I have identified myself as an anarchist since 1969 when I met Martin Sostre, a well-known Black political prisoner and “jailhouse lawyer” in the New York state prison system. He was in the Federal House of Detention, I had been chased down and arrested in Eastern Europe (Czechoslovakia and East Germany) when I was on the run from American authorities for hijacking a plane to Cuba, thrown in there too.
After being brought back to the US from Europe, I received legal help and anarchist political education from Brother Martin, who had become an anarchist during his time in New York state prison. That political education only lasted a few months, but it was life-changing. Like Martin, I became a long-term political prisoner and a jailhouse lawyer, but most importantly, I became an anarchist communist and syndicalist. Many of my anarchist contacts and supporters came from my time in prison during the 1970s and 1980s. The struggle for prisoners’ rights and the brutal repression of Black activists in the Black Power movement of the 1960s occurred in the US, the UK, and other parts of the Black world.
I became part of the Anarchist Black Cross, re-founded by Albert Meltzer and Stuart Christie in the UK. This London ABC was reorganised in 1967-68 from the original ABC of the Russian Revolution (1905-1917). This group, and the “Help A Prisoner Oppose Torture Committee” in Amsterdam, Holland, were the primary international support groups involved in my defence and put tremendous pressure on US authorities. Ultimately, this resulted in my release and the release of other prisoners.
During the 1970s and 1980s, the various prisoners’ support groups in North America, and the Prisoners’ Liberation Movement were the most important and energetic movements of the time, organising thousands of prisoners and their supporters outside into a mass movement.
My ideas of Black anarchism occurred while I was in prison, coupled with my recognition that the Black working class was an oppressed people, not just exploited workers. I understood Blacks in the US were subjected to internal colonialism, not just racial discrimination. In time, many Black prisoners accepted this political position as well. The idea that just the mere passage of civil rights legislation from the government would actually free us was proven to be untrue. Only the Black masses themselves can ensure our liberation. We can work with others, but we must be able to speak for ourselves. Prisons are concentration camps for the Blacks and the poor, regardless of how much propaganda or lip service the government gives to “rehabilitation” or “law and order.” It’s all a lie, a fig-leaf for the brutal repression of millions in the American prison system.
Black Anti-Fascist Movement
Black Power and the Black Panther Party, in particular, were anti-fascist movements, almost from inception, they practiced armed self-defence, were anti-cop, and anti-government. They were part of a movement for Black liberation and against all forms of white supremacy.
The truth is that there has always been an anti-fascist tendency in the Black freedom struggle, against lynchings by white racists in the 1920s in the Southern states, where racists murdered thousands of Black people, and where Black civil rights and Black communists led the struggle against the Ku Klux Klan, a fascist, terrorist white supremacist movement. Although founded between 1868-1870, the KKK had grown to millions of members by the 1920s. Ida B Wells, a Black Southern activist, arose at this time to lead a mass movement against lynching.
Besides Wells’ anti-lynching campaign, Black anti-fascist groups of all types appeared during this period as civil rights, Black nationalist, communists and other movements to create a mass anti-Klan tendency by the 1920s-30s.
By the 1960s, Black protests against racism, systemic police murder, and mass imprisonment in the US went abroad and united with the anti-colonialist movement.
So, any consideration of the 1960s Black anti-fascist movement must recognise the impact of the Black Power movement, which radicalised the Third World liberation movements. The radical anti-colonial teachings of Frantz Fanon in his book, The Wretched of the Earth, published in 1961, touched Black activists all over the world. It was required reading for members of the Black Panther Party. The Black Power movement was strong in those countries like the UK, which had significant Black populations, as well as in Africa, where the Black Consciousness movement was influenced by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). SNCC birthed Black Power as a cultural, activist, and anti-colonial movement, especially the movements in the Caribbean, Africa, and the Black diaspora worldwide.
The separate experiences of Black and African people are what necessitated an autonomous Black movement, instead of Black people just joining white radical groups. Nobody was able to or could speak for oppressed Black peoples, like they could for themselves. Europeans who had never experienced racism, slavery, or colonialism had no frame of reference.
The best book by far on Black anti-fascist politics and its history is The Black Antifascist Tradition by Jeanelle Hope and Bill Mullen. This book is the most in-depth work of its kind, and came out in 2024, in time to cover Black Lives Matter over the contemporary period, as well as the rise of Black anarchism. It gives a long history of American racial oppression. It also lays out the theories of American state fascism and imperialism, internal colonialism, mass murder by agents of the state, and is the primary source to understand the Black anti-fascist tradition.
