Black African Nations Toward Unity

In the spring of 1972, Black Panther leader Bob Heard began teaching a Black history course in Walpole, with the assistance of Harvard undergraduate David Dance. The students in this class would eventually form Black African Nations Toward Unity (BANTU). In this class, they studied the works of poets and musicians including The Last Poets, Nikki Giovanni, Sonia Sanchez, Etheridge Knight, Frederick Douglass, James Brown, Curtis Mayfield, Gil Scott Heron, Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff, and Sly and the Family Stone. Building on the cultural, intellectual, and political framework provided by the class, BANTU, officially established on September 1, 1972, was the first Black cultural organization in the Massachusetts prison system. Its members understood “the unique way the penal system had been built not only to oppress them, but to re-enslave them” (Bissonette 72). The groups cultivation of Black consciousness also helped develop solidarity within Walpole’s Black population and contributed to the safer, more unified atmosphere Walpole experienced during the union takeover.