Hubert G.(H.Rap)Brown, writer, activist, and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Chairman, was born in Baton Rouge, LA, on October 4,1943.Brown has change his name to Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin.
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H. Rap Brown succeeded Stokely Carmichael as chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and was a prominent figure in the Black Panther Party. A leading proponent of Black Power and a polarizing media icon, Brown symbolized both the power and the dangers – for white Americans and for radical activists themselves – of the civil rights movement’s new militancy in the late 1960s.
As SNCC chairman, Brown’s rhetoric proved more militant and inflammatory than even Carmichael’s. At the same time, like Carmichael, he struggled to translate SNCC’s vision into concrete terms and programs. In large part this was due to a paralyzing barrage of criminal charges levied by federal and state officials, from inciting a riot in Maryland, to violating the National Firearms Act, to illegally crossing state lines, to skipping bail. During his firearms trial in 1970, Brown disappeared for seventeen months and was placed on the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted” list. In late 1971 he reemerged after being arrested on armed robbery charges in Manhattan. Convicted on the last charge, Brown served five years in Attica State Prison.
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