Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM)

Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM) was a U.S.-based revolutionary black nationalist group in operation from 1962 to 1969. They were the first group to apply the philosophy of Maoism to conditions of black people in the United States and informed the revolutionary politics of the Black Power movement. Their political formation deeply influenced the politics of Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, and many other future influential Black Panther Party founders and members.

In 1961, students at Central State University, a historically black university in Ohio came together to form "Challenge," a small conglomerate group of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Largely made up of formerly expelled students and veteran activists, Challenge was created to further political awareness, particularly in relation to the black community. At the request of Donald Freeman, who was enrolled at Case Western Reserve University at the time, Challenge read Harold Cruse's essay "Revolutionary Nationalism and the Afro-American" and thereafter shifted its focus from educating their participants to creating a mass black working-class nationalist movement in the North. After this drastic change of agenda, Challenge soon evolved into the Reform Action Movement, as they believed use of the word revolutionary would stir fear in the university administration. Led by Freeman, Wanda Marshall, and Maxwell Stanford, RAM became a study/action group that hoped to turn the Civil Rights Movement into a worldwide black revolution.

Max Stanford (now Ahmad Muhammad) was one of the founding members of RAM, and served as both its national chairman and Philadelphia head for much of the group's existence. He was a Philadelphia native, and one of James and Grace Lee Boggs' "adopted" kids, youth who spent a lot of time at the Boggs household and connected with their circle of activists. Prior to joining them, Stanford had been involved with militant civil rights activism since his teenage years. Through the lively discussions of revolutionary politics that thrived in the Boggs household, he developed a sharp critical consciousness and an impressive grasp of theory by adulthood.

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