Talk:Black Liberation Army

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 1 April 2019 and 7 June 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Nickpickett16.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 15:53, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Murder of Police Officers
Murdering cops was standard practice of the BLA, a racist organization. There is no reason that those activities should not be posted on the page.

The dead officers had families. I bet the children of those dead officers would like them to be around today. Have some respect for the men who protect you everyday from criminals and post their names so no one ever forgets that the BLA murdered police officers and left their children to grow up with no fathers.


 * This is no place for a memorial. How about we put up a list of 1000s of folk murdered by the LAPD on the LAPD article?? --  max rspct   leave a message  18:23, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

No one was murdered by the LAPD genius.

When a police officer justifiable shoots another, that's not a murder. I guess you are one who thinks that all cops are bad and that anyone who is arrest by them was framed and that if the criminal assaults the cop, he's right.

real nice. No wounder you are editing the BLA page, typical cop hating racist.

good job.

If you want to create a memorial for those killed by the LAPD, then go and do one. This is an encyclopedia, and as such, records of the terrorist operations and victims of the B.L.A. are in fact standard for works like this. It isn't a memorial, but it is a database. --Jackyd101 07:40, 12 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Sure, kid yourself if you like. --  max rspct  leave a message  10:32, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Why did you revert me? What was the point of that? What I wrote was factually accurate, clearly sourced and not POV at all. If you want to push your agenda then Wikipedia is not the place to do it. --Jackyd101 18:30, 12 April 2006 (UTC)


 * 'Policebeat' link bias websource. I'm afraid your edits read like an obituary. Portraying the BLA as simply murderers ignores the reality of them being armed insurgents (whether folk agree with them or not). And Feds and police engaging with them historically on the same ground. --  max rspct   leave a message  19:49, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Max, I agree that this article needs to avoid reading like an emotion-drenched obituary; however, it would seem appropriate to include some mention of Kamau Sadiki. There are plenty of other sources on the case beyond 'Policebeat'. Do you object to any inclusion of his story or are you merely objecting to the POV form that such an inclusion has taken? - N1h1l 20:08, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
 * OK, how about rewording what I wrote, rather than simply reverting it without raising the question here? It is a fact that Greene was murdered in 1971 by BLA activists just as I described. If you think my wording is biased, then change it, don't just delete it. Another more offical source for the incident includes a press release from the Fulton Co Distrct Attorney . Is this acceptable to you?--Jackyd101 20:27, 12 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Mention the police catching up with suspect and conviction is fine.. but to go into detail POV style would make article unbalanced. Police articles can be linked at bottom but please don't lift from them --  max rspct  leave a message  20:45, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I take it from this statement that you have no objection to me restoring what I wrote (with the word murder substituted for kill?), and the link changed to the District Attorney's office release? Next time, if you have a problem with something written, then just change the parts you consider to be POV, don't revert the whole thing--Jackyd101 20:59, 12 April 2006 (UTC).


 * Well don't turn article into platform then.. We don't need to read canonisation or how innocent cops were (pov) - portrayal/sequences of events is difficult to reasonably verify and I'm not sure any purported detail of why they were pulled over, items taken from body pointing to.. etc, should be on here. --  max rspct  leave a message  21:15, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree that many of these things are hard to verify, but the removal of the weapon and badge from the body are significant, because they indicate the murder was committed as a way of gaining status (why else steal a badge?). I didn't say anything about "innocent cops", and I wasn't canonising him, simply reporting an event. I accept that the section could be tided up, and I did so, but your attitude about this has been pretty childish. There was nothing stopping you from performing those edits yourself, or even describing the problems you thought there were with the passage here, rather than instantly reverting what was a legitimate piece of information.--Jackyd101 21:25, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

