une 1966, Greenwood, Missis sippi: Stokely Carmichael of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) introduced "Black Power" as a slogan. His fellow SNCC organizer, Willie Ricks, had tested the phrase __ at rallies earlier. Like no other ideology before, the heterogeneous and ideologically diverse movement that gave the powerful rallying cry its strength and depth shaped black consciousness and built an immense legacy that continues to resonate in the contemporary American landscape. If the exact chronology of the movement is controversial, it is clear that a decade of struggle, including the ferocious repression against it, has had a tremendous impact on issues of not only race and citizenship in the United States but also identity, politics, criminal justice, culture, art, and education globally. Indeed, Black Power's successes and weaknesses have largely molded the past half century. The year 2016 marks the fiftieth anniver sary of Black Power, one of the least under stood and most criminalized and vilified movements in American history. Too often presented or remembered primarily as the violent, villainous urban northern coun terpoint to the nonviolent, virtuous rural southern civil rights movement, the Black Power movement has been eclipsed in the general public's memory. That blinding binary is an obstacle to our understanding of a more complicated past. Recent scholar ship suggests that the civil rights movement in the Jim Crow North preceded the one in the Jim Crow South; and that Black Power
VI Photographers at a Black Panther rally, Oakland, 1968. Bob Fitch Photography Archive, @ Stanford University Librar ies, Department ofSpecial Collections. emerged in the Jim Crow South simultane · Panther Party (BPP), the African Liberation ously with its ascent in the Jim Crow North Support Committee (ALSC), Us Organization, and t_he Jim Crow West. But everywhere, the Congress of African People (CAP), Third young adults and teenagers led the Black World Women Alliance (TWWA), the Orga Power movement. Whether they were in nization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU), the Boston, Chicago, or Los Angeles the activ Young Lords Organization (YLO), the Black ists were often the sons and daughters of Students Unions (BSU), and the Black Arts southern migrants or Caribbean immigrants. Movement (BAM). All of those voices came Between 1966 and 1976, they developed under the Black Power umbrella. countless cultural, political, social, and eco lf~~ower was heterogeneous, it was nomic programs under the banner of the als~ome activists moved from one Black Power ideology. Those programs and organization to the other or belonged to organizations, and the art, literature, drama, several at the same time. Stokely Carmicbael and music they created, galvanized millions and H. Rap Brown were members of SNCC of people in the broadest movement in Afri before joining the Panthers. Carmichael can American history. then moved on to the All African People's This new generation had become impa Revolutionary Party, influenced by Kwame tient with the civil rights' leadership and Nkrumah, the deposed former president of limited goals. They were suspicious of official Ghana. ~mmad Ahmad, a co-founder declarations and legislation that suggested of the Revolutionary Action Movement, was an official end to segregation, when they also a founder of the African Liberation could see that the walls of employment, Support Committee and the African Peoples housing, and school segregation were Party (APP). Robert Williams, formerly of becoming newly fortified from New York to the NAACP, and Queen Mother Moore, once California. Indeed, the 1964 Civil Rights Act a Communist Party member, were leaders specifically excluded any attack of segrega of the Republic of New Afrika and RAM. tion in the Jim Crow North. Thus, a heated Some activists belonged to the BPP and the debate developed in the civil rights move Young Lords. Japanese American .&fb.a,rd ment between leaders who declared the Aoki, a field marshal for the BPP, was also struggle for desegregation was over and ~pokesperson for the Asian American those who argued it had to continue. Even Political Alliance (though recent evidence Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was attacked by suggests he might have worked for the FBI). the more conservative leadership, including Despite their.~ Roy Wilkins of the National Association for ~II Black Power organizations the Advancement of Colored People, who shared a few fundamental features: they saw insisted the time for protest was over after themselves as heirs of Malcolm X, defined Black the 1965 Voting Rights Act. America as an internal colony of the United Of course, the movement, just like the States, and demanded self-determination. concept of Black Power itself, was never The awareness of forming a "black nation monolithic. Black Power was heterogeneous, ality," a nation within a nation, and of being fusing together a number of ideologies subjected to systemic racism, became central
and programs, including not only cultural to the vibrant, self-confident expression of ,_.,.1_•. nationalism, socialism, Marxism, and Islam, the new black urban experience that marked I'~ but also revolutionary nationalism, welfare the era. rights, tenant rights, student voices, revolu While the movement organized countless tionary union movements.,Pan-Africanism peaceful demonstratiQns, the exacerbation and so forth-not to mention the rise of blac,k of racial conflicts and police brutality led elected officials. The crowded field of orga- also to increasingly violent confrontations. nizations included a bewildering spectrum of In the early 1960s, over 320 major rebellions groups as diverse as SNCC, the Republic of erupted in 257 cities. Following Dr. Martin New Afrika (RNA), the Revolutionary Action Luther King's assassination on April 4, 1968, Movement (RAM), the National Welfare 200 uprisings shook 172 cities. A year later, \ Rights Organization (NWRO), the Black 500 racial clashes electrified young people, '' FROM GREAT BRITAIN TO THE CARIBBEAN AND FROM INDIA TO ISRAEL, COLONIZED OR MARGIN ALIZED YOUNG PEOPLE RALLIED AROUND SLOGANS FASHIONED AFTER 'BLACK POWER,' AND ORGANIZATIONS WERE MODELED OR NAMED AFTER THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY.
reshaping black consciousness and reinforc white Students for a Democratic Society. ing the quest for autonomy. Similarly, in the Newark Black Power exper In line with Malcolm X's emphasis on the iment, the United Brothers-who wanted to model of the 1955 Bandung Conference that achieve Black Power through the electoral united African and Asian newly indepen- process-and the Young Lords signed a dent countries, Black Power also inspired a mutual defense pact against white terror. "Bandung West" of antiracist movements They joined together in the 1969 Black and organized by communities of Puerto Ricans, Puerto Ricari Political Convention, running American Indians, Chicanos, Asian Ameri candidates on a Rainbow political slate. Los cans, and impoverished working-class whites. Angeles SNCC's ..,,....Ralph Featherstone and Us's Coalitions beyond race, ethnicity, geography, Maulana Karenga established an alliance at and social origin emerged to fight injus- the Alianza summit in Albuquerque, New tice, discrimination, and economic inequal Mexico, with Chicano leader Reies Lopez ity. Organizations supported each other's Tijerina and Hopi chief Tomas Ben Yacya. struggles, and together their members and ~addition to unifying various segments sympathizers attended rallies to demand of the American population, the Black Power t_he release of political prisoners. In Chicago, movement also resonated abroad. Black under the leadership of Illinois Black Panther Power became a global phenomenon, captur Party deputy chairman £red Hampton, black, ing the imagination of anticolonial and other Puerto Rican, and white activists founded the freedom struggles. From Great Britain to the Rainbow Coalition. The 1970 Revolutionary Caribbean and from India to Israel, colonized People's------Constitutional ....Convention organized or marginalized young people rallied around by the BPP in Philadelphia gathered ten slogans fashioned after "Black Power," and thousand to fifteen thousand people with, organizations were modeled or named after among others, delegates from the Ameri- the Black Panther Party. Young Samoans, ,,...-.--- can Indian Movement, the Chicano Brown Tongans, Cook Islanders, and Maoris founded Berets, the Puerto Rican Young Lords.the the ~lynesian Panther MQ1::ement in New \ ~American I Wor Kuen, and the mostly Zealand in 1971, which later became the
IX \
Polynesian Panther Party. In Israel, Mizrahi, The radicals in the Black Power movement mostly immigrant Jews from the Middle East believed that their antiwar, anticolonial, ~ and North Africa, called themselves Black anti-imperialist, revolutionary stance made Panthers and demanded equality with the the movement a natural ally of the countries European Jews. Dalits, who belong to the that were part of the Soviet bloc during the lower echelon of society and are outside of Cold War: Cuba, Vietnam, China, Ghana, the rigid Indian caste system, formed the North Korea, Algeria, Tanzania, and Guinea; Q_g!it Panthers in Bombay. Globally, where and of the liberation movements of the youth were denied full citizenship or where Portuguese colonies of Africa as well as of governments questioned their very humanity, South-West Africa (Namibia) and Rhodesia activists claimed the language of Black Power (Zimbabwe). Whereas few African Americans in the fight for their human rights. Ironically, had actively supported or even been aware this suggests the rarely understood paradox of the decolonization movement in Africa that wltimately Black Power was not racial but in the ~rly 1960s, by 1gJ0 fhe efforts by .:.---- ) rather a movement against racism . Black Power nationalists to support African . ~ "'?'" X The unity between Malcolm X and Abdul Rahman Mohamed Babu, leader of the 1964 Zanzibar Revolution, paved the way for the success of the 1972 African Liberation Day that also honored Malcolm X's birthday on May 19, 1972, as well as the birth of the important African Liberation Support Commit tee (ALSC), which aimed to isolate, alienate, and eliminate colonial regimes in southern Africa. Dar es Salam, 1964. Associated Press.
ALSC with United Nations diplomacy. Thanks to Tanzanian support, the Congress of Afri can People gained nongovernmental orga nization status at the United Nations along the lines that Malcolm X had envisioned for his Organization of Afro-American Unity. The Tanzanian connection also influenced cultural nationalists. Kiswahili, the Bantu/Arabic/ European lingua franca spoken in parts of East Africa, became one of Black Power's African languages of choice. Inspired by Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere and the 19?-6, Arusha Declaration, Maulana Karenga o~)used Kiswahili terminology to express the tenets of his cultural nationalist ideology, such as Kawaida and Kwanzaa, the seven-day cultural holiday he created and launched on December 26, 1966. Flyers, journals, newspapers, books, pam phlets, posters, photographs, poetry, plays, dance, music, publishing companies, and bookstores helped spread the Black Power message in all its diversity. The West Coast Panthers were particularly media savvy, documenting their activities extensively and liberation reflected the sentiments of millions soliciting photographs from their members. 5f African Americans. There again, the late They welcomed professional and amateur Malcolm X proved to be a visionary and a photographers and gave them access to their profound influence. His relation with Abdul offices, rallies, and homes. In contrast, many Rahman Mohamed Babu, the Marxisi:"'and of the activists involved in the Revolutionary Pan-Africanist leader of the 1964 Zanzibar Action Movement or the Black Liberation Revolution, connected the Black Power gen ~ for example, were very discreet. Thus, eration to Malcolm's vision of global black the photographic record of the Black Pan revolution. Through Malcolm, Amiri Baraka ther Party and its leaders in Oakland is much met Babu, who was instrumental in gaining more abundant than that of other organiza Tanzanian support for the important~ tions and militants. Liberation Support Committee. The ALSC If the Black Power movement was orig and Baraka's Congress of African People inally f~. by the late 1960s, established an office in the country's capital, tragically, it was becoming more rigid Dar es Salaam. Moreover, Tanzania helped the and ideologically polarized as a number
~ ..... XI of groups claimed the singular title of the of the groups and where possible an revolutionary vanguard. A new, more radical effort should be made to capitalize generation of Black Power organizations upon existing conflicts between com demanded black self-determination based peting black nationalist organizations ... on four main political ideologies: Marxism, Particular emphasis should be given r"evolutionary nat1onal1sm, territorial nation- to extremists who direct the activities ~.~,-,,~ ,, o,kRA ,u c.,ulfUralK,, nationalism. Ideological and policies of revolutionary or militant conversat.ions between the political factions groups such as Stokely Carmichael, were a normal development; however, when H. Rap Brown, §.liJEh Moh
XII divided even further and another layer of exploded into warring camps. In the end, key discord was added to the mix-one between Black Power militants surrendered leader the African and Caribbean states and the ship, while others were unable to stop the nonstate liberation movements. movement's downfall. Dramatic and rