[3] He is the author of We Will Return in the Whirlwind: Black Radical Organizations 1960-1975 (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr Publishing Company, 2007), with an introduction by John Bracey Jr. As of 2024 he is working with Dylan Davis, PhD candidate in politics at the University of California Santa Cruz, on an updated edition.

[7]: 123  The group initially called themselves the Reform Action Movement because they felt the term "revolutionary" would cause panic among the college's administration.

[5] Stanford and another RAM member, Wanda Marshall, met with Malcolm X in New York and asked if they should join the Nation of Islam.

Malcolm replied “You can do more for the Honorable Elijah Muhammad by organizing outside of the Nation.”[5] Starting from 1956, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) began the covert COINTELPRO campaign to infiltrate, discredit and disrupt organisations which were considered subversive.

[9] In 1966, Stanford was arrested in New York, along with 15 other RAM members, accused of conspiring to assassinate NAACP leader Roy Wilkins and the Urban League's Whitney Young.

[2] Stanford was acquitted of the charges and he returned to Philadelphia to establish the Black Guard, a youth and self-defense wing of RAM.