In the year 1968, there were 3 reports submitted to the United States Congress, that expressly dealt with Rebellions in Black America:

The National Advisory Commission (Kerner Commission)on Civil Disorders (Feb 29, 1968)

In the 75 disorders studied by a Senate subcommittee, 83 deaths were reported… The overwhelming majority of the persons killed or injured in all the disorders were Negro civilians. The typical rioter was a teenager or young adult, a lifelong resident of the city in which he rioted, a high school dropout; he was, nevertheless, somewhat better educated than his non-rioting Negro neighbor, and was usually underemployed or employed in a menial job. He was proud of his race, extremely hostile to both whites and middle-class Negroes and, although informed about politics, highly distrustful of the political system… Most rioters were young Negro males. Nearly 53 percent of arrestees were between 15 and 24 years of age; nearly 81 percent between 15 and 35. — Excerpts from from the July 1967 — National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (Kerner Report)

2. Guerrilla Warfare Advocates in the United States, Report by the Committee on Un-American Activities (May 6, 1968)

Guerrilla warfare, as envisioned by its proponents at this stage would have to have its base in the ghetto. This being the case, the ghetto would have to be sealed off from the rest of the city. Police, State troopers, and the National Guard could adequately handle this chore and, if they needed the help, the Regular Army would be brought into service. Once the ghetto is sealed off, and depending upon the violence being perpetrated by the guerrillas, the following actions could be taken by the authorities…

3. A Staff Report to the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence (June 10, 1968)

The Report of the Kerner commission, published in March of 1968, concerned itself primarily with the phenomenon of urban rioting and with the appropriate responses of society to that phenomenon. Recent developments in our racially troubled nation make it necessary to consider how our political and social institutions should respond to a different but related phenomenon: the small but increasing number of “radical black militants” who actively espouse and sometimes practice illegal retaliatory violence and even guerrilla warfare tactics against existing social institutions, particularly the police and the schools.

When the commissioners examined each of the these three reports, the underlying causes of radical Black militancy were broken down into 3 separate categories: social; political; and economic.

Social

i. “The commission found that the causes of the rioting were “embedded in a massive tangle of issues and circumstances… which arise out of the historical pattern of the Negro-white relations in America.” The most fundamental strand in that tangle, said the commission, is “the racial attitude and behavior of white Americans toward black Americans.”

ii. “ Radical black militancy, like the urban riots, is ultimately a response to conditions created by racial attitudes and behavior that have widely prevailed among the white majority since the days of slavery.”

Political

i. When the Black Liberation movement (Black Nationalists) displaced the civil rights movement (Integrationists), as the dominant strain among bourgeois Black activists** a new “anti-colonial” ideology was born into the breasts of the Black power movement. Increasingly, black activists in the United States began to see their struggle as a colonial struggle, connected with the global struggle against organized imperialist forces.

“Unique when expressed by Malcolm X in 1964, the anti-colonial perspective now provides many militant blacks with a structured world view — and, in the case of the radicals, with a rationalization for violence.”

Economic

i. The radical black militant who attacks a policeman or bombs a college building is not simply a common criminal. He is indeed a criminal, but he is different from the burglar, the robber or the rapist. He is acting out of a profound alienation from society.

This last point, perhaps more than any other, speaks to the profound nature of the threat of the “lower-class” Black male. His alienation from the western world, makes him the most dangerous element in modern society. His very being is criminalized. He exists outside of the protection of the law, within a society designed kill him.

The following quote, from Dr. Tommy Curry, speaks to the nature of the conditions that have prevailed in the urban ghetto, since the early 20th century:

Poverty creates conditions that make young, uneducated, and unemployed Black males into scavengers. They are forced to live or die by chance. It is this peculiar reality where criminality, the denial of work, poverty, and Black maleness push Black men and boys toward the prison and ultimately toward death at the hands of the police or of other Black males forced to scavenge for survival. ~Dr. Tommy Curry (The Man-Not: Race, Class, Genre, and the Dilemmas of Black Manhood)

It is these very conditions, that strike fear at the heart of this country. The same ingredients that go into the making a “Detroit Red”, can be used to produce a “Malcolm X.”