Biography
Herman Ferguson was a New York City public-school principal, a co-founder of the Organization of Afro-American Unity with Malcolm X in 1964, and a longtime leader of the Republic of New Afrika movement. After Malcolm Xs assassination in February 1965, Ferguson became one of the most prominent organizers of the radical Black liberation network that grew out of the OAAU and the Revolutionary Action Movement.
In June 1967 he was arrested by the New York Police Departments Bureau of Special Services and charged with conspiracy to murder Roy Wilkins of the NAACP and Whitney Young of the National Urban League. The principal evidence at trial came from a paid NYPD informant. Ferguson was convicted in 1968 and sentenced to three and a half to seven years in New York state prison. While free pending appeal he fled the United States with his wife Iyaluua Ferguson and settled in Cooperative Republic of Guyana, where they remained for twenty years. He returned voluntarily to New York in April 1989 and surrendered. He served roughly three years in New York state prison and was released in 1992.
He spent his last decades organizing for the freedom of U.S. political prisoners, serving as a co-chair of the Jericho Movement and on the board of the Malcolm X Commemoration Committee. He died on October 14, 2014, age 93.
