Symbionese Liberation Army
The Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) was a radical leftist group founded in 1973 in California. Its origins trace back to connections formed among its members in a prisoner organization known as the Black Cultural Association. The SLA is perhaps best known for its violent actions and high-profile criminal activities, including the kidnapping of Patricia Hearst in 1974, which garnered significant media attention. The organization demanded that Hearst's wealthy family fund food distribution for the poor as part of their ransom. The SLA's notoriety escalated with the murder of Oakland school superintendent Marcus Foster, which they used to further justify their radical agenda.
The group was involved in a series of violent encounters with law enforcement, culminating in a shoot-out in Los Angeles in 1974 that resulted in the deaths of several members. The SLA's activities drew widespread public scrutiny and ultimately led to the arrest and conviction of Patricia Hearst and other members for their roles in various crimes, including a bank robbery. The organization disbanded by 1975, marking a controversial chapter in American history related to political violence and radicalism.
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Symbionese Liberation Army
Identification: Paramilitary antigovernment and anticapitalist organization
Date: Founded in early 1973
Place: Oakland, California
Significance: The short-lived Symbionese Liberation Army was a violent organization that blended criminal and radical political ideologies and gained national attention through a high-profile kidnapping.
Although the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) did not come into existence until the spring of 1973, eight of its members had known each other earlier through the Black Cultural Association, an African American prisoner organization in the California correctional system’s medical facility at Vacaville. The Black Cultural Association had as members both visiting political radicals and incarcerated criminals. Donald DeFreeze, who organized the SLA and was its leader, escaped from prison and turned to the radicals for a safe place to live.
The SLA’s murder of Marcus Foster, the superintendent of the Oakland school system was an attempt to be recognized and was followed by the release of the SLA’s first public political statement to justify its activities. Meanwhile, two SLA members were arrested for Foster’s murder and one was convicted.
In February, 1974, the SLA became the focus of intense news-media attention when its members kidnapped Patricia Hearst, the granddaughter of newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst, from her Berkeley apartment. The organization then demanded a ransom in the form of a massive free-food distribution to the poor. Shortly afterward, SLA leaders announced that Hearst had voluntarily joined their organization. In May, 1974, six SLA members were killed in a shoot-out with the Los Angeles SWAT team that ended in a fiery conflagration. The following year, the remaining SLA members staged a bank robbery in which a bank customer was killed. The organization’s final action was a failed attempt to kill police officers in Los Angeles.
The life of the organization ended in September, 1975, when Patricia Hearst and another SLA member were captured. For Hearst's part in the bank robbery, she was convicted in 1976 (she was later given a pardon). Five other former SLA members who had participated in the robbery pleaded guilty to a variety of charges when they were finally arrested in 2002.
Bibliography
Boulton, David. The Making of Tania Hearst. London: New English Library, 1975.
Hearst, Patricia, and Alvin Moscow. Patty Hearst, Her Own Story. New York: Avalon Books, 1988.
Payne, Les, and Tim Findley, with Carolyn Craven. The Life and Death of the SLA. New York: Ballantine Books, 1976.