[3] When he was 12, Ervin joined the NAACP youth group and participated in the sit-in protests that helped end racial segregation in Chattanooga.

[3] In February 1969, Ervin hijacked a plane to Cuba to evade prosecution for allegedly trying to kill a Ku Klux Klan leader.

While in prison, Ervin authored several anarchist pamphlets, including the book Anarchism and the Black Revolution, which has been reprinted many times (most recently in 2021 by Pluto Press) and is considered his best-known work.

After his release, Ervin returned to Chattanooga, where he became involved with a local civil rights group called Concerned Citizens for Justice, fighting police brutality and the Klan.

In 1987, Ervin helped file a class action civil rights lawsuit that resulted in the restructuring of the Chattanooga government and the election of several black city council members.

[21] The detainment of Ervin stimulated international protests that included pickets of Australian embassies and consulates in South Africa, Greece, Italy, Sweden, UK, Ireland, New Zealand and the US.

[22] Immediately after his release from four days in prison, Ervin attended NAIDOC celebrations in Musgrave Park, West End, as a guest of the Murri people (Indigenous Australians from Queensland), and gave a brief speech.

[28] Soon after Ruddock announced an upgrade of Australia's migrant alert systems[29] and toughened its visa screening procedures, with more stringent checking of "high-risk" applicants.