The first national black political assembly took place on march 10, 1972 in Gary, Indiana. Also known as the Gary convention, thousands attended the gathering, including notable figures of the time, with the hopes of creating a political force in the black community.
In some writings, it was also called the national black political convention and its aim was simple –democrats, republicans, socialists, members of the black power movement and others were hoping to unite against the injustices faced by African-Americans in the early seventies.
Michigan congressman Charles C. Diggs, Gary mayor Richard Hatcher, and poet-activist Amiri Baraka pulled together between eight to ten thousand people, with three thousand as delegates, for the convention. The NAACP was critical of the gathering, and mainstream media was frozen out.
The group demanded reparations, an end to captial punishment, and many issues that plague black folks to this day. The assembly gathered once more in 1972 and again in 1973 before a final meeting in little rock, Arkansas in 1974.
