Biography
Lincoln Ashford was a Black GI organizer who challenged racism in the U.S. Army in West Germany. After returning to Tyler, Texas, in 1970, he helped organize the Black Liberation Front and a campaign to rename the local Robert E. Lee High School. He was among defendants accused of conspiring to firebomb school and YMCA property. Arrested in Chicago and returned to Texas, he was held on $60,000 bail from September 1970 into 1971. His supporters linked the prosecution to his military and community organizing. The precise admission and final release dates remain unestablished.
