H. Rap Brown

Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin
H. Rap Brown in 1967
5th Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
In office May 1967 – June 1968
Preceded by	Stokely Carmichael
Succeeded by	Phil Hutchings
Personal details
Born	(1943-10-04) October 4, 1943 (age 73) Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Spouse(s)	Karima Al-Amin
Residence	United States Penitentiary, Tucson (sentenced by the state of Georgia)
Known for	Black Power movement
Religion	Islam

Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin (born Hubert Gerold Brown, October 4, 1943), also known as H. Rap Brown, was the fifth chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the 1960s, and during a short-lived (six months) alliance between SNCC and the Black Panther Party, he served as their minister of justice. He is perhaps most famous for his proclamations during that period that "violence is as American as cherry pie" and that "If America don't come around, we're gonna burn it down." He is also known for his autobiography Die Nigger Die!. He is currently serving a life sentence for murder following the 2000 shooting of two Fulton County Sheriff's deputies. One deputy, Ricky Kinchen, died in the shooting.

Brown was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He became known as H. Rap Brown during the early 1960s. His activism in the Civil Rights Movement included involvement with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), of which he was named chairman in 1967. That same year, he was arrested in Cambridge, Maryland, and charged with inciting to riot after he gave a speech there.

He appeared on the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Ten Most Wanted List after avoiding trial on charges of inciting riot and of carrying a gun across state lines. His attorneys in the gun violation case were civil rights advocate Murphy Bell of Baton Rouge and the self described "radical lawyer" William Kunstler. Brown was originally to be tried in Cambridge, but the trial was moved to Bel Air, Maryland.

On March 9, 1970, two SNCC officials, Ralph Featherstone and William ("Che") Payne, died on U.S. Route 1 south of Bel Air, when a bomb on the front floorboard of their car exploded, completely destroying the car and dismembering both occupants. The bomb's origin is disputed: some say it was planted in an assassination attempt, and others say Payne was intentionally carrying it to the courthouse where Brown was to be tried. The next night the Cambridge courthouse was bombed.