You are reporting what is coming out of intentionally pro-cop websites. And stop personal attacks... I'm pretty sick of that with already earlier attacks at top of talkpage. --  max rspct  leave a message  21:33, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
 * The problem here is that this incident does not have a neutral website that can be reported from. All the websites on-line are either from police sources, or from Black Nationalist supporters of the BLA. This makes it very difficult to base what one writes here solely on a neutral outside article, and the avaliable police articles seemed less rabidly POV than those of the BN. Wikipedia, as you know, strives to be neutral, and my inital effort clearly failed, as we saw. So I have re-written it, hoping that it will be more acceptable. However, I have not personally attacked you. My comments here are all signed by me, and none of them contain a personal attack, with the exception of when I called you childish, which wasn't an idle insult, but a comment on your behaviour, for which I explained my reasons at the time. --Jackyd101 21:56, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
 * What about the Foster and Laurie killings? FYI, there's a school named after Laurie.Gregory Heffley (talk) 19:18, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Formation of BLA
Does anyone have a citation to back up the claim that Cleaver founded the BLA?

Well, it appears that Cleaver did not "found" the BLA. This may have been a myth that developed at some point during the schism that saw the BPP break into two separate factions. The Cleaver-led faction joined members of the Black Panther Party who had been involved in illegal, underground activities since the beginning of the BPP (if not before as suggested by Umoja below).

The following articles are about the BLA and would add to the veracity of this article.

Umoja article: http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0415927846&id=KFk4bHPFN5AC&pg=PA3&lpg=PA3&q=movement+concept&vq=movement+concept&dq=black+panther+party&sig=8jyiv03eDG7hXedKpg4SbaLh1pU

Shoats article: http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0415927846&id=KFk4bHPFN5AC&pg=PA128&lpg=PA128&q=shoats&vq=shoats&dq=black+panther+party&sig=ZZFRTpNHpjZ3ZtdHX93_q5YvRcY


 * Le Monde Diplomatique has article (subscription needed.. but google has full article cached) stating 'some supporters' of Cleaver. I have reworded the start as necc.

Quote: "The quarrels and dissention fomented by Cointelpro within the BPP exacerbated internal differences arising from political confrontation between the party’s “minister of defence”, Huey Newton, and its “minister of information”, Eldridge Cleaver, who ran the international section from exile in Algiers (10). At the end of 1970 black activists were divided among themselves and had less support from the white liberal left, which also suffered attacks from Cointelpro. They took to murdering each other. At that point some of Cleaver’s supporters founded the clandestine Black Liberation Army (BLA). "  max rspct  leave a message  19:14, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Removed section
The following was removed from the article. It is probably a copyright violation but could be rewritten to expand this article greatly. Rmhermen 20:36, May 2, 2005 (UTC)

A BLAST FROM THE PAST ORIGINALLY WRITTEN ON SEPTEMBER 18, 1979

PART I - "ON THE BLACK LIBERATION ARMY" "... Hide nothing from the masses of our people. Tell no lies. Expose lies whenever they are told. Mask no difficulties, mistakes, failures. Claim no easy victories ..." PAIGC-1965

The history of our national liberation struggle is one of the most important factors upon which the political party(s), the oppressed masses, and the liberation armed forces may understand the nature of their oppression and the task before them towards independence and freedom.

In this article, I would like to present to the masses the general history of the evolvement of the Black Liberation Army. This will be a brief historical overview not providing specific historical data in order to protect people who are either functioning in the BLA, or in other areas no longer associated with the BLA. The Black Liberation Army is a politico-military organization, whose primary objective is to fight for the independence and self- determination of Afrikan people in the United States. The political determination of the BLA evolved out of the now defunct Black Panther Party.

It was in October, 1966, with the advent of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, that the question of armed struggle and resistance to racist oppression emerge as a plausible strategical maneuver in the developing liberation movement. It was in late 1968, early 1969, that the forming of a Black underground first began. From Los Angeles, California, to Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, armed units were formed in rural areas, trained and caches were established. In Oakland, San Francisco, Detroit, Chicago, Philadelphia, Ohio, and New York, Black Panther Party offices were established to formulate a political relationship with the oppressed Black masses in these and other communities across the country.

From 1969 to 1972, the BPP came under vicious attack by the State and Federal government. The government employed COINTELPRO (FBI, CIA and local police departments) as the means to destroy the above-ground political apparatus that fielded the Black underground. But it wasn't until 1970 that the BPP began its purge of many of its most trusted and militant members, many of which eventually joined the Black underground.

