H. Rap Brown

Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin
Born	(1943-10-04) October 4, 1943 Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Known for	5th Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
Term	May 1967 – June 1968
Predecessor	Stokely Carmichael
Successor	organization collapsed
Spouse	Karima Al-Amin

Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin (Arabic: جميل عبد الله الامين; born October 4, 1943, as Hubert Gerold Brown), also known as H. Rap Brown, was chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the 1960s, and during a short-lived (six months) alliance between SNCC and the Black Panther Party, he served as their Minister of Justice. He is perhaps most famous for his proclamation during that period that "violence is as American as cherry pie", as well as once stating that "If America don't come around, we're gonna burn it down". He is also known for his autobiography Die Nigger Die!. He is currently serving a life sentence for murder following the 2000 shooting of two Fulton County Sheriff's deputies, both African-American. One deputy, Ricky Kinchen, died in the shooting.

Activism

Brown was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He became known as H. Rap Brown during the early 1960s. His activism in the civil rights movement included involvement with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), of which he was named chairman in 1967. That same year, he was arrested in Cambridge, Maryland, and charged with inciting to riot as a result of a speech he gave there.

He appeared on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List after avoiding trial on charges of inciting riot and of carrying a gun across state lines. His attorneys in the gun violation case were civil rights advocate Murphy Bell of Baton Rouge, and the self described "radical lawyer" William Kunstler. Brown was scheduled to be tried in Cambridge, but the trial was moved to Bel Air, Maryland on a change of venue.

On March 9, 1970 two black radicals, Ralph Featherstone and William ("Che") Payne, died on U.S. Route 1 south of Bel Air, Maryland, when a bomb being carried between Payne's legs on the front floorboard of their car exploded, completely destroying the car and dismembering both occupants. Allegedly the bomb was intended to be used at the courthouse where Brown was to be tried. The next night the Cambridge courthouse was bombed.

Brown disappeared for 18 months, and then he was arrested after a reported shootout with officers. The shootout occurred after what was said to be an attempted robbery of a bar in 1971 in New York.

He spent five years (1971–1976) in Attica Prison after a robbery conviction. While in prison, Brown converted to Islam and changed his name to Jamil Abdullah al-Amin. After his release, he opened a grocery store in Atlanta, Georgia and became a Muslim spiritual leader and community activist preaching against drugs and gambling in Atlanta's West End neighborhood.

It has since been alleged that Brown’s life changed again when he allegedly became both affiliated with The "Dar ul-Islam Movement" and the leader of Ummah, which seeks to work to propagate Islam in the USA.

2000 arrest and conviction

On March 16, 2000, in Fulton County, Georgia, Sheriff's deputies Ricky Kinchen and Aldranon English went to al-Amin's home to execute an arrest warrant for his failure to appear in court after a citation for speeding and impersonating a police officer. After determining that the home was unoccupied, the deputies drove away and were shortly passed by a black Mercedes headed for the home. Kinchen (the more-senior deputy) noted the suspect vehicle, turned the patrol car around, and drove up to the Mercedes, stopping nose-to-nose. English approached the Mercedes and told the single occupant to show his hands. The occupant opened fire with a .223 rifle. English ran between the two cars while returning fire from his handgun, but was hit four times. Kinchen was shot with the rifle and a 9 mm handgun. The following day, Kinchen died of his wounds at Grady Memorial Hospital. English survived his wounds, and identified al-Amin as the shooter from six photos he was shown while recovering in the hospital. Both of the Sheriff's deputies whom Brown was convicted of shooting were African-American.

Shortly after the shootout, al-Amin fled to White Hall, Alabama, where he was tracked down by U.S. marshals and arrested by law enforcement officers after a four-day manhunt. Al-Amin was wearing body armor at the time of his arrest, and near his arrest location, officers located a 9mm handgun and .223 rifle. Ballistics testing showed that both weapons were the same guns used to shoot Kinchen and English. Later, his black Mercedes, riddled with bullet holes, was located.

On March 9, 2002, nearly two years after the shooting took place, al-Amin was convicted of 13 criminal charges, including the murder of deputy Kinchen. Four days later, he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He was sent to Georgia State Prison, the state's maximum security facility near Reidsville, Georgia.

At his trial, prosecutors pointed out al-Amin never provided any alibi for his whereabouts at the time of the shootout, nor any explanation as to why he fled the state afterwards. He also did not explain the bullet holes in his car, nor how the weapons used in the shootout were located near him during his arrest. In May 2004, the Supreme Court of Georgia unanimously ruled to uphold al-Amin's conviction.

In August 2007, he was transferred from state custody to Federal custody, as Georgia officials decided that al-Amin was too high-profile an inmate for the Georgia prison system to handle. He was subsequently moved to a Federal transfer facility in Oklahoma pending assignment to a Federal penitentiary. On October 21, 2007, al-Amin was transferred to the ADX Florence supermax prison in Florence, Colorado.

Bibliography

• Die Nigger Die!: A Political Autobiography, Westport, CT: Lawrence Hill Books, 1969; London: Allison & Busby, 1970.
• Revolution by the Book: The Rap Is Live, 1993.

See also

• American Civil Rights Movement (1896-1954)
• American Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968)
• Timeline of the American Civil Rights Movement

External links

• Video with Stokely Carmichael, Oakland 1968
• Online audiorecordings and video of H. Rap Brown via UC Berkeley Black Panther site
• Bio and Sound Clip, History Channel
• Biography of Ricky Kinchen from the Southern Poverty Law Center report "15 Law Enforcement Officers Murdered By Domestic Extremists Since the Oklahoma City Bombing"
• Die Nigger Die: A Political Autobiography by H. Rap Brown