movement in North America is overwhelmingly

White, middle-class, and for the most part, pacifist, so the question

arises: why am I a part of the Anarchist movement, since I am none of

those things?” (Ervin, 1993, p. 92). These efforts were motivated by

Ervin’s (1993) predictions that “Blacks and Hispanics will surely

constitute the backbone of the US anarchist movement in the future,” and

thus, he wanted “to apply anarchism to the black community” (p. 92). In

response to his sense of isolation, Ervin worked to create spaces within

the anarchist movement for people of color.

Black Anarchism’s Influence Upon Modern Anarchism

The term Black anarchism implies an interaction between “Black” and

“anarchism.” As such, it has brought together separate traditions in

creative ways. Although the above describes Black anarchists’ rejection

of the BPP’s hierarchy, many contemporary anarchists share certain BPP

values, foci, and activities. For example, the Party targeted the most

egregious manifestations of racism—in particular local politicians,

police, and business people—as well as subtle forms of racism. Compare

this to the anarchist-friendly and majority White organization

Anti-Racist Action (ARA), which today focuses upon opposing the

organizing efforts of fascists and White racists, like neo-Nazis, the Ku

Klux Klan, and racist skinheads. However, while ARA was formed to

confront fascist and White racist organizing efforts, Ervin (1996a) was

critical of it for focusing on overt, individual racists, to the neglect

of other institutions (e.g., police, courts, landlords, and others) who

produce racially unequal and discriminatory outcomes, but often without

racist rhetoric (pp. 3, 13). Other critiques of 1990s’ era ARA have

suggested that activists present an anti-racist form of color-blindness

(O’Brien, 1999). Many local ARA chapters have created Cop Watch

programs—comparable to the BPP’s infamous neighborhood patrols that

monitored police misconduct—although now with the aid of modern

technologies, such as video cameras. Just as the Panthers believed and

advocated for armed self-defense and for political prisoners, the

Anarchist Black Cross (ABC) also supports the rights of people to

self-defense and armed struggle[21] , as well as supporting many

political prisoners and prisoners of war[22] who were members of the BPP

and the BLA, most of whom do not identify as anarchists. Anarchists and

ABC are some of the few on the Left to do political prisoner support and

activism for 1960s’ movement activists. And, as mentioned above, the

anarchistic FNB distributes free food to people, which echoes one of the

most prominent BPP survival programs, the Free Breakfast for Children

Program.[23] While FNB was not directly inspired by the BPP, FNB’s work

has been referenced as having goals compatible with the Panther’s

programs.

Perhaps the most prominent ideological commonality between anarchist and

BPP values is the shared emphasis upon autonomy and community control,

although the meaning of “autonomy” implies “racial autonomy.” Just as

Panthers and others in the “black power” movement demanded racial

self-determination with their slogan “black power now!” so do anarchists

value “people power,” and in doing so rejecting the demands of the civil

rights movement or other liberal pressure organizations that sought to

simply extend legal rights to citizens.[24] The coincidental

convergences between anarchism and the BPP are numerous, as Heynen

(2009) notes,

Like anarchist traditions in which organizing was or is not simply about

scaled tensions between the state and the local groupings of people

collectively producing alternative ways of life through direct action,

the BPP’s organizing recognized the power of mutual aid politics within

the local environment like never before seen in the United States. (p.

414)

