Ahmed Evans must not die! [handbill]

New York: Committee to Save Ahmed Evans, [1970]. Handbill. 8.5x11 inch handbill, very good. Undated, but the receipt date of January 1970 has been penned on the blank verso. The issuing Committee appears to have consisted of sympathetic students at Alternate University in NYC.

Ahmed Evans was a Black nationalist who operated the Afro Culture Shop and Bookstore in Cleveland and was a member of the Black Nationalists of New Libya. He fought with police, who had been surveilling his home, in a standoff that became known as the Glenville Shootout. Seven people died in the gun battle, which was followed by days of unrest in Cleveland, put down eventually by the National Guard. Evans was convicted of four of the deaths, and sentenced to the electric chair. This flyer states that "Ahmed Evans is a scapegoat! The conditions that caused a gun battle to erupt in Cleveland exist in every major city in the country. The murder of Ahmed Evans will not change them. Nor will increased police repressive measures stop the inevitable flare-ups of rebellion." Evans' death sentence was ultimately commuted to life in prison, where he died of cancer in 1978.

Cat.No: 296111

Price: $35.00