Page 1 of 4
Fahim J. Minkah
Fahim Minkah (1939-2018) was born Fred Bell in a small town in east Texas, where he recalled being harassed by police from an early age. As a young man, he studied pre-law at the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA). In 1968, he organized the first Black student organization at UTA. He participated in many organizations advocating for racial justice, including the Dallas chapters of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Angela Davis Liberation Party, and the Black Panther Party. In 1988 he founded African American Men Against Narcotics (AAMAN) Drug Fighters, an organization that patrolled neighborhoods where drug dealers were known to hang out. The AAMAN Drug Fighters asked them to leave—sometimes at gunpoint. They did not believe that the City of Dallas was taking drug-related crime seriously and that they had to defend their own communities. Minkah did not withhold his criticism of the City of Dallas, especially the Dallas Police Department. In 1976, the Black Panther Party filed a suit challenging a city charter amendment that would prohibit citizens from investigating police violence, following the deaths of Black children George Johnson, aged fourteen, and Johnny Johnson, aged thirteen. Minkah said in his personal statement that he spent “approximately 5000 hours working on the police abuse of citizens” between 1973 and 1978. He stated that “they [the police] treat the African American Community like they are in occupied territory, rather than like fellow citizens.” Apart from his political activism, Minkah loved coaching children’s sports teams. He was described by The Mile Split TX as a “legendary” coach upon his death in 2018. He is buried in the Dallas-Fort Worth National Cemetery. https://txarchives.org/dalpub/finding_aids/01820.xml