Formerly known as H. Rap Brown who once said ‘violence is as American as cherry pie,’ passes away in North Carolina
Jamil al-Amin, formerly known as H. Rap Brown, a fiery leader among the Black Panthers in the 1960s, has died in federal custody at the Federal Medical Center in Butner, N.C. He was 82.
His attorneys say he passed away after what they called a “prolonged period of severe medical decline.”
During the 1960s, al-Amin’s fiery rhetoric shook the foundation of the White male supremacist power structure. He was the chairman of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and was the Minister of Justice during an alliance with the Black Panther Party in the 1960s.
Al-Amin had FBI’s attention
He was well known for his quote that “violence is as American as cherry pie.” His activities during the Black freedom struggle of the 1960s landed him on the FBI’s 10 most wanted list over inciting a riot and gun possession. It was while imprisoned during the early 1970s that he changed his name to Jamil Abdullah al-Amin. After his release from prison, he became a well known activist and spiritual leader in Atlanta’s West End neighborhood.
On March 16, 2000, al-Amin was involved in a shooting where two police officers were shot while serving an arrest warrant. One of the officers died but the other officer identified al-Amin as the shooter. After a controversial trial and conviction, al-Amin was sentenced to life in prison.
The former activist had been diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2014 and had been held at ADX Florence supermax prison in Florence, Colo. He was transferred to this facility at the request of the state of Georgia in 2007 because he was deemed too high profile a figure for the Georgia prison system. A Facebook campaign was waged to have the Federal Bureau of Prisons move al-Amin to a better facility.