No one comes into or leaves this world alone, and no one navigates its commanding heights or treacherous depths alone. The greatest crime that anyone could commit is the crime of being ungrateful and forgetting the people who helped us at every milestone in our journey.

Bob Brown is 75 years old! He is a researcher and writer, an organizer and lecturer, and a revolutionary. He has served for 60 years in the student, civil and human rights, Pan-African and socialist, peace, anti-repression, and other movements worldwide. He is a member of the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party ^(GC), director of Pan-African Roots, and the editor of a blog titled Notes from the Barricades.

He is a former member of the Chicago Chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality and worked with Bob Lucas, Elmo Taylor, Ellis Wicks, Murton Shanklin, and Jorja English-Palmer (1963–1968). He supported ACT in Chicago, Larry Landry, and Nahez Rogers (1963–1968). He was a member of the Chicago Freedom Movement and a youth delegate to the Coordinating Council of Community Organizations (1965–1966). He marched in Chicago with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and helped Bob Lucas organize the March to Cicero (1966).  He was the director of the Midwest Office of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (1967–1968) and worked with Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael) (1967–1998).

Bob founded and helped organize, at Kwame Ture’s (Stokely Carmichael’s) request, the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party with Tommy Carter, Bob Rush, and Fred Hampton (1968–1969). He was a supporter and member of the Movement to Take Kwame Nkrumah Back to Ghana (1967–1972) and of the Democratic Party of Guinea under the leadership of Ahmed Sekou Toure (1967–2013). He is a member of the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (GC) (1972–2023). He helped organize African Liberation Day in the United States, Canada, and London (1976–2023).

Among Bob’s many assignments over the past almost six decades, he served as an advisor and consultant to Dr. Sylvester Williams and WMS Associates (1968–1988), Dr. J. Archie Hargraves, the Urban Training Center for Christian Missions, the Black Strategy Center, Shaw University, and the Southshore Communiversity (1968–1998), and Larry and Dolores Landry and Associate Consultants (1976–1998).

He served as national coordinator for Third World Outreach for the Mobilization for Survival and the 1 million+ June 12th Disarmament Demonstration at the United Nations (1983). He was a consultant to Minister Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam, national director for logistics and operations for the 1.2 Million Man March (1995), and national coordinator for the 1.3+ million-person Stay-at-Home Campaign.

He volunteered for Harold Washington for the Mayor of Chicago Campaigns (1983 and 1987). He served as a volunteer for the Jesse Jackson for President Campaign (1984). He was a consultant to Eugene Sawyer for the Mayor of Chicago campaign (1988) and Carol Moseley-Braun for the Senate campaign (2001). He was the national campaign manager of the Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania’s Local Government and Presidential Campaigns (2001 and 2004). He helped re-elect Marion Barry and advised the Campaign of Rev. Willie Wilson for Mayor in Washington, DC.

Bob advised Dr. Conrad Worrill and the National Black United Front on its petition to the United Nations that charged the U.S. with genocide for selling crack cocaine to finance the Iran-Contra War. He advised Rev. Al Sharpton and the National Action Network on their “Campaign to Cash the Check” and coordinated the demonstrations at the Democratic and Republican National Conventions in Chicago and San Diego (1996).

He supported the “No Games Chicago Movement” and lobbied in Geneva and Copenhagen against Chicago’s bid to host the 2016 Olympic Games. Chicago lost the bid.

