page_title: Revolutionary Action Movement
section_title: Political activities
hierarchical_section_title: Revolutionary Action Movement / Political activities
caption_attribution_description: English: Muhammad Ahmad (former Maxwell Stanford) discussing the Black Power movement
context_page_description: Revolutionary Action Movement was a U.S.-based revolutionary black nationalist group in operation from 1962 to 1969. They were the first group to apply the philosophy of Maoism to conditions of black people in the United States and informed the revolutionary politics of the Black Power movement. RAM was the only secular political organization which Malcolm X joined prior to 1964. The group's political formation deeply influenced the politics of Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, and many other future influential Black Panther Party founders and members.
context_section_description: There were three main branches of RAM: the founding branch in Cleveland, Ohio; the headquarters branch in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and a west coast branch in Oakland, CA. Though the branches all had different local goals and accomplished different things, RAM engaged in several unifying national political activities.
  For instance, all branches helped distribute Robert Williams' magazine, The Crusader, after it had been banned within the United States. They also took a two-pronged approach to advocating their policies among other civil rights groups: disparaging those that did not advocate for armed self-defense and, simultaneously, infiltrating them to try to spread their revolutionary ideology.
  Because RAM was made up of mostly college-educated intellectuals (though many dropped out to organize full-time), they thought a lot about whom they were trying to mobilize, eventually settling upon the black petit bourgeoisie youth and black working-class youth. RAM thought that the black petit bourgeoisie particularly embodied the contradictions of racial capitalism, and if properly brought into the movement, this group could form a "revolutionary intelligentsia capable of leading black America to true liberation." They also used public street meetings to try to attract as many black working-class youth as possible to their organization, particularly gang members. RAM thought gang members had the most revolutionary potential of the population, because they could be trained to fight not against each other but against white power structures. They believed they could create a fighting force of former gang members on the model of the Congolese Youth guerrilla army and the Mau Mau guerrillas.
  In mid-1965, before opposition to the Vietnam War gained momentum, RAM blazed the ideological trail, expressing solidarity with the Vietnamese National Liberation Front in their fight against imperialism. At the same time RAM was explicitly anti-draft, arguing and organizing around the hypocrisy of drafting black Americans to fight in a war against, in their eyes, other people victimized by U.S. imperialism.
  The Black Guard was a national armed youth self-defense group run by RAM that argued for protecting the interests of Black America by fighting directly against its enemies. The Black Guard, in Max Stanford's words, "[was] to stop our youth from fighting amongst themselves, teach them a knowledge of [black] history ... and prepare them ... to protect our community from racist attacks."
  Everywhere except for Philadelphia, RAM operated as a semi-clandestine group, existing behind front organizations, and under multiple names and branches. Due to this underground status, RAM focused more on producing Agitprop and less on actual community organizing. As a result, RAM has received less attention from historians than the Black Panther Party, even though they blazed the 1960s revolutionary black nationalist ideological trail and heavily influenced the Panthers.
  Malcolm X became a RAM officer in 1964. Max Stanford has claimed that Malcolm X's Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU) was intended to be the popular front organization to RAM's underground black liberation army.
caption: Muhammad Ahmad (formerly Maxwell Stanford), the leader of the Philadelphia branch of RAM, discussing the Black Power movement
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