It is proposed that this article be deleted because of the following concern:
If you can address this concern by improving, copyediting, sourcing, renaming, or merging the page, please edit this page and do so. You may remove this message if you improve the article or otherwise object to deletion for any reason. Although not required, you are encouraged to explain why you object to the deletion, either in your edit summary or on the talk page. If this template is removed, do not replace it . The article may be deleted if this message remains in place for seven days, i.e., after 18:13, 10 April 2023 (UTC). Find sources: "Abdul Majid" activist – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR |
Abdul Majid (June 25, 1949 - April 3, 2016), also known as Abdullah Majid and Anthony LaBorde, was a member of the Black Liberation Army (BLA), who was convicted for his role in the 1981 shooting of two police officers in New York City, which resulted in the death of one officer. Majid was arrested in 1982 and sentenced to 33 years to life in prison.
Abdul Majid | |
---|---|
Born | June 25, 1949 Flushing, New York |
Died | April 3, 2016 (aged 66) Five Points Correctional Facility |
Other names | Abdullah Majid Anthony LaBorde |
Organization(s) | Black Panther Party Black Liberation Army |
Abdul Majid (née Anthony LaBorde) was born on June 25, 1949, in Flushing, New York. He was the fourth child of five boys. Two of his brothers and his father died during his childhood. His political consciousness developed after the murder of Malcolm X in 1965. [1] Furthermore, he noticed the similarities between the civil rights movement in America and the various national liberation struggles taking place in Africa. [2]
Majid was initially involved with the Grass Roots Advisory Council and by 1968, he became involved with the Black Panther Party, participating in the free breakfast programs, free clothing programs, and youth liberation schools. [3]
By 1981, Majid became a member of the Black Liberation Army (BLA), a Marxist–Leninist urban guerrilla group, [4] which was formed by former Black Panther Party members.
On April 16, 1981, police officers John Scarangella and Richard Rainey stopped a van containing Abdul Majid and fellow BLA member Bashir Hameed, as the vehicle matched the description of a van wanted in connection with several burglaries in the area. Upon being stopped, Majid and Hameed exited their van and opened fire on the two police officers using 9mm handguns, firing 30 shots. Officer Scarangella was struck twice in the head, while Rainey was hit 14 times in the leg and back. Scarangella was taken to hospital, where he died of his injuries two weeks later. [5]
In response to the shooting, Police Commissioner Robert J. McGuire stated that ''the department will not rest until we apprehend the people responsible for his killing.'' [5] Furthermore, a nationwide alert for the two suspects, Majid and Hameed, was issued. [5]
Majid was arrested in January 1982, after he was seen walking down a street in Philadelphia, wearing a bullet-proof vest. [6] Upon being approached, Majid fled the police officers and dropped a pistol, which was believed to be the one used in the 1981 shooting. [6] Majid struggled when the officers tried to apprehend, resulting in the injury of several officers.
Majid was transported back to New York to stand trial, alongside Hameed, who was arrested earlier. The first trial ended in August 1981, after the jury was unable to reach a verdict. [7] The second trial was declared a mistrial by the judge after one of the jurors fell ill. [7] After the third trial, both Majid was sentenced to 33 years to life in prison, while Hameed was sentenced to 25 years to life.
Majid died on April 3, 2016, aged 66, due to acute cholecystitis. [8]
Assata Olugbala Shakur is an American political activist who was a member of the Black Liberation Army (BLA). In 1977, she was convicted in the first-degree murder of State Trooper Werner Foerster during a shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike in 1973. She escaped from prison in 1979 and is currently wanted by the FBI, with a $1 million reward for her apprehension.
The Black Liberation Army (BLA) was an underground Marxist-Leninist, black-nationalist militant organization that operated in the United States from 1970 to 1981. Composed of former Black Panthers (BPP) and Republic of New Afrika (RNA) members who served above ground before going underground, the organization's program was one of war against the United States government, and its stated goal was to "take up arms for the liberation and self-determination of black people in the United States." The BLA carried out a series of bombings, killings of police officers and drug dealers, robberies, and prison breaks.
David Gilbert is an American radical leftist who participated in the deadly 1981 robbery of a Brinks armored vehicle. Gilbert was a founder of the Columbia University chapter of Students for a Democratic Society and became a member of the Weather Underground. Gilbert, who served as the getaway driver in the robbery, was convicted under New York's felony murder law in the killing by co-defendants of two Nyack, New York police officers and a Brink's security guard.
Mutulu Shakur is an American activist and former member of the Black Liberation Army, sentenced to sixty years in prison for his involvement in a 1981 robbery of a Brinks armored truck in which a guard and two police officers were murdered.
The Black Power movement was a branch or counterculture within the civil rights movement of the United States, reacting against its more moderate, mainstream, or incremental tendencies and motivated by a desire for safety and self-sufficiency that was not available inside redlined African American neighborhoods. Black Power activists founded black-owned bookstores, food cooperatives, farms, media, printing presses, schools, clinics and ambulance services. The international impact of the movement includes the Black Power Revolution in Trinidad and Tobago.
Marilyn Jean Buck was an American Marxist and feminist poet who was imprisoned for her participation in the 1979 prison escape of Assata Shakur, the 1981 Brink's robbery and the 1983 U.S. Senate bombing. Buck received an 80-year sentence, which she served in federal prison, from where she published numerous articles and other texts. She was released on July 15, 2010, less than a month before her death at age 62 from cancer.