Since the demise of the BPP (and the BLA), the Black anarchism synthesis

has become more explicit. The degree to which the BPP possessed certain

anarchistic characteristics may explain some of the appeal felt by

former BPPs for anarchist movements. Ervin and others formed the Black

Autonomy Network of Community Organizers (BANCO) and Federation of Black

Community Partisans (FBCP),[25] and published the 1990s’ newspaper Black

Autonomy. With chapters in Washington, Michigan, Tennessee, and

elsewhere, these configurations introduced anarchist ideas into

community struggles, especially those involving the issues of racial

inequality and discrimination. Black Autonomy published numerous pieces

by Ervin during its 4-year run, thereby introducing a largely anarchist

audience to more ideas from the person known by some as the author of

Anarchism and the Black Revolution. Edited by Greg Jackson, the

newspaper was noteworthy for its treatment of contemporary issues (urban

insurrections, the Million Man March, and other racialized topics of the

time), radical reflections and reporting of news on police brutality and

the Black freedom movement, and an exposition of anarchist ideas from

the perspective of Black radicals.[26] Jackson (1995) wrote at the end

of the introduction to the first issue of Black Autonomy published in

1995, “It is time for us to pick up where the Black Panther Party left

off!!!” (p. 3). The label Black autonomy is itself an effort to downplay

certain aspects of “revolutionary nationalism” from the Panthers that

anarchists consider problematic, such as the desire to create an

independent, Black nation-state (e.g., the Republic of New Africa).

Finally, the most recent attempt to broaden anarchism’s racial lens has

coalesced around APOC initiatives. While taking much inspiration from

Black anarchism and an initial invitation circulated by well-known

individuals like Ervin, APOC included racial minorities of a variety of

backgrounds (Black as well as Asian and Latino). APOC has held a number

of national conferences (including the first in Detroit during 2003 with

over 100 attendees), had multiple local collectives formed in cities

across the United States, and published a two-volume edited collection

called Our Culture, Our Resistance. According to Aguilar (2003b), APOC

serves as a safe space for people of color who are anarchists to share

stories and provide each other solidarity, to strategize about how to

overcome internalized oppressions, and to have a buffer between them and

the overwhelmingly White anarchist movement, which still includes people

with racial prejudices. Ribeiro (2005) refers to APOC as a

quilombo—which were autonomous zones in Brazil where escaped slaves

congregated and created more egalitarian social relations—and considers

APOC a “conscious project of self-determination for people of color.”

Consequently, the space created by APOC allowed people of color who are

anarchists to both articulate an anarchist vision to fellow people of

color as well as advocate for a stronger analysis of race and ethnicity

within the anarchist movement. While APOC had only a tenuous axis within

American anarchism, it resulted in many positive consequences: most

importantly, reminding the movement that race was a crucial issue,

identity, and source of domination. The first APOC conference was widely

supported by the anarchist movement, even with White anarchists

fund-raising for it and offering to provide security after Nazis

threatened to attack attendees (Aguilar, 2003a).

Conclusion

Black anarchism developed autonomously within the United States’ radical

Black freedom struggle, partly inspired by the BPP’s community

organizing, but also partly in repulsion to its leadership methods. The

strongest theoretical frameworks for understanding these developments

are radical factionalism and critical race theory—especially the

latter’s rejection of liberalism, its intersectionality, and its

prioritization of revolutionary nationalism. In particular, Black

anarchists continued the critiques of radical Black Panthers regarding

the shortcomings of the liberal, reformist civil rights movement. At the

same time, they took the BPP to task for its patriarchal tendencies, as

well as channeled the BPP’s critique of the American state through the

lens of anarchism. Finally, Black anarchists emphasized the

revolutionary nationalism pioneered in the Black power movement that

advocated for Black-run neighborhood councils, syndicalist unions, and

community defense units. They also desired autonomy from capitalism and

the American state, far more than the eventually electorally oriented

Oakland-based BPP.

Theories of radical factionalization help understand the ways in which

some Black activists developed anarchist political positions and moved

away from Marxist-Leninist ideology. Specifically, the anarchist

critique of hierarchy and authority facilitated the Black anarchists’

analysis of the BPP leadership. These Black anarchists interpreted the

BPP’s leadership as authoritarian, and became disgruntled with the later

party’s reformism and cult of personality, all of which were key issues

leading to the Black anarchists’ fragmentation away—ideologically and

physically—from the BPP. As suggested by prior research, fragmentation

took many different shapes and trajectories, of which only one was Black

anarchism.

