BANTU and the NPRA

Though BANTU maintained its separate organizational identity, each of the BANTU leaders eventually joined the board of the National Prisoners Reform Association. Both BANTU and the NPRA worked in conjunction to develop each of their goals and negotiate with the administration. As the NPRA’s Vice President Ralph Hamm explained to Jamie Bissonette:

The NPRA was a collective of various ethnic groups and gang affiliations working toward a common goal most of the time [and] sharing equal voice. NPRA relied heavily upon BANTU’s community-oriented structure to devise and formulate its programs and long-range goal strategies (enter Solomon Brown), because we had the expertise and we were good at it. We, the executive board of the NPRA, met everyday to discuss our agendas and strategies for the next day’s meetings; I met everyday with the board of BANTU for the same purpose. (129)

Outside supporters of BANTU overlapped significantly with the supporters of the NPRA, with many individuals from the Ad Hoc Committee and the larger greater Boston community serving on the external boards of both entities.