Bob supported, spoke to, and worked with hundreds of youth and student groups in every corner of the world. He supported and worked with, and continues to work with and support, hundreds of movements and organizations including the 100 Black Men of Luten (UK), the African National Congress of South Africa, the Alliance for Global Justice, the American Indian Movement and International Indian Treaty Council, the Arab Ba’ath Socialist Party, the Azanian People’s Organization, the Black Consciousness Movement of Azania, the Black Consciousness Movement of Brazil, the Black Liberation Army, the Black Students Section of the National Union of Students (UK), the Blackstone Rangers (El Rukins), the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Cobras, the Committee against Registration and the Draft, the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, the Convention People’s Party, the Crusade for Justice, the DC Hands Off Cuba Network, the Communist Party of Cuba, the DC-Havana Sister City Project, the Disciple Gang, the Emancipation Support Committee of Trinidad and Tobago, the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front, the Eritrean Students of North America, FRELIMO, the General Union of Palestinian Students, the Global Afrikan Congress (UK), the Hackney Black Peoples Association (UK), ICAP, the Irish Republican Army and Movement, the Irish Republican Socialist Party, the June 13th Disarmament Committee, the LaRaza Unida Party, the Latin American Solidarity Coalition, the Libyan Students Committee in North America, the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, the Malcom X Movement (UK), the Movement for the Liberation of Angola, the Movement for Survival, the Movements for Justice in Africa, Gambia and Liberia, the Nation of Islam, the National Action Network, the National Conference of Black Lawyers, the National Joint Action Committee of Trinidad and Tobago, the National Lawyers Guild, the National Liberation Front of Algeria, N’Cobra, the National Acton Network, the National Liberation Front Vietnam, the New Afrikan Peoples Organization, the New Black Panther Party, the New Jewel Movement, the Nicaragua Network, the No 2016 Olympic Games in Chicago Movement, Operation Breadbasket, Operation Push and the Rainbow Coalition, the Palestine Liberation Organization and its constituent organizations, the Pan-Africanist Conference of Munich, the Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania, the Republic of New Afrika, the Revolutionary Committees Movement of Libya, the Sanctuary Movement, Sein Fein, the Sandinista Front for National Liberation, the Southwest African People’s Organization, the Universal Negro Movement Association, the Venceremos Brigade, the War Resister’s League, the Young Koreans United, the Young West Indians, and the Zimbabwe African National Union / Patriotic Front. He supports prisoners of conscience, political prisoners, and prisoners of war worldwide.

In 1968, Bob supported the Vietnamese People and Ho Chi Minh. The United States government arrested him for draft resistance. Hell no, he did not go to Vietnam! He spent several years struggling not to go to prison. In 1988, he was arrested for helping break the travel ban and political embargo against Muammar Qadhafi and Libya. The US government arrested the leadership of the Libyan Students Committee in North America for organizing a solidarity movement and enabling hundreds of people to travel to Libya for free to see it for themselves. It could not convict them, so it deported them.

The Reagan Administration wanted Bob and Vernon Bellecourt of the American Indian Movement to become “snitches” against the Libyan students, Kwame Ture, Minister Louis Farrakhan, Rev. Jesse Jackson, and others. Bob and Vernon refused to testify. They spent 90 days in the MCC Detention Center in New York, including one week “behind the glass” with Dr. Muntulu Shakur of the Black Liberation Army, Filiberto Ojeda Rios of the Los Macheteros Guerrillas, Joe Doherty of the Irish Republican Army, and Kikimora of the Japanese Red Army.

The US government “punished” Bob for refusing to become a snitch. The Federal Court in Alexandria convicted him in 1998 and sentenced him to 28 years in prison for the alleged use of four counts of telephone card fraud and wire fraud. He spent 31 months in 7 federal facilities: Alexandria (VA) Detention Center, the DC Jail, the MCC Detention Center in New York, the Harrisburg (PA) prison air shuttle, El Reno (OK) Penitentiary, Oakdale (LA) Detention Center, the prison bus shuttle, a military base in Alabama, Atlanta Penitentiary, Buckner Military Base in NC, and the Prison Camp in Petersburg (VA). He spent another 54 months in a halfway house, under house arrest in DC, and on parole.

He fought against capitalism and imperialism, colonialism, settler-colonialism, neo-colonialism, racism and racial discrimination, apartheid, Zionism, sexism, and ageism since he was 15. He supported and continues to support movements for national liberation and unification, Pan-Africanism, and socialism worldwide.

He opposed Euro-American intervention and wars, travel bans, embargoes, and regime change against Afghanistan, Algeria, Angola, Argentina, Azania, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Chile, China, Colombia, Congo, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Eritrea, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Iraq, Ireland (Northern), Korea (North and South), Laos, Libya, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Palestine, Peru, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Syria, Venezuela, Vietnam, Yemen, and Zimbabwe.

