Hassan Jeru-Ahmed

Hassan Jeru-Ahmed (born Albert Roy Osborne; March 9, 1924 – July 21, 2011) was an American Black power, Black separatist and anti-drug activist and politician who founded the Blackman's Volunteer Army of Liberation as well as the offshoot Blackman's Community Development Center. He also ran for delegate of District of Columbia's at-large congressional district in 1972.

Biography

Early life Albert Osborne was born in 1924 in Washington, D.C., and attended Shaw Junior High School until he dropped out at the age of 17 after being imprisoned for robbery. He became addicted to heroin and was incarcerated for property crimes first at the National Training School for Boys and then at the Federal Correctional Institution, Petersburg. During World War II, he was drafted into the United States Army Air Forces, serving in both the European and Pacific theaters. He also visited North Africa, and later stated that the people there gave him the name Hassan. During this stint in prison, he encountered the ideology of Elijah Muhammad, Marcus Garvey, and Malcolm X.

Hassan initially planned for the BVLA to be a successor of the ideologies of Marcus Garvey and Malcom X, planning to return to Africa with his Black Star Regiment and become resistance fighters in countries like Angola, Southern Rhodesia, and South Africa. By 1968 Hassan added neighborhood watch responsibilities to the group's activities, first in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood which at that time had high rates of heroin use as well as crime. The state select commission which investigated the riots noted the presence of Hassan prior to the unrest and his disappearance during the disorder itself.

In the late 1960s, Hassan and the BVLA organized the Blackman's Development Center (BDC), which began as a community center which taught vocational skills. The BDC and Hassan began to collaborate with the federal government in addiction treatment, with Hassan testifying before a Senate subcommittee on alcohol and narcotics in April 1970. The League led a letter-writing campaign protesting the Health and Human Services grant to Hassan's organizations. This prompted Hassan to file suit against the ADL for $24 million in damages due to alleged defamation and criminal conspiracy. Their use of a former convent on the campus of St. John the Evangelist Church, next to an active school building, prompted opposition from area residents and parents. In 1973, the facility was only treating 33 addicts, and did not have enough money to take on new patients, leading Columbus City Council to consider eliminating a budget appropriation funding the BDC.

In 1972, Hassan ran for delegate of the District of Columbia's at-large congressional district.

Hassan remained active in Washington D.C., seeking to elect the first African-American President of the United States in the 1984 United States presidential election under the initiative of the Black American Party which he founded. He announced the opening of a new treatment facility in the northeastern section of Washington in 1990. Hassan Jeru-Ahmed died on July 21, 2011.