Charles "Chuck" Koen (1945 – July 20, 2018) was an African-American minister and civil rights activist from Cairo, Illinois who served as prime minister of the Black Liberators and the executive directors of the Black United Front Cairo.
He founded the Black Liberators in St. Louis, Missouri in 1968;[2] he later went on to lead nationally noted campaigns in Cairo, Illinois, most notably a boycott of white owned businesses.
[3] During his Cairo struggles, Koen was honored with a tribute on an album by jazz drummer Max Roach.
[4][5] Koen was the subject of the FBI's Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO), an infiltration program sanctioned by FBI Chief J. Edgar Hoover and President Richard M. Nixon against Black activists and activist groups in the 1960s and 1970s.
Those who were not killed or were not successfully infiltrated were constant subjects of criminal arrests and indictments.