CRIME: Cherry Pie

Hubert Geroid Brown was once a Boy Scout in his native Louisiana. At Baton Rouge's Southern University, he majored in sociology for three years, then dropped out in 1962 before graduating to devote his energies to civil rights work, eventually for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. By the time he took over as S.N.C.C.'s national chairman from Stokely Carmichael in 1967, he had become H. Rap Brown, an intractable militant in the Afro hair style, sunglasses and denims that became his uniform. "You'll be happy to have me back when you hear...