ASHANTI ALSTON
ASHANTI ALSTON
ASHANTI OMOWALI ALSTON: Revolutionary, speaker, writer, organizer, motivator. Ashanti is one of the few former members of the Black Panther Party who identifies as an anarchist in the tradition of New Afrikan ancestor Kwesi Balagoon (BPP & BLA) within the Black Liberation Movement. As a result of his membership in both the BPP and Black Liberation Army (BLA), he served a total of 14 years as a political prisoner and prisoner-of-war. He is currently on the Steering Committee of the National Jericho Movement to free U.S. political prisoners. On top of all that, he is an Elder-co-parenting two youngins’ and a grandfather of a small “maroon nation.” Ashanti resides in Providence, Rhode Island.
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In this in-depth conversation with revolutionary organizer Ashanti Alston, former member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army, we trace a life committed to struggle, freedom, and community. From his early experiences during the Civil Rights era and the 1967 Plainfield Rebellion to his radicalization through Black Power and anti-imperialist movements, Ashanti reflects on the lessons, tensions, and commitments that defined a generation of liberation fighters.
TOPICS EXPLORED
The Plainfield Rebellion (July 14–16, 1967)
Alston describes Plainfield’s uprising as his political point-of-entry: a neighborhood revolt that followed Newark and Detroit during the “Long Hot Summer” of 1967. In Plainfield residents briefly seized control of parts of the west end, there were armed confrontations, and state forces (including the National Guard) moved in to reassert control — an episode that pushed many youth into Black Power politics.
Panther 21 trial / Harlem raids
In April 1969 21 Black Panthers (mostly Harlem) were indicted for a wide conspiracy to bomb NYC targets. The lengthy prosecution culminated in a 1971 trial that revealed key roles played by undercover agents and led to acquittals. The case demonstrated both the legal pressure on Panthers and the role of infiltration in attempts to manufacture guilt.
Political education: from the Little Red Book to Marx and Mao
Alston names the BPP’s emphasis on reading — Mao’s Quotations, Du Bois, The Communist Manifesto, Eldridge Cleaver’s essays, and guerrilla theory like War of the Flea (Robert Taber, first published 1965) — as the backbone of Panther discipline and analysis. These texts supplied anti-colonial frameworks, class analysis, and guerrilla strategy that Panthers discussed in PE (political education) classes.
Assassination of George Jackson (August 21, 1971)
George Jackson, a central figure in the prisoner-rights and radical left milieu and author of Soledad Brother and Blood in My Eye, was killed at San Quentin on August 21, 1971. His death reverberated through Black liberation networks and helped catalyze armed responses and prison solidarity actions.
COINTELPRO (1956–1971)
The FBI’s Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) expanded in the 1960s to disrupt Black nationalist groups, the Black Panther Party, socialist and anti-war organizations, and others. Tactics included infiltration, disinformation, forged letters, and instigating prosecutions — all designed to weaken movements and provoke internal conflict. COINTELPRO was publicly exposed in the early 1970s and officially ended in 1971.
Formation and activity of the Black Liberation Army (c. 1970–early 1980s)
Emerging out of a mix of underground Panther cadres and other militant collectives, the BLA operated as a decentralized clandestine current in the 1970s. It claimed responsibility (or was blamed) for numerous armed attacks, including prison rescues and confrontations with police; historians place its main period of activity from roughly 1970 into the late 1970s/early 1980s. The BLA’s loose, cell-based character complicates any single “founding” date.
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The Black Liberation Army emerged from the ashes of the Black Freedom Struggle in the United States — born of defeated dreams and rising anger in the late 1960s, determined to refuse the logic of compromise. Officially formed around May 31, 1970, the A.A. Registry marks that date as the BLA’s founding. Its cadre was drawn in large part from former members of the Black Panther Party (BPP) and the Republic of New Afrika (RNA) — those who believed above-ground organizing had been broken by state repression and who turned to underground means.
black liberation army
“Next thing you know, my family jokes about it to this day, usually when I disappear, they just gotta turn on the news, you know. So they turn on the news, and here’s the thing about the Manhattan House of Detention: there’s their son’s picture. Alright, we know where Michael is. Or we know where he was. In the course of other things, bank expropriations, in New Haven, Connecticut. Now, I did not say robbery, ‘cause we’re revolutionaries; we don’t commit crime. But we will go after them banks’ money, ‘cause that’s blood money. We will fund the revolution. We will hit drug dealers. We will hit banks. We will hit insurance companies. We will hit armored cars. We are at war! And that’s certainly what we did. But doing this bank expropriation in New Haven, Connecticut, Wild West shoot out, three of us are captured, I’m one of them. First day in court, we tell them, you have no right to even try us: we are soldiers of the Black Liberation Army. We ain’t in here for no justice. We’re soldiers. We ain’t askin’ for nothin.’ We know what the deal is gonna be. This is a firefight. They had guns, we had guns. We are prisoners of war, at this point. When they is tryin’ to frame us, we was political prisoners. With this, we’re prisoners of war. That type of action, and others; many of the political prisoners that Jericho represents: Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, Albert Nuh Washington, and a whole bunch of others out of the Black Liberation Army. And we represent folks from the Weather Underground, who placed bombs in a lot of places. We make no ifs, ands, and buts about it: we are at war. This is revolution; we want to bring this Empire, as George Jackson says, to its knees. No ifs and buts. But here we are.
We didn’t get a lot of support. The Left backed up from us. They called us “infantile Leftists.” They used every Marxist expression they could find. You know, the liberals, of course, are not going to touch us. But they terrified our communities. So they were scared. And it wasn’t but maybe the nationalist groups, or the really solid white supporters, who stuck with us. We didn’t make it out of them jails, but boy did we try. We tried. Got sentenced to 45 years. Here I am off to Wisconsin. Next thing, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. Next thing, Marion, Illinois. Then Lompac, California. Then I gotta come back to Connecticut. But they moved us around like that, they would not allow us to be anybody in the same place, together. At one point there were so many of us, we had collectives: Panthers, BLA, Weather Underground, Puerto Rican Independentistas: we’re fighting, we’re organizing inside. Trying to figure out ways to get out. These are many of the individuals who Jericho represent. ‘Cause we come out of liberation movements here, that operate out of that 500-year war understanding that this system is not able to reform or do anything humane. Our freedom, and its death, go together. Fear. But we don’t get a lot of support.”
- Ashanti Alston, The Panthers, the Black Liberation Army and the Struggle to Free all Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War
The B.L.A. as a result of realizing the economical nature of the system under which we are forced to live maintains the following principles:
1. That we are anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, anti-racist and anti-sexist.
2. That we must of necessity strive for the abolishment of these systems and for the institution of Socialistic relationships in which Black people have total and absolute control over their own destiny as a people.
3. That in order to abolish our system of oppression we must utilize the science of class struggle, develop this science as it relates to our unique national condition.
{From MESSAGE TO THE BLACK MOVEMENT]