How to Become a Soldier in the Black Liberation Army: Sixteen Tomes

• In Event: Resisting Oppressive Systems

Abstract

From 1970 to 1983, the Black Liberation Army (BLA) became the most feared domestic revolutionary organization in the history of United States of America. By way of armed resistance in the name of revolutionary justice, it is estimated the BLA was responsible for expropriating the lives of dozens of police officers, drug traffickers, and others who systemically harmed the fabric of the Black American community. However, there continues to be a dearth of scholarly analysis on how the BLA developed their own unique tactics of guerrilla warfare and the process of killology.

Based on a series of Freedom of Information Privacy Act (FOIPA) requests over a 4-year period, I have received and analyzed thousands of pages of previously undisclosed declassified FBI documents on the Black Liberation Army. Based on primary source documents and oral histories of BLA members I’ve accumulated over the past 15 years, this paper presentation will explore the relevant reading material the BLA was studying, in preparation of a sustained unconventional war campaign against the seat of the government.

Author

• Tony Gaskew, University of Pittsburgh, Bradford