From freevoice@igc.apc.org Tue Sep 20 20:36:47 1994 Received: from mail.igc.apc.org by fido.wps.com (8.6.5/wps.com-hackery) id NAA00753; Tue, 20 Sep 1994 13:36:45 -0700 Received: from igc.apc.org (igc.apc.org [192.82.108.1]) by mail.igc.apc.org (8.6.9/Revision: 1.45 ) with SMTP id NAA08259; Tue, 20 Sep 1994 13:36:42 -0700 Received: (from freevoice@localhost) by igc.apc.org (8.6.9/Revision: 1.179 ) id NAA03277; Tue, 20 Sep 1994 13:36:22 -0700 Date: Tue, 20 Sep 1994 13:36:22 -0700 From: Freevoice Message-Id: <199409202036.NAA03277@igc.apc.org> To: kevin.brandstatter@afrc.ac.uk Subject: Lorenzo Bio Cc: deke@fido.wps.com, maile@fido.wps.com Status: OR Here is Lorenzo's Bio. Let us know if you need anything else. His home number is (404) 687-8324. Sky's the limit. Josie ABOUT THE AUTHOR During the late 1960's Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin was a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Eastern Tennessee, and later joined the Black Panther Party when the two groups merged in 1967-68. He was involved in anti-Klan and civil rights activities in Chattanooga, Knoxville, Atlanta and other cities throughout during that period, when the so-called "Black Power movement" began to exert itself in opposition to the reformist civil rights leadership in the Southern U.S. and other parts of North America. However, when the United States government instituted its repression programs, (the most infamous of which were the FBI's "COINTELPRO" and the Central Intelligence Agency's "Operation CHAOS") against the Panthers, SNCC and the Vietnam anti-war movement, scores were were beaten, killed, or framed-up and imprisoned on criminal charges, or driven into exile in foreign countries, and Kom'boa was one of those who received the lash of government repression. When a so-called "Black Power" grand jury was convened in the Summer of 1968 in Hamilton County, Tennessee to investigate SNCC and the Black Power movement's role in "planning" disturbances in the city of Chattanooga, and he was summoned to testify before the grand jury on purported "gun-running" charges against him and other SNCC activists, he left the city when he discovered that the cops and the Klan wanted him dead if he would not testify. The Klan ran the government in those days, and got what it wanted; many police offic! ers were open Klansmen and routinely brutalized and murdered Blacks while on the job, and got away with it. If Komboa went to the County workhouse, he was a good as dead! Thus he went into hiding in another city, but was pursued by the FBI, who sought him for frame-up charges of bombing Klan offices and smuggling guns to be used during the riots which broke out after the death of Dr. Martin Luther King in April 1968. This latter charge was one of the so-called "Rap Brown" laws, hurriedly passed by a frightened U.S. Congress in early 1968, making such bombings a federal crime. (Note: Brown was the Chairman of SNCC). The police and FBI had "shoot to kill" orders for his arrest or his death while resisiting arrest, and Kom'boa felt he had to get out of the country if he wanted to save his life. On February 25, 1969, he hijacked a plane to Cuba from Atlanta, Georgia but because of Cuba's fear of the Black struggle in North America, he was later arrested and deported to Czechoslovakia. There, American agents located him and tried to arrest him; he escaped, but ultimately was arrested and brought back to the U.S., and tried before a racist jur! y in a small town in Georgia and given two Life prison terms. He didn't give up the struggle after he went to prison however. He was a prisoner unionist, fighter for Black rights, a jailhouse lawyer, and one of the first Black radicals to convert to Anarchism during his incarceration. At one time he was also one of the "Marion Brothers", political prisoners held in the infamous Control Unit in Marion (IL.) federal prison, then the most secure prison in North America. Ultimately, this association and the resulting international notoriety on his case is what helped him to get out. Millions of persons heard about the injustice of his case. He served almost 15 years (1969-1983) before an international defense campaign won his freedom. Since his release, he has worked as a community organizer in Chattanooga, and served as the past President of the Concerned Citizens for Justice, a local group fighting racism and police brutality. He is the author of the forthcoming autobiography "Years of Struggle, Years of Death", which will be published by AK Press of Scotland sometime during 1994, as well as a pamphlet series which includes Anarchism and the Black Revolution, which is now being reprinted by Mid-Atlantic Publishing, and AK Press of Scotland (UK) will also print a longer version of these pamphlets along with contemporary essays sometime in 1994. Kom"boa is also planning a revolutionary Black Anarchist newspaper to make its appearance in the Spring of 1994. Now 46 years old, he says he has devoted his entire life to the struggle , but says he will continue to resist oppression by working to build a mass movement for revolutionary social change, based on Anarchist principles, as well as working on behalf of the political prisoners in North America's jails and prisons.