The most influential contemporary source of anarchism’s broadening views

on race is the legacy of Black anarchist activists and authors who are

cited herein. Consequently, American anarchism is no longer a nearly

exclusive Whites-only affair, although it has taken many decades for

race to be positioned more centrally within the movement’s analysis and

activism, and issues of race, White privilege, and racism remain

concerns within the movement. Yet almost as significant for American

anarchism in the 1990s and 2000s was the writing of Black feminist

authors. In addition to the five male Black anarchists discussed in this

article, the work of Angela Davis, bell hooks, Audre Lorde, and others

were also key inspirations for further developing anarchism’s

intersectionality. Also, while Black anarchism has had influence outside

the United States, it would be erroneous to presume that it speaks for

Black people throughout the world, particularly in Africa (see Mbah &

Igariwey, 1997, for a much clearer attempt).

Acknowledgements

The author thanks Andy Cornell, Suzanne Slusser, Spencer Sunshine, and

Jake Wilson.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to

the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship,

and/or publication of this article.

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Author Biography

Dana M. Williams is a sociologist who studies social movements, social

inequalities (class, gender, and race), and social trust.

[1] I refer to the Black-led movements of the 1950s through 1970s as the

“Black freedom movement.” Within this designation are a variety of other

movements, including the liberal, assimilation-oriented movement known

as the “civil rights movement” and more radical, autonomy-oriented as

the “Black power movement.”

[2] To be clear, Black feminism’s emphasis on intersectionalism marks

one of its first academic points of entry. However, these scholarly

traditions did not themselves develop “intersectionalism,” as many

American activists—including anarchists, as shown below—had a comparable

analysis many decades earlier.

[3] Black Panther Party’s (BPP’s) ideology also involved a variety of

other influences—as will be noted later—including Marxist-Leninism,

Maoism, and coalition building and community organizing. For more of

these influences, see Brown (2011).

[4] Revolutionary nationalism may be contrasted against cultural

nationalism, such as that presented by the United Slaves (US)

organization in Southern California.

[5] While no systematic analysis has been conducted upon the Black

Liberation Army (BLA), data from the National Consortium START show 37

acts of “terrorism” attributed to the BLA, from 1970 to 1984, while 87%

of all attacks occurred between 1971 and 1973. As an armed-struggle

organization, the BLA (with an anarchist-compatible emphasis, however

flawed) attacked state and capitalist targets; 49% of all targets were

police and 38% were businesses (National Consortium for the Study of

Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, 2011). The epicenter for the BLA

activity was New York City, where 62% of all BLA actions occurred.

[6] David Hilliard also states that Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver

quoted from The Catechism pamphlet (Hilliard & Cole, 1993, p. 181).

[7] Love and Rage began as a newspaper in 1990, became a network in

1991, and turned into a continental federation in 1993 (and disbanded in

1998). Others, of course, discussed issues of race and Black anarchists,

even in the 1970s, including the Social Revolutionary Anarchist

Federation’s (1972-1980s) paper Revolutionary Anarchist #3 who covered

Martin Sostre’s arrests. And other anarchistic organizations like

Movement for a New Society and the George Jackson Brigade focused on

race, too.

[8] According to Preston and Chadderton (2012), the “race traitor”

perspective (see Ignatiev & Garvey, 1996) must be situated within the

context of Marxist and anarchist politics, especially the autonomist

Sojourner Truth Organization in the United States (see Staudenmaier,

2012), and would benefit from a synthesis with critical race theory.

[9] It bears repeating that these five individuals have many

differences, in terms of their audiences and strategies for social

change. The oldest, Sostre, wrote and contributed to interviews, in

addition to providing a community resource with his Afro-Asian

Bookstore. Ervin continues to be a community organizer after his release

from prison; in addition to writing the well-known Anarchism and the

Black Revolution, he has authored numerous essays—in particular for

Black Autonomy—and participated in many anarchist organizations.

Balagoon died in prison, and most of his “writings” are drawn from

scattered sources, such as the prison-abolitionist journal Bulldozer.

