Kuwasi Balagoon
Encyclopedia
Black Panther Party
The Black Panther Party wasan African-American revolutionary leftist organization. It was active in the United States from 1966 until 1982....
, a member of the Black Liberation Army
Black Liberation Army
The Black Liberation Army was an underground, black nationalist-Marxist militant organization that operated in the United States from 1970 to 1981...
, a New Afrikan
Republic of New Afrika
The Republic of New Afrika , was a social movement that proposed three objectives. First, the creation of an independent African-American-majority country situated in the southeastern United States. A similar claim is made for all the black-majority counties and cities throughout the United States...
anarchist
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
, and a defendant in the Panther 21 case in the late sixties. Captured and convicted of various crimes, he spent most of the 1970s in prison. Balagoon escaped from prison several times, going underground and resuming BLA activity. He was finally captured and charged with participating in an armoured truck armed robbery, known as the Brinks robbery (1981)
Brinks robbery (1981)
The Brink's robbery of 1981 was an armed robbery committed on October 20, 1981, which was carried out by Black Liberation Army members; including Jeral Wayne Williams , Donald Weems , Samuel Smith, Nathaniel Burns , Cecilio "Chui" Ferguson, Samuel Brown ; several former members of the Weather...
, in West Nyack, New York
West Nyack, New York
West Nyack is a hamlet in the Town of Clarkstown Rockland County, New York, United States located north of Central Nyack; east of Nanuet; south of Valley Cottage and west of Upper Nyack. It is approximately 18 miles north of New York City...
, on October 21, 1981, an action in which two police officers, Waverly Brown
Waverly Brown
Waverly L. Brown was a Nyack, New York police officer who was killed in the line of duty during an infamous 1981 armed robbery of a Brinks Armored Car, along with fellow Nyack officer Edward O'Grady II and Brinks security guard Peter Paige...
and Edward O'Grady, and a money courier (Peter Paige) were killed. Convicted of murder and other charges and sentenced to life imprisonment, he died in prison of pneumocystis pneumonia, an AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
-related illness, on December 13, 1986, aged 39. Balagoon was bisexual.
Balagoon authored several texts while in prison, writings that have become influential among black and other anarchists since first being published and distributed by anarchist prisoner support networks in the 1980s and 90s.