I have written and given speeches for years directed to the primarily white anarchist movement, to the effect that they should support the rising of the Black anarchist movement. I have always talked about why anarchists should create an international solidarity movement to help Black anarchist movements move forward, but why they should allow the Black movement to be autonomous as well.
I have always said that Black anarchists must be free to organise their own movements, based on their histories of oppression, ideological beliefs, and independent programs. I wrote my book Anarchism and the Black Revolution way back in 1979 to make this point, and co-founded a Black anarchist federation (Black Autonomy Federation) way back in 1994, the first of its kind, while I lived in Atlanta, GA. I got tired of struggling with white radicals, who were forever telling me and other Black activists that we have no right to organise as anarchists, just because they were offended or confused by what we had to say.
For years, however, I have seen white radicals, including anarchists, continue to criticise or harass Black anarchists for creating their own programs and movements. I experienced this for years in various anarchist and socialist groups. This is a terrible mistake on the part of white radicals.
In 2026, we are now forced to deal with a fascist state and a presidential dictatorship in the US, which is threatening a world war and nuclear terror. As black people, we may all be facing genocide and state terrorism. We can die one by one, or fight for one another. We must fight for our lives and freedom. Donald Trump and his “MAGAotts” represent a dangerous mass fascist tendency, organised and supported by the government. This government-supported fascist movement is a more dangerous threat than the 1920s Ku Klux Klan, which had millions of members in the US and dominated the national government in the 1920s, but was not in actual power.
Black Lives Matter (BLM) has been an important, and perhaps the best organised Black protest movement in this period, founded in 2013 following the lynching-style murder of Trayvon Martin. In fact, BLM has been the most important Black protest movement in all that time, opposing racism, systemic police terror, and government repression of the Black community. But it is not a revolutionary movement, attempting to transform the whole of society. It wants reforms to stop state violence, not to destroy capitalism.
To this point, BLM has not felt it necessary to directly oppose Trump and MAGA, and seems to accept the limits placed on them, contrary to the original Black Panther Party.
As has historically been the case, however, Black people have had to build their own movements and cannot depend entirely upon white radicals. What whites have to do is build white solidarity movements to render material aid and support against Black repression. If they do not intend to give uncritical support, then they should get out of the way.
Sadly, white anarchists have not united with Black anarchists or Black activists for years up to now. In order to build trust now, white anarchists must put their asses on the line, if they are asked to partake at all. This must be the case, instead of telling Black people the must join white groups
ICE Is Not The Answer
Think about this. There is a reasonable amount of righteous anger against ICE, but Black people have been systematically murdered by the FBI, state police, and city cops for decades, and most white people in America have not said anything. The outrage is warranted, but ICE is just the latest instrument of police terror, and not even the most deadly. When whites are killed, only then do more whites realise that ICE and the police generally, are a terror to us all.
There needs to be a united front of anti-fascist groups against all forms of statist police terror, not just against ICE alone. Don’t wait until it happens to white people, or fascist mass murder will be a routine for us all.
Finally, what I would say to Black anarchists is that fascism is here, and it is real. We need to organise before we are crushed or wiped out completely by the state.
A Few Words to Black Anarchists
Black anarchists must draw on our long history of anti-fascist struggle to build something new in this period, not joining white groups who have long rejected us. We can only work with others when we have built autonomous collectives and programs of our own. We must lead ourselves, even as we accept solidarity from others.
Black activists must build a Black anarchist tendency to bring a fightback inside the belly of the beast, against crimes of the state: war, mass imprisonment, deaths by police, unforced poverty, the racial apartheid economy in the US, and so much more.
As I have said before, Black anarchism does not stem from European anarchism alone, but from a Black radical tradition. Black anarchism is not only anti-authoritarian, but anti-colonial, pan-Africanist, anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, anarchist communalist and other Black radical ideals. That is why we call it Black Autonomy, and claim the Black radical tradition.
Black anarchists must be revolutionary community organisers, and not just idle intellectuals. We have to build living projects in our Black communities.
Black anarchists must understand that although they are part of a distinct people, who may have been historically oppressed and colonised in the US or UK, but that they must also understand the need to unite other with other Black people all over the world.
