I first heard of Lorenzo Kom’Boa Ervin years ago in a newspaper article detailing how the former Black Panther hijacked a plane to Cuba. Since the newspaper was owned by Conrad Black, it should come as no surprise that the article was only about Ervin’s disillusion with Cuba’s state socialism. No mention was made of the man whose life was spent in the international spotlight–a man who spent 15 years in jail for speaking out against police brutality; a man who watched his friends die at the hands of his captors, and a man whose very name is now synonymous with anarchism and revolution.
The article was the last I heard of Ervin for a few years. He was simply dismissed as some crazy extremist who hijacked a plane.
The next I heard of him was in 1997. During a speaking tour of Australia, Ervin was threatening a boycott of the 2000 Olympic Games and the Australian government was trying to deport him.
In the meantime, their immigration officials arrested and beat him until he "went nearly blind." Their attempt to intimidate Ervin backfired upon his release, as his treatment at their hands gave his cause even greater attention.
Ervin has not slowed down in recent years. He tours year-round to deliver his philosophies on direct action and anarchism to the masses — chiefly students, who he feels are the forefront of change.
Ervin graced the University of Calgary campus on Oct. 27 and talked for just under two hours to an ethnically diverse and packed house.
He is a non-descript man; something he pointed out early in his talk. The short, slightly heavy man in his ’50s with greying hair and a comfortable sweater looked more like a retired accountant than a man who once hijacked an aircraft.
"I’ve never been a leader of anything," he says, by way of introduction. "I never tried to be. I was just an activist and an organizer. I am no hero."
Ervin is a plain spoken, approachable and funny. Not many people can say, "If there are any cops in this room, and I know there are, I don’t like you," and make the room laugh. When Lorenzo Kom’Boa Ervin speaks, he’s deadly serious but retains a dose of amicability.
Ervin grew up in Chatanooga, Tennessee, where the civil rights and black power movements began.
By the 1960s, black youths were no longer intimidated by the racism in Tennessee.
"They knew the stakes, but they saw what their fathers went through and they knew they didn’t want to live through that too. White people could take you away and kill you in broad daylight. That’s not an exaggeration. It happened all the time. Trying to vote was seen as being uppity and not staying in your place. It got you killed."
Forty years ago, marginal movements like the Ku Klux Klan weren’t so peripheral in Tennessee, said Ervin. "The Klan had a lot of sympathy with white people. Black youths in 1960 decided to change that."
The activism of the ’60s radicalized Ervin, and he became a student organizer for the Black Panthers. He was drafted into the United States Army and served two years until he was court marshaled for being an anti-Vietnam war organizer.
Ervin is critical of Martin Luther King, Jr., whom he sees as someone used by the white establishment to give black people a false sense of satisfaction. He calls King’s movement "The Liars Club."
"He used his charisma to just get people to blindly follow. We trained people and taught them how to protest. We didn’t do it for them."
According to Ervin, the Panthers threatened the government by giving out free clothes and shoes.
"We even had free Medicare. That scared the government. We were doing what they couldn’t do."
But change was difficult. Racism wasn’t limited to the South. It was everywhere; a national infestation.
"It was near impossible to get anything out of the Democratic party or white liberals. We discovered that if you don’t do things yourself, it won’t happened. You can’t depend on these white liberals."
After the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. incited riots in Tennessee, Ervin faced charges for weapons offenses. When he believed the FBI and Ku Klux Klan were trying to assassinate him, Ervin hijacked a plane in Atlanta and flew to Cuba, where he sought asylum.
Cuba, however, was suspicious of Black civil rights activists and deported him to Czechoslovakia. In Cuba and Eastern Europe he became disillusioned with state socialism.
Soon he was arrested in Germany and extradited to the US.
He stood trial in Georgia for the hijacking and was sentenced to two terms of life imprisonment by an all-White jury.
However, Ervin remained active while in prison. "I was determined I would stay active. I wasn’t going to let the bastards break me."
Ervin described how he helped to organize jail breaks and riots while in prison; actions that resulted in constant beatings and abuse from the guards, once being left overnight hanging by a noose.
He was the first North American prisoner whose case was adopted by the Black Cross, a European anarchist movement. After serving 15 years, their international campaign won his release in 1983.
He became an anarchist because of his imprisonment and the resultant efforts of anarchists to free him.
Ervin criticized the US Justice System, and in particular, the operation of federal jails of which he is a first-hand witness.
"The majority of people in prison are Black. And the majority are drug offenses. When a society is crumbling, when a society is deteriorating, it resorts to imprisonment of poor and working people."
Ervin tours the world speaking about his life hoping to inspire people to continue to work for change. The youth of today, he says, are in need of inspiration.
"The ’60s had some very articulate, very passionate people. That’s something I see lacking today. There’s no radical student movement anymore. Most students want to be doctors, lawyers, and entrepreneurs. That’s a shame."
Ervin says he hears complaints, but doesn’t see anyone doing anything about the conditions today.
"I’m so sick of hearing ‘White man this’ and ‘White man that,’ when Black people today don’t get out and do a fucking thing in their community," he said, adding that he thinks the lack of action is because people have "become immune to the suffering of poor folks. They’ve become conditioned to accept it."
Ervin also speaks against police brutality, which he sees as a crime against fairness and justice; something he thinks all people, regardless of colour or class should be concerned about.
"Coloured people have been turned into an enemy population group. Black people look suspicious, so the police are justified to use deadly force. Why see people of colour as dangerous?"
Answering his own question, he stated, "Authority resorts to police brutality when it’s afraid of the working class."
But he warns that despite the current lack of commitment towards change, he will not give up hope.
"We will not be humiliated and destroyed by a system of race and class privilege."
He urges people to continue to do whatever they can to make a difference. He feels that people must vocalize their opposition to such state tactics as police brutality.
"[Police] like to beat and kill people and not be held accountable," he said. Hold them accountable, and the system will have to change.
Ervin said he sees his mission as a lifelong process, transcending borders and races. He feels lucky to be free, and he says he wants to make the most of years which the state would have seen him rotting in prison.
"I learned years ago that when you start, you can never stop. I’m going to stop when I’m in the casket," he chuckled. "And I hope they bury me with a Revolutionary Anarchist flag and my fists raised up."