[2] He began reading extensively and taking college classes while incarcerated and after his parole in the fall of 1970, he founded and chaired the National Poor People's Congress.

A couple of years later, he and his younger sister, Betty Scott, along with Mary Blackburn and other community activists, founded an alternative school – the Intercommunal Youth Institute (1972–1975) – in Long Beach, California.

In the wake of the shooting death of his sister by a California Highway Patrol officer during a routine traffic stop, Duren helped found and was a co-chair of the Coalition Against Police Abuse (CAPA) from 1975 to 1977.

[3] He has worked as a “people’s” lawyer and community activist in South Central Los Angeles ever since.

He was extradited to Ohio where he served many years in Chillicothe Correctional Institution before becoming a jailhouse lawyer, doing research on his own case (with the help of his eldest daughter, Joyce), appealing, and ultimately winning his release on a technicality.

He rejoined and remarried his wife after his release from prison and lived the remainder of his life in Long Beach.

In spring of 1966, he was arrested for sticking up a cab driver, convicted, and sentenced to five years to life.

During his three-and-a-half years in Soledad, a black counselor introduced Duren to the writings of the African American historian and sociologist W.E.B.

On September 20, 1975, while on her way to the Monterey Jazz Festival, Betty Scott and her partner, George Smith, were pulled over at 4 a.m. in Pleasanton, California, near Oakland, reportedly for a speeding violation.

During the stop, two California Highway Patrol officers, Curtis Engberson and Gordon Robbins, approached the car.

What is on record is that Scott was shot once in the neck by Engberson, fell into Smith's lap, and died almost instantly.

The shooting occurred as a reaction by the young, nervous officer to Robbins's shout, “She’s got a gun!” Smith did keep a gun in the glove compartment, and Ms. Scott had been reaching into the compartment to produce the car's registration in response to Engberson's order to do so.

However, powder burns on the victim's neck, the trajectory of the bullet, and other physical evidence, led some to conclude that the police testimony was a fabrication after the fact to diminish culpability.

An Alameda County grand jury exonerated the officers, returning a verdict of justifiable homicide.

In February 1976, Duren helped create – along with former Black Panthers Michael Zinzun and Anthony Thigpenn – the Coalition Against Police Abuse (CAPA).

He later became a lead plaintiff in the ACLU's domestic spying lawsuit against Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates which sought to eliminate the LAPD's Public Disorder and Intelligence Division (PDID).

Duren continued to work with the Party, reorganizing the Southern California Chapter, growing its membership, and carrying out its community involvement agenda.

There was at the time, and still is, a Congressional prohibition of attorneys employed with Legal Aid running for political office (the legislation that proscribes Legal Aid attorneys running for political office was sponsored by the Republican senator from Utah, Orrin Hatch).

The organisation was mainly an attempted recreation of the original Black Panther Party but as a response to the heightened racial tensions of the early 1990s being felt in America.

[8] Duren stipulated that he failed to perform legal services with competence by not showing up at a hearing which led to his client's foreclosure case being dismissed.