Bob earned a BA in urban politics from the University Without Walls Program at Shaw University. He was an advisor to Dr. J. Archie Hargraves, the President of Shaw, helped recruit students, helped raise monies to build an International Center, and helped facilitate a freshman course titled Universal Values, Models, and Norms.

He completed graduate courses in sociology, not-for-profit administration, political science, history, and African and Middle Eastern studies, and was a graduate teaching and research assistant at Howard University. He facilitated a freshman sociology class titled Access, Influence, and Power. He helped advise faculty at the City Colleges in Chicago, the University of Illinois at Chicago, the Center for Inner City Studies at Northeastern Illinois University, Denver University, Morehouse College, Spellman College, and other schools.

Bob supported and helped raise funds for daycare, University Without Walls, University Behind the Walls, University of the Streets, Small Schools, Independent Schools, the South Shore Communiversity, the International Comparative Labor Studies Program at Morehouse College departments and programs, martial arts schools, work-study circles, and other edutainment programs.

He has traveled to and participated in protests and meetings in Austria, Azania, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Cuba, Denmark, Egypt, England, Ethiopia, France, Gambia, Germany, Ghana, Guinea, Iraq, Ireland (North and South), Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Jordan, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Portugal, Scotland, Senegal, St. Marten, Switzerland, Trinidad, and Azania. He has slept in the streets, on airplanes, trains, buses, and in palaces and guerrilla camps. He has been detained and deported from Canada, Switzerland, Italy, and France.

He has spoken at thousands of events, small and large, including the Congressional Black Caucus, the City Council of Sao Paulo, the Houses of Parliament in the UK, and the United Nations in New York, Geneva, Vienna, and Brussels. He has lectured at Bowie College, Brown University, the Center for Inner City Studies at Northeastern Illinois University, Cambridge University, the City Colleges of Chicago and New York, Compton College, DePaul University, Denver University, Fort Hare University, and other colleges in South Africa, Duke University, George Washington University, Georgetown University, Georgia State University, Harvard University, and Howard University.

He has spoken at the London School of Economics, the London School of Oriental & African Studies, Memphis State University, Loyola University, Morehouse College, Moran State University, Northeastern University (Boston), Northumbria University, Notre Dame University, Ohio State University, and Oxford. Bob also spoke at Salt Lake City College, San Diego State University, San Francisco State University, Shaw University, Spellman College, the Southern University of New Orleans, St. Augustine University, St. Mary’s College in London, Strathclyde University in Scotland, Stanford University, Temple University, Tugaloo, and Tuskegee.

He has also lectured at the Universities of California at Berkeley and Los Angeles, the universities of London, Glasgow, Maine, Maryland at College Park, Michigan at Ann Arbor and East Lansing, Minnesota, the Mustansiriyah in Bagdad, Toronto, Tripoli, the West Indies at St. Augustine, Zimbabwe, Vanderbilt University, Washington State, and Wayne State University.

He attended the NGO Forum of the 3rd UN World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance in Durban. He supported the passage of the Slavery Era Records Disclosure Ordinance, lobbied, and filed three lawsuits in Chicago for its enforcement. He supported the 2019 resolution of the European Parliament, demanding the disclosure of slavery and colonial-era records.

He filed several FOIA requests and compiled a book titled Slavery and the Slave Trade Are and Were Crimes Against Humanity. He helped reprint and write the new preface for Stokely Speaks: From Black Power to Pan-Africanism. Muma Abu-Jamal wrote the introduction. He co-authored a chapter in We Have Not Been Moved: Resisting Racism and Militarism in 21st-Century America.

He helped write, produce, and distribute tens of thousands of leaflets and posters, petitions and papers, articles, and speeches. He is struggling to complete a book titled The War against Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael) and a film titled Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael) Dances in the Fire!

Bob has worked, studied, and struggled in the Movement for Social Change for 57 years and is ready to go whenever and wherever the African Revolution needs and sends him. He has earned the right to observe and to speak.

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