Jamil Abdullah al-Amin (born Hubert Gerold Brown; October 4, 1943), is an American Muslim cleric who was the fifth chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the 1960s.

[2][3] He is perhaps known for his proclamations during that period, such as, "Violence is as American as cherry pie",[4] and, "If America don't come around, we're gonna burn it down.

[6] Brown's activism in the civil rights movement included involvement with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

He first visited Cambridge, Maryland with Cleveland Sellers in the summer of 1963, during the period of Gloria Richardson's leadership in the local movement.

In 1966, Brown organized in Greene County, Alabama to achieve black voter registration and implementation of the recently passed Voting Rights Act.

[8] Elected SNCC chairman in 1967, Brown continued Stokely Carmichael's fiery support for "Black Power" and urban rebellions in the Northern ghettos.

[14] He was defended in the gun violation case by civil rights advocates Murphy Bell of Baton Rouge, the self-described "radical lawyer" William Kunstler, and Howard Moore Jr., general counsel for SNCC.

Feminist attorney Flo Kennedy also assisted Brown and led his defense committee, winning support for him from some chapters of the National Organization for Women.

[12] In a later book, Levy notes that Brice Kinnamon, head of the Cambridge police department, said that the city had no racial problems, and that Brown was the "sole" cause of the disorder, and it was "a well-planned Communist attempt to overthrow the government.

[17] He also contributed writing from jail to the radical magazine Black Mask, which was edited and published by the New York activist group Up Against the Wall Motherfucker.

On March 9, 1970, two SNCC officials, Ralph Featherstone and William ("Che") Payne, died on U.S. Route 1 south of Bel Air, when a bomb on the front floorboard of their car exploded, killing both occupants.

[20] On May 31, 1999, al-Amin was pulled over in Marietta, Georgia by police officer Johnny Mack for driving a suspected stolen vehicle.

[21] On March 16, 2000, in Fulton County, Georgia, Sheriff's deputies Ricky Kinchen and Aldranon English went to al-Amin's home to execute an arrest warrant for failing to appear in court over the charges.

[11] After determining that the home was unoccupied, the deputies drove away and were shortly passed by a black Mercedes headed for the house.

Marshals who started with a blood trail at the shooting site, and arrested by law enforcement officers after a four-day manhunt.

Firearms identification testing showed that this was used to shoot Kinchen and English, but al-Amin's fingerprints were not found on the weapon.

Defense attorneys noted that al-Amin's fingerprints were not found on the murder weapon, and he was not wounded in the shooting, as one of the deputies said the shooter was.

[22] At al-Amin's trial, prosecutors noted that he had never provided an alibi for his whereabouts at the time of the shootout, nor any explanation for fleeing the state afterward.

Otis Jackson, a man incarcerated for unrelated charges, claimed that he committed the Fulton County shootings, and confessed this two years before al-Amin was convicted of the same crime.

[21] Prosecutors refuted Jackson's testimony, claiming he couldn't have shot the deputies as he was wearing an ankle tag for house confinement that would have showed his location.

[31] On July 18, 2014, having been diagnosed with multiple myeloma, al-Amin was transferred to Butner Federal Medical Center in North Carolina.

Investigative journalist, Hamzah Raza, has written more about Otis Jackson's confession to the deputy shootings in 2000, and said that this evidence should have been considered by the court.