Government Islamia College Civil Lines, formerly called Dayanand Anglo Vedic College, is a government college in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan. Founded by Arya Samaj as the school of Dayanand Anglo Vedic on June 1, 1886, It was later renamed Dayanand Anglo Vedic (DAV) College after Hindu leader Dayananda Saraswati.
Kuwasi Balagoon, born Donald Weems, was an American political activist, anarchist and member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army. Radicalised by race riots in his home state of Maryland growing up, as well as by his experiences while serving in the US Army, Weems became the black nationalist known as Kuwasi Balagoon in New York City in the late 1960s. First becoming involved in local Afrocentric organisations in Harlem, Balagoon would move on to become involved in the New York chapter of the Black Panther Party, which quickly saw him charged and arrested for criminal behaviour. Balagoon was initially part of the Panther 21 case, in which 21 panthers were accused of planning to bomb several locations in New York City, but although the Panther 21 were later acquitted, Balagoon's case was separated off and he was convicted of a New Jersey bank robbery.
Bashir Hameed was a member of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army.
Ziaur Rahman, the 7th president of Bangladesh, was assassinated by a faction of officers of Bangladesh Army, on 30 May 1981, in the south-eastern port city of Chittagong. Rahman went to Chittagong to arbitrate in a clash between the local leaders of his political party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party. On the night of 30 May, a group of officers commandeered the Chittagong Circuit House, a government residence where Rahman was staying, shooting him and several others.
The 1981 Brink's robbery was an armed robbery and three related murders committed on October 20, 1981, by several Black Liberation Army members and four former members of the Weather Underground, now associated with the May 19th Communist Organization. The plan called for the BLA members – including Kuwasi Balagoon, Mtayari Sundiata, Samuel Brown and Mutulu Shakur – to carry out the robbery, with the M19CO members – David Gilbert, Judith Alice Clark, Kathy Boudin, and Marilyn Buck – to serve as getaway drivers in switchcars.
Romona Moore was a 21-year-old Hunter College honors student who disappeared April 24, 2003, in Brooklyn, New York. Two months later, her body was discovered outside an abandoned house which an anonymous caller had directed her mother to. Two male suspects were arrested; they were convicted in 2006 of having kidnapped, raped, tortured, and murdered Moore. The young immigrant from Guyana had been living at home with her parents and relatives before she was kidnapped.
Anthony Bottom aka Jalil Abdul Muntaqim political activist and former member of the Black Panther Party (BPP) and the Black Liberation Army (BLA) who served 49 years in prison for two counts of first-degree murder. In August 1971, he was arrested in California along with Albert “Nuh” Washington and Herman Bell. He was charged with the killing of two NYPD police officers, Waverly Jones and Joseph A. Piagentini, in New York City on May 21. In 1974, he was convicted on two counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment with possible parole after 22 years. Bottom had been the subject of attention for being repeatedly denied parole despite having been eligible since 1993. In June 2020, Bottom was reportedly sick with coronavirus disease. He was released from prison on October 7, 2020, after more than 49 years of incarceration and 11 parole denials.
Events in the year 2010 in Iraq.
Aiyana Mo'Nay Stanley-Jones was a seven-year-old African-American girl from Detroit's East Side who was shot in the neck and killed by police officer Joseph Weekley during a raid conducted by the Detroit Police Department's Special Response Team targeting a suspect in the apartment a floor above Jones' on May 16, 2010. Her death drew national media attention and led U.S. Representative John Conyers to ask U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder for a federal investigation into the incident.
Vincent Alfred Simmons is an American man who was a life prisoner at Angola State Prison in Louisiana, where he was sentenced to 100 years in July 1977 after being convicted of the "attempted aggravated rapes" of 14-year-old twin sisters Karen and Sharon Sanders of Marksville. Simmons has maintained his innocence throughout. By 1999 Simmons had filed numerous habeas corpus writs, but had not gained an evidentiary hearing by a Louisiana court. After receiving a copy of his evidence file in 1993, he had found that it contained exculpatory evidence that was not given to his court-appointed attorney by the District Attorney, and that there were inconsistencies in reports and statements of victims and witnesses.
On September 14, 2013, Jonathan Ferrell, a 24-year-old former college football player for the Florida A&M University Rattlers sought help after a car crash. When police arrived, he ran towards them and was killed by police officer Randall "Wes" Kerrick in Charlotte, North Carolina. Kerrick was charged with voluntary manslaughter, but not convicted. Police dashcam footage of the incident was released to the public.
Safiya Bukhari was an American member of the Black Panther Party. She was also the co-founder of the Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition (NYC), the Jericho Movement for U.S. Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War, and was the vice president of the Republic of New Afrika.
Melina Abdullah is an American academic and civic leader. She is the former chair of the department of Pan-African Studies at California State University, Los Angeles, co-founder of the Los Angeles chapter of Black Lives Matter and Black Lives Matter Grassroots, where she is also the co-director. She is also a supporter of the Southern Poverty Law Center designated hate group, Nation of Islam, known for its anti-LGBT, anti-white, and antisemitic rhetoric.
My political awareness began in earnest when I was 15 years old, around the time of the murder of El Hajj Abdul Malik Shabazz (Malcolm X)
I realized, despite geographical differences, the stunning similarities between the oppressed as well as the oppressors both here and there.