The prominent figure formerly known as H. Rap Brown, who later embraced the name Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, has passed away at the age of 82. A vocal leader during the Black Power movement and a former official with the Black Panther Party, Al-Amin died on Sunday at the Federal Medical Center in Butner, North Carolina, according to his widow, Karima Al-Amin.
While an official cause of death has not been released, Karima Al-Amin informed The Associated Press that her husband had been battling cancer. He had been transferred to the medical facility in 2014 from a federal prison in Colorado. At the time of his death, Al-Amin was serving a life sentence for the 2000 murder of a Georgia sheriff’s deputy.
From Militant Activist to Spiritual Leader
Born Hubert Gerold Brown, H. Rap Brown rose to national prominence in the late 1960s. As chair of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and later as the Minister of Justice for the Black Panther Party, he was a powerful voice for civil rights and Black empowerment. During an era marked by intense racial unrest, Brown was known for his militant rhetoric, famously declaring that violence was “as American as cherry pie” and asserting that Black people would use violence to achieve freedom “by any means necessary” if oppression persisted. He sharply criticized heavy-handed policing practices in Black communities.
In 1971, Brown was arrested following a robbery that culminated in a shootout with New York police. While incarcerated, serving a five-year sentence for the robbery, he underwent a profound personal transformation, converting to the Dar-ul Islam movement and adopting the name Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin. Following his release in 1976, Al-Amin relocated to Atlanta, where he established a grocery and health food store and became a respected Imam, serving as a spiritual leader for local Muslims. Reflecting on his past in 1998, Al-Amin stated, “I’m not dissatisfied with what I did. But Islam has allowed things to be clearer. ... We have to be concerned about the welfare of ourselves and those around us, and that comes through submission to God and the raising of one’s consciousness.”
The Controversial Conviction and Lingering Questions
The course of Al-Amin’s life took a tragic turn on March 16, 2000. Fulton County Deputy Sheriffs Ricky Kinchen and Aldranon English attempted to serve a warrant on Al-Amin at his Atlanta residence for failure to appear in court on charges related to driving a stolen vehicle and impersonating an officer. Deputy English testified that Al-Amin opened fire with a high-powered assault rifle when they tried to arrest him. Prosecutors further alleged that Al-Amin then used a handgun to shoot Kinchen multiple times as the wounded deputy lay on the ground, leading to Kinchen’s death.
Throughout his trial, prosecutors depicted Al-Amin as a cold-blooded killer, while his defense team portrayed him as a peaceful, revered community and religious leader who had positively impacted impoverished areas. His lawyers suggested he was the victim of a government conspiracy, a lingering effect from his militant past, and maintained his innocence. Despite his claims of constitutional rights violations and pleas of innocence, Al-Amin was convicted in 2002 and sentenced to life imprisonment. Appeals of his conviction, including a challenge before a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2019, were ultimately unsuccessful, with the U.S. Supreme Court declining to hear the case in 2020.
Al-Amin’s family released a statement on Monday, reiterating long-standing concerns about the fairness of his trial. They highlighted "newly uncovered evidence — including previously unseen FBI surveillance files, inconsistencies in eyewitness accounts, and third-party confessions — raised serious concerns that Imam Al-Amin did not receive the fair trial guaranteed under the Constitution." His death closes a complex chapter in American history, marking the end of a life that embodied radical activism, spiritual transformation, and enduring legal controversy.
