Introduction Movements Eras Organizations Index Contributions
About Organizations
Black Panther Party Black Liberation Army American Indian Movement FALN Weather Underground Earth Liberation Front Animal Liberation Front MOVE Republic of New Afrika Symbionese Liberation Army Los Macheteros United Freedom Front May 19th Communist Organization Young Lords George Jackson Brigade Students for a Democratic Society Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Industrial Workers of the World Communist Party USA Puerto Rican Nationalist Party Brown Berets Socialist Workers Party African People's Socialist Party Nation of Islam
About Republic of New Afrika
Black Government Conference & RNA Founding Declaration of Independence & Provisional Government New Bethel Incident New Bethel Acquittals Relocation toward Mississippi Organizing Jackson, Mississippi Shootout RNA-11 Prosecutions Imari Obadele’s Imprisonment The Continuing New Afrikan Prisoner Tradition
NEW BETHEL INCIDENT
New Bethel Incident

On March 29, 1969, the RNA held its first-anniversary conference at the New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit — the church of Reverend C.L. Franklin, father of Aretha Franklin. As the meeting ended, a confrontation outside left one police officer dead and another wounded. Police then fired on and stormed the church, arresting nearly 150 people inside.

In the aftermath, Judge George Crockett Jr., a Black jurist, convened an emergency court and released most of those held without charge, condemning the mass arrest as a violation of their constitutional rights — a stand that made him a target of white political fury. The New Bethel Incident became an early flashpoint in the RNA's history and a landmark in Detroit's long conflict between the Black community and the police.