John Brown Anti-Klan Committee
The John Brown Anti-Klan Committee (JBAKC) was an anti-racist organization based in the United States. The group protested against the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and other white supremacist organizations and published anti-racist literature. Members of the JBAKC were involved in a string of bombings of military, government, and corporate targets in the 1980s. The JBAKC viewed themselves as anti-imperialists and considered African Americans, Native Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Mexicans to be oppressed colonial peoples.[1]
Abbreviation
JBAKC
1978-ca. 1990
Radical left
Opposition to white supremacy and US foreign policy
- United States of America
The JBAKC was started in 1978 by a group of white anti-racist activists with ties to the Weather Underground. They named the organization after abolitionist John Brown, who advocated and engaged in violence as a means to end slavery in the U.S. According to founding member Lisa Roth, the event that triggered the formation of the group was the discovery that the KKK was actively organizing in New York State prisons.[1] The JBAKC soon had chapters in several states, but was most active in New York City, Chicago, and San Francisco.[2] The group promoted itself by distributing fliers at punk rock concerts, and was supported by benefit concerts from punk bands like the Dead Kennedys, The Contractions, and Dirty Rotten Imbeciles.[3][4]
The JBAKC shared members with several other radical groups active at the time, and some have claimed that it was a front organization for the May 19th Communist Movement.
Bombings[edit]
Between 1982 and 1984 a group of radical activists planted a string of bombs at military, government, and corporate targets along the East Coast to protest apartheid in South Africa and what they saw as American aggression in Central America, Grenada and Lebanon. The activists used a variety of names, such as the Armed Resistance Unit, Guerrilla Resistance, United Freedom Front, and the Revolutionary Fighting Group, but the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) believed that a single group was responsible.[13] While the John Brown Anti-Klan Committee never claimed responsibility for the bombings, three members of the group were later convicted for their participation in them.[14] Laura Whitehorn and Marilyn Buck served long prison sentences for related crimes, and Linda Evans was released in 2001 when President Bill Clinton commuted her 40-year sentence after she had served 16 years.[15] Five members of the JBAKC and one member of the New Movement in Solidarity with Puerto Rican Independence and Socialism were found in contempt of court for refusing to testify before a grand jury regarding the bombs planted at the U.S. Capitol and two military targets during the bombing campaign.[16][17]