This article originally appeared in issue 86.1 of Freedom anarchist journal (Summer 2026)
The continuing necessity of Black anarchism
We can work with others, but we must be able to speak for ourselves
Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin, Freedom News, 17/05/2026
I have identified myself as an anarchist since 1969 when I met Martin Sostre, a well-known Black political prisoner and “jailhouse lawyer” in the New York state prison system. He was in the Federal House of Detention, I had been chased down and arrested in Eastern Europe (Czechoslovakia and East Germany) when I was on the run from American authorities for hijacking a plane to Cuba, thrown in there too.
After being brought back to the US from Europe, I received legal help and anarchist political education from Brother Martin, who had become an anarchist during his time in New York state prison. That political education only lasted a few months, but it was life-changing. Like Martin, I became a long-term political prisoner and a jailhouse lawyer, but most importantly, I became an anarchist communist and syndicalist. Many of my anarchist contacts and supporters came from my time in prison during the 1970s and 1980s. The struggle for prisoners’ rights and the brutal repression of Black activists in the Black Power movement of the 1960s occurred in the US, the UK, and other parts of the Black world.
I became part of the Anarchist Black Cross, re-founded by Albert Meltzer and Stuart Christie in the UK. This London ABC was reorganised in 1967-68 from the original ABC of the Russian Revolution (1905-1917). This group, and the “Help A Prisoner Oppose Torture Committee” in Amsterdam, Holland, were the primary international support groups involved in my defence and put tremendous pressure on US authorities. Ultimately, this resulted in my release and the release of other prisoners.
During the 1970s and 1980s, the various prisoners’ support groups in North America, and the Prisoners’ Liberation Movement were the most important and energetic movements of the time, organising thousands of prisoners and their supporters outside into a mass movement.
My ideas of Black anarchism occurred while I was in prison, coupled with my recognition that the Black working class was an oppressed people, not just exploited workers. I understood Blacks in the US were subjected to internal colonialism, not just racial discrimination. In time, many Black prisoners accepted this political position as well. The idea that just the mere passage of civil rights legislation from the government would actually free us was proven to be untrue. Only the Black masses themselves can ensure our liberation. We can work with others, but we must be able to speak for ourselves. Prisons are concentration camps for the Blacks and the poor, regardless of how much propaganda or lip service the government gives to “rehabilitation” or “law and order.” It’s all a lie, a fig-leaf for the brutal repression of millions in the American prison system.
Black Anti-Fascist Movement
Black Power and the Black Panther Party, in particular, were anti-fascist movements, almost from inception, they practiced armed self-defence, were anti-cop, and anti-government. They were part of a movement for Black liberation and against all forms of white supremacy.
The truth is that there has always been an anti-fascist tendency in the Black freedom struggle, against lynchings by white racists in the 1920s in the Southern states, where racists murdered thousands of Black people, and where Black civil rights and Black communists led the struggle against the Ku Klux Klan, a fascist, terrorist white supremacist movement. Although founded between 1868-1870, the KKK had grown to millions of members by the 1920s. Ida B Wells, a Black Southern activist, arose at this time to lead a mass movement against lynching.
Besides Wells’ anti-lynching campaign, Black anti-fascist groups of all types appeared during this period as civil rights, Black nationalist, communists and other movements to create a mass anti-Klan tendency by the 1920s-30s.
By the 1960s, Black protests against racism, systemic police murder, and mass imprisonment in the US went abroad and united with the anti-colonialist movement.
So, any consideration of the 1960s Black anti-fascist movement must recognise the impact of the Black Power movement, which radicalised the Third World liberation movements. The radical anti-colonial teachings of Frantz Fanon in his book, The Wretched of the Earth, published in 1961, touched Black activists all over the world. It was required reading for members of the Black Panther Party. The Black Power movement was strong in those countries like the UK, which had significant Black populations, as well as in Africa, where the Black Consciousness movement was influenced by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). SNCC birthed Black Power as a cultural, activist, and anti-colonial movement, especially the movements in the Caribbean, Africa, and the Black diaspora worldwide.
The separate experiences of Black and African people are what necessitated an autonomous Black movement, instead of Black people just joining white radical groups. Nobody was able to or could speak for oppressed Black peoples, like they could for themselves. Europeans who had never experienced racism, slavery, or colonialism had no frame of reference.
The best book by far on Black anti-fascist politics and its history is The Black Antifascist Tradition by Jeanelle Hope and Bill Mullen. This book is the most in-depth work of its kind, and came out in 2024, in time to cover Black Lives Matter over the contemporary period, as well as the rise of Black anarchism. It gives a long history of American racial oppression. It also lays out the theories of American state fascism and imperialism, internal colonialism, mass murder by agents of the state, and is the primary source to understand the Black anti-fascist tradition.