Alston has been active in various movements following prison and wrote

for his journal, @narchist Panther. While imprisoned, Lutalo,

communicated via the Anarchist Black Cross (ABC) and was video

interviewed.

[10] Note Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director J. Edgar

Hoover’s remark that the Panthers were the top security threat to the

“internal security” of the United States (Churchill & Vander Wall,

1988).

[11] Huey Newton (1968) explicitly endorsed a vanguard party and

condemned anarchists’ emphasis upon a non-state revolution. In response,

Bookchin (1969) challenged Newton’s interpretation of the 1968 Paris

Uprising and raised the problem of using hierarchical means to achieve

liberatory ends.

[12] State repression is prominent among other factors attributed to the

BPP’s decline.

[13] In fact, many former Panther leaders headed in reformist and

sometimes reactionary directions, the most dramatic example represented

by Eldridge Cleaver’s transformation as a born-again Christian, Ronald

Reagan supporter, and advocate of Black integration into American

capitalism (Lavelle, 2012).

[14] Compare this to religious conversions in prison (e.g., Maruna,

Wilson, & Curran, 2006). As such, common features between prison-based

religious and political conversions may include the ability to adopt a

new, transformative identity; receive direction and meaning during

incarceration; and potentially feel empowered.

[15] Alston (2002b) also reported receiving anarchist literature in

prison: “These little anarchist pamphlets were easily available from

info-shops in Detroit and Canada, and they were getting to us in the

prisons. I was no longer averse to reading and learning from them. But I

only saw them as making a lot of good and interesting critiques of

capitalism [sic] and authoritarian opposition groups, like unions and

vanguard parties.... These readings eventually led me back to reading

and re-reading anarchists works as a serious study of its frame of

references, its principles, its style, and its contemporary relevance”

(pp. 19, 21).

[16] Olson echoes much of my analysis here in his footnotes, as does

Organise (“From Panther to Anarchist,” 2009).

[17] Incidentally, anarchists in general emphasize intersectionality

(Williams, 2012). For example, see Bookchin’s (2005) focus on “the

domination of the young by the old, of women by men, of one ethnic group

by another ...” (p. 68).

[18] Intersectionality occupies a prominent position in the

to-be-mentioned Anarchist People of Color and its two-volume work called

Our Culture, Our Resistance (Aguilar, 2004).

[19] Ribeiro (2005) associates the predominantly White North American

anarchist movement with the Brazilian senzala, where Black slaves were

isolated on their masters’ plantations.

[20] Later, Ervin (1996b) was to note increasing support among White

anarchists, writing, “To their credit, the white anarchists and

anti-authoritarian leftists have been generally supportive of the Black

struggle by comparison [to Marxists].”

[21] See Lutalo’s (1998) defense of organizational autonomy of local ABC

chapters to advocate armed self-defense, regardless of public

perceptions or the refusal of other ABC chapters to do the same.

[22] Prisoners of war are those, such as Balagoon (2001), who reject the

legal jurisdiction of the United States over people of color, and who

are engaged in struggle against the legal and military forces of the

United States (as with the BLA). Numerous ABC groups throughout the

world supported Ervin while he was in prison (Ervin, 1993).

[23] For more on the BPP’s survival programs, see Abron (1998).

[24] Chris Crass (2001) points out the curious racial discrepancy

between the famous [White] anarcho-punk band Crass’s (no relation)

demand in 1982 to “Destroy Power!” with the BPP’s “All Power to the

People!” slogan (which Alston [n.d.] has been fond of introducing to

anarchist audiences).

[25] Federation of Black Community Partisans’s (FBCP) “provisional

program,” published in the second issue of Black Autonomy, appears

modeled on the Panther Ten Point Program, although it is more explicit

in naming its enemies: the nation-state, capitalism, imperialism, and

White supremacy. Later, Jackson wrote that the FBCP “barely even

started” and was an “organization in name only” (Lewis, 2004, p. 79).

[26] Jackson stated that White anarchists were usually the ones to tell

him of the inspiration they took from reading Black Autonomy (Lewis,

2004).