By 1971, contradictions perpetuated by COINTELPRO forces in the leadership of the BPP caused the split between Newton and Cleaver, which eventually split the entire Black Panther Party into two major factions. It was this BPP split and factionalism that determined the fielding of the Black underground would begin to serve its primary purpose (along with conditions presented by the State armed offensive to liquidate the Party). This is not to say that armed action against the State did not occur by the Black underground prior to the split, on the contrary, by 1971, the Black underground was becoming rich in experience in the tactics of armed expropriations, sabotage, and ambush-assaults. It needs to be said that prior to the split, the Black underground was the official armed-wing of the aboveground political apparatus, and thereby had to maintain restraint in its military activity. This was very well for the Black underground but although in many areas experienced in tactical military guerilla warfare, it was still infantile politically, and although becoming organizationally wielded as a fighting apparatus, it did not establish an infra-structure completely autonomous from the aboveground BPP cadres and Party chapters. This in turn became one of the major detriments of the Black underground after the split of the Black Panther Party.

Based upon the split and factionalism in the BPP, and heightened repression by the State, the Black underground was ordered to begin establishing the capacity to take the "defensive- offensive" in developing urban guerilla warfare. Hence, in 1971, the name BLACK LIBERATION ARMY (of Afro-American Liberation Army) surfaced as the nucleus of Black guerilla fighters across the United States. This is not to say that the name Black Liberation Army was first used in 1971, for in late 1968, during a student strike and demonstration in Mexico City, many students and demonstrators were killed by Mexican police. One of those students was reported to have had a piece of paper in his pocket upon which was written the name Black Liberation Army. Whether or not there was a connection to the fielding of the Black underground with the uprising in Mexico in 1968 is unknown.

Major Cleanup
I have attempted to clean this article up and organize it in a more logical manner. It could still use a lot of work; however, information on the BLA is not as easy to find as one might hope.

I have replaced the huge reprint of the Justice Department Report on BLA Activity with the following text "According to a Justice Department report on BLA activity, the Black Liberation Army was suspected of involvement in over 60 incidents of violence between 1970 and 1976. The Fraternal Order of Police blames the BLA for the murders of more than 10 police officers. ". Anyone who wants to see the full list can follow the links. Is that agreeable to evereyone? - Nihila 18:20, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:BLA logo.jpg
Image:BLA logo.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot 02:29, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Assata Shakur
This is a shaky article at best overall. However, as I linked to it from the page on Assata Shakur, I would note that the way in which her case summary is worded in this article differs to a great degree from the (extensively documented) account in her article. In the interest of consistency, I would advocate rewriting this section to reflect the multiple expert opinions that Assata did not open fire on police.

On the other hand, this small section pales in comparison. This is a poorly written, poorly documented article. A good candidate for a complete re-write incorporating any of multiple scholarly works on the history of the organization: http://books.google.com/books?q=black+liberation+army —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.158.34.84 (talk) 17:09, 12 March 2008 (UTC)


 * "Expert" opinions don't mean much of anything when the so-called "experts" weren't on scene at the time of the incident. Equinox137 (talk) 00:51, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20070928044405/http://www.assatashakur.org/forum//showpost.php?p=37245&postcount=101 to http://www.assatashakur.org/forum//showpost.php?p=37245&postcount=101
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20060102131029/http://www.nysfop.org:80/events/kathy_boudin.htm to http://www.nysfop.org/events/kathy_boudin.htm
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20150209235659/http://www.crimelibrary.com/terrorists_spies/terrorists/brinks/1.html to http://www.crimelibrary.com/terrorists_spies/terrorists/brinks/1.html

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Domestic Terrorist Organization
Hello, I have added that the group was a domestic terrorist group due to the tactics that they used. Terrorists are defined as people who "use(s) unlawful violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims. Though the BLA primarily targeted police officers, police officers are considered to be civilians. Additionally, they used tactics such as robbing banks and hijacking civilian aircraft. Any objections? If so, please explain. History Man1812 (talk) 20:04, 4 April 2021 (UTC)History_Man1812


 * The objections are WP:V, WP:NOR, WP:NPOV and MOS:TERRORIST. FDW777 (talk) 20:59, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

External links modified
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