I have written and given speeches for years directed to the primarily white anarchist movement, to the effect that they should support the rising of the Black anarchist movement. I have always talked about why anarchists should create an international solidarity movement to help Black anarchist movements move forward, but why they should allow the Black movement to be autonomous as well.
I have always said that Black anarchists must be free to organise their own movements, based on their histories of oppression, ideological beliefs, and independent programs. I wrote my book Anarchism and the Black Revolution way back in 1979 to make this point, and co-founded a Black anarchist federation (Black Autonomy Federation) way back in 1994, the first of its kind, while I lived in Atlanta, GA. I got tired of struggling with white radicals, who were forever telling me and other Black activists that we have no right to organise as anarchists, just because they were offended or confused by what we had to say.
For years, however, I have seen white radicals, including anarchists, continue to criticise or harass Black anarchists for creating their own programs and movements. I experienced this for years in various anarchist and socialist groups. This is a terrible mistake on the part of white radicals.
In 2026, we are now forced to deal with a fascist state and a presidential dictatorship in the US, which is threatening a world war and nuclear terror. As black people, we may all be facing genocide and state terrorism. We can die one by one, or fight for one another. We must fight for our lives and freedom. Donald Trump and his “MAGAotts” represent a dangerous mass fascist tendency, organised and supported by the government. This government-supported fascist movement is a more dangerous threat than the 1920s Ku Klux Klan, which had millions of members in the US and dominated the national government in the 1920s, but was not in actual power.
Black Lives Matter (BLM) has been an important, and perhaps the best organised Black protest movement in this period, founded in 2013 following the lynching-style murder of Trayvon Martin. In fact, BLM has been the most important Black protest movement in all that time, opposing racism, systemic police terror, and government repression of the Black community. But it is not a revolutionary movement, attempting to transform the whole of society. It wants reforms to stop state violence, not to destroy capitalism.
To this point, BLM has not felt it necessary to directly oppose Trump and MAGA, and seems to accept the limits placed on them, contrary to the original Black Panther Party.
As has historically been the case, however, Black people have had to build their own movements and cannot depend entirely upon white radicals. What whites have to do is build white solidarity movements to render material aid and support against Black repression. If they do not intend to give uncritical support, then they should get out of the way.
Sadly, white anarchists have not united with Black anarchists or Black activists for years up to now. In order to build trust now, white anarchists must put their asses on the line, if they are asked to partake at all. This must be the case, instead of telling Black people the must join white groups
ICE Is Not The Answer
Think about this. There is a reasonable amount of righteous anger against ICE, but Black people have been systematically murdered by the FBI, state police, and city cops for decades, and most white people in America have not said anything. The outrage is warranted, but ICE is just the latest instrument of police terror, and not even the most deadly. When whites are killed, only then do more whites realise that ICE and the police generally, are a terror to us all.
There needs to be a united front of anti-fascist groups against all forms of statist police terror, not just against ICE alone. Don’t wait until it happens to white people, or fascist mass murder will be a routine for us all.
Finally, what I would say to Black anarchists is that fascism is here, and it is real. We need to organise before we are crushed or wiped out completely by the state.
A Few Words to Black Anarchists
Black anarchists must draw on our long history of anti-fascist struggle to build something new in this period, not joining white groups who have long rejected us. We can only work with others when we have built autonomous collectives and programs of our own. We must lead ourselves, even as we accept solidarity from others.
Black activists must build a Black anarchist tendency to bring a fightback inside the belly of the beast, against crimes of the state: war, mass imprisonment, deaths by police, unforced poverty, the racial apartheid economy in the US, and so much more.
As I have said before, Black anarchism does not stem from European anarchism alone, but from a Black radical tradition. Black anarchism is not only anti-authoritarian, but anti-colonial, pan-Africanist, anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, anarchist communalist and other Black radical ideals. That is why we call it Black Autonomy, and claim the Black radical tradition.
Black anarchists must be revolutionary community organisers, and not just idle intellectuals. We have to build living projects in our Black communities.
Black anarchists must understand that although they are part of a distinct people, who may have been historically oppressed and colonised in the US or UK, but that they must also understand the need to unite other with other Black people all over the world.
This article originally appeared in issue 86.1 of Freedom anarchist journal (Summer 2026)