The
Black Cultural Association (or
BCA) was an
African American inmate group that was founded in
1968 at the
Calfiornia Medical Facility at Vacaville, a California state prison, and formally recognized by prison officials in
1969. The primary purpose of the BCA was to provide educational tutoring to inmates, which it did in conjunction with graduate college students from the nearby
San Francisco Bay Area. Outsiders were allowed to attend meetings of the BCA, and tutors provided remedial and advanced courses in
math, reading, writing,
art,
history,
political science, and
sociology. These courses made the BCA popular with inmates as well as outsiders; in time, radical political organizations such as
Venceremos infiltrated the BCA, giving rise to BCA factions such as
Unisight[?], which eventually gave birth to the
Symbionese Liberation Army.
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