The late 1960s saw a lot of political turmoil and some violence (sound familiar?) as a result of a civil rights movement that turned violent and the increasingly unpopular Vietnam War. Racial segregation and discrimination were legally ended with some dispatch, but the social and cultural reality would linger for some time, even to today to some extent.
Accordingly, from the middle of the decade onward there emerged a Black Power movement demanding a concept of equality, to be achieved by violent means if necessary.
H. Rap Brown, one of the most vocal leaders of the Black Power movement, and who often advocated violence, died last week in a prison hospital while serving a life sentence from 2002 for the killing of a Georgia sheriff’s deputy and other charges. He was 82.
In 1967 Brown succeeded Stokely Carmichael as leader of the civil rights organization oxymoronically named Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, pronounced “snick” by some). As SNCC Chairman, Brown developed a reputation as a fiery orator and leader of the militant black power movement. He was a founder of the Black Panther organization and was styled as its minister of defense. He spent the next decades in and out of prison for his conduct in violent protests.
In July 1967 Brown spoke in Cambridge, Maryland saying, “It’s time for Cambridge to explode, baby. Black folks built America, and if America don’t come around, we’re going to burn America down.” Gunfire reportedly broke out and both Brown and a police officer were wounded. A fire started that night and by the next day, seventeen buildings were destroyed. Brown was charged with inciting a riot.
Brown’s trial was originally to take place in Cambridge, but a change of venue moved the trial to Bel Air, Harford County, Maryland, to start in March 1970. On March 9, two SNCC officials, Ralph Featherstone and William “Che” Payne, were driving on U.S. Route 1 just south of Bel Air when a bomb they were carrying exploded, killing them both.
At that time I was in my last tour of military duty at the nearby Aberdeen Proving Ground as an officer in the Ordnance Corps. I recalled hearing about the blast but did not pay much attention to it at the time. Several years later when I was a detective in the Dallas Police Department I met Dr. Vincent DeMaio, then Assistant Medical Examiner for Dallas County and consultant to the Southwestern Institute of Forensic Sciences. At the time of the Bel Air bombing. Dr. DiMaio was employed in the Harford County medical examiner’s office, where what was left of the bombers was taken for autopsy.
Dr. DiMaio recalled that the county sheriff’s office was on high alert for anticipated violent protests surrounding Brown’s trial. One afternoon a deputy noticed a car making several slow trips around the courthouse in downtown Bel Air, apparently casing the location. The occupants appeared to have spotted the deputy and turned onto the highway leading out of town. The deputy followed them and looked for a reason to stop and investigate. While driving behind the suspect car, he decided to contact the dispatcher by radio. A second or two after keying his microphone, the suspect car exploded, severely damaging it and killing Featherstone and Payne. Dr. DiMaio said the investigators determined the RF from the police radio set off an electric blasting cap, detonating the dynamite. The passenger had the bomb in his lap and the explosion literally blew his body in two.
One lesson from that incident: there is always a way to blow up explosives; the trick is not to be around when they go off.
This lesson has oft gone unheeded. There have been numerous wannabe bombers in militant groups from the Provisional IRA to the Weather Underground to Al-Shabaab who have succeeded in blowing themselves up, not having learned that trick.
Note: Dr. Vincent DiMaio left Dallas County to become the Chief Medical Examiner for Bexar County (San Antonio) Texas until 2006. He was appointed to the Texas Forensic Science Commission in 2011. Dr. DiMaio authored many publications about forensic pathology and testified in a number of high profile trials, including for the defense of George Zimmerman in the Trevon Martin shooting in Florida. He died in 2022.
