It was fifty years ago today, on October 12, 1974, that a small group of black militants barricaded themselves in the downtown office of a Montgomery, Alabama radio station and had a shootout with police, who had surrounded the business. The event became known as the WAPX Shootout.

The situation on that Saturday morning began on the Wednesday prior. Three “self-declared revolutionary young black men” were wanted in connection with the robbery of a Delchamp’s grocery store on Court Street. A 24-year-old assistant manager was killed by a group of men wearing ski masks. Local news reported that he was “shot in the face with a shotgun for no apparent reason.” The robbers got about $200 from the store.

Accounts from eyewitnesses who were downtown on that Saturday morning begin with a bullet-riddled car that was being chased by police. The car, a white Chevy with Autauga County plates, crashed near the intersection of Dexter and Lawrence, and the men in it fled on foot. Their heads were shaved, and they were wearing what was described as “Muslim-type robes.” Reports from later in the day said the group that they belonged to was called the Black Dragon of Kung Fu. In their car were found “black supremist literature” and raffle tickets for a fundraiser.

The violence continued as the men ran from police. Forcing their way into the radio station, they shot and killed an elderly retired policeman, slashed another man across the face with machete, and shot a young woman. The station owner’s teenage son was taken hostage briefly.

As it escalated, the scene was chaotic. An estimated two hundred law enforcement officers, from every branch and office imaginable, showed up and surrounded the area. Inside the station, the militants began broadcasting messages to the black community in Montgomery, urging them to rise up en masse. According to the Alabama Journal, what was said was this: “So come and get one. [ . . . ] I’m going to get mine. There’s a Negro revolution and a black revolution. I’m in the black revolution. We want all you n****rs to come down. We want 5,000 down here in a few minutes. [ . . . ] Y’all ain’t never seen anything like this in Montgomery, have you? This is real, baby, right here in the state capital [sic]. We will revolt or die doing this for blacks.” Soon after these broadcasts, the electricity to the business was turned off.

Within about an hour’s time, the robbers-turned-instigators found themselves trapped. Their calls for action went unheeded, and there was no way to continue to reach out. In addition to the bullets and shotgun blasts, the police fired tear gas into the radio station and also into the Ideal Cafe next door. After a standoff that lasted about two hours, three men surrendered and were taken into custody. Two others surrendered in the days that followed.

In the days following the shootout, stories about the events abounded. The early coverage said that the cause or reason for the violent spree was unknown. Among the anecdotes, there seemed to be some confusion about how many men were involved; it was initially believed that as many as six had fled the car crash. Three had gone into WAPX, while others had sought different routes to get away. News coverage described the men as a “splinter group of the Muslim organization recognized in Montgomery.” Police Chief Ed Wright, who had taken some shotgun pellets in the hand during the shootout, met with the leader of the group the young men had belonged to. Though he did not tell the press what transpired, he did say that the meeting was productive. Ultimately, there were indictments in November, and convictions followed.

Writing in 2023, Alabama State University historian Howard Robinson summarized the outcome: “The WAPX shootout capped a three-day crime spree and led to life sentences for Arthur Willie Lewis, Julius Davis and Reginald Robinson. The episode also prompted the development of a SWAT unit in Montgomery, hastened the decline of Montgomery’s downtown shopping district, and fed into the rising call for law and order.”

Reminiscent of the scenarios portrayed in the blaxploitation films of the 1970s, the WAPX shootout is an unusual episode in city and state history. Where the Montgomery Improvement Association had been organized and nonviolent for the 1955 bus boycott, the Black Dragons of Kung Fu were clearly neither. Likewise, where the marchers from Selma to Montgomery garnered first sympathy then protection, these revolutionaries found themselves in the opposite situation. In the post-Civil Rights South, times were changing, and the 1970s were a more violent time.

Read More: A 2018 post on the WAPX shootout, from the Times Gone By page on Facebook