Former Black Panther leader H. Rap Brown dies in prison hospital at 82
FILE – H. Rap Brown is escorted to a car by federal officers in New Orleans, June 2, 1972, after he was sentenced to five years in prison on a federal gun control conviction. Brown is also facing charges in New York in connection with a tavern holdup. (AP Photo/Jack Thornell, File)
FILE – Jamil Al-Amin, formerly known as H. Rap Brown, signs a program after speaking on Monday, July 1, 1991 in Memphis. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, File)ASSOCIATED PRESS
A cause of death has not yet been released, but Karima Al-Amin told The Associated Press that her husband had been battling cancer. He was moved to the federal medical facility in 2014 after previously being held in Colorado.
Brown rose to national attention in the late 1960s and early 1970s as one of the era’s most outspoken activists. He criticized aggressive policing in Black communities and became known for his declaration that violence was “as American as cherry pie.” In a 1967 news conference, he argued that the country had taught violence to Black Americans, saying it could be used “to rid ourselves of oppression, if necessary.”
FILE – Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin watches during the sentencing portion of his trial in Atlanta, Monday, March 11, 2002. (AP Photo/Ric Feld, File)
He served as chair of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and, in 1968, was named minister of justice for the Black Panther Party.
His family maintains that serious doubts have long surrounded the fairness of his prosecution. “Newly uncovered evidence — including unseen FBI surveillance files, inconsistent eyewitness accounts, and third-party confessions — raised serious concerns that Imam Al-Amin did not receive the fair trial guaranteed under the Constitution,” the family said in a statement.
Brown’s life shifted dramatically after a 1971 robbery arrest that ended in a shootout with New York police. While serving a five-year sentence, he embraced the Dar-ul Islam movement, later changing his name to Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin. After his release, he relocated to Atlanta in 1976, opened a grocery and health food store, and became an Imam serving the local Muslim community.
In a 1998 address in Kansas City, Missouri, Al-Amin reflected on his past, saying, “I’m not dissatisfied with what I did. But Islam has allowed things to be clearer… We have to be concerned about the welfare of ourselves and those around us, and that comes through submission to God and the raising of one’s consciousness.”
His life took another turn on March 16, 2000, when Fulton County deputies Ricky Kinchen and Aldranon English were shot while attempting to serve him with a warrant related to a failed court appearance. English testified that Al-Amin opened fire with a high-powered rifle, and prosecutors said he later shot Kinchen at close range as the wounded deputy lay in the street. Kinchen died from his injuries.
Prosecutors cast Al-Amin as a calculated murderer, while his defense portrayed him as a respected spiritual figure framed due to long-standing government hostility stemming from his militant past.
Al-Amin insisted he was innocent, but he was convicted in 2002 and sentenced to life in prison.
He continued to challenge his conviction, arguing that his constitutional rights had been violated. In 2019, he appealed to a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, but in 2020 the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case.
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