Workers World Part
November 25, 2025
Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, formerly known as H. Rap Brown, died from medical neglect on Nov. 23 in a North Carolina federal prison hospital following a long bout of cancer. He was 82 years old. Most of his time in prison was spent in triple maximum solitary confinement. Al-Amin, along with the late Kwame Ture (aka Stokely Carmichael), were co-founders and leaders of the Black Power movement in the late 1960s, a revolutionary sector of the Black Liberation struggle. He was known for the 1967 quote: “Violence is as American as cherry pie.”
H. Rap Brown aka Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin. (Photo: Monroe Free Press)
Al-Amin was also the chairperson of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, a precursor to the Black Power movement. He then served as minister of justice for the Black Panther Party.
Al-Amin became a major target of the FBI’s Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) during the 1960s, leading to multiple arrests and incarcerations on phony gun possession and inciting to riot charges. During his imprisonment at the Attica Correctional Facility starting in 1972, he eventually converted to Islam. Following his release in 1976, he moved to Atlanta. Years later, he was falsely accused and found guilty of first-degree murder for killing a white sheriff’s deputy in 2002 and then sentenced to life in prison without any possibility of parole. The following condolences statement is being submitted for a public collective obituary.
Workers World Party offers our respect and appreciation for the decades of consistent revolutionary practice and writings of Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, formerly H. Rap Brown.
Despite all the machinations and treachery of the repressive state, he remained true to the cause of liberation for millions of oppressed people worldwide.
Imam Jamil experienced the multitude of ways that the system of profit and power can attempt to thwart, waylay and distort the righteous demands of a struggling people – but only temporarily.
Throughout his life– from awakening the imagination of Black youth to struggle for power in the 1960s, to daring to evade the repressive state while underground, to the rebirth of Atlanta’s West End neighborhood through inspiring collective community action – Imam Jamil consistently carried out his beliefs.
From his prison cell, following his trumped-up conviction in 2002, in his writings, conversation and manner, he expressed his confidence in the struggle by the masses of people to achieve liberation, justice and equality.
The members of Workers World Party express our condolences to his family, comrades, faith-based community and global supporters.
We affirm our active solidarity to continue the struggle for the revolutionary and necessary change which Imam Jamil pursued and sacrificed for until his last breath.
Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, ¡presente!
Monica Moorehead and Dianne Mathiowetz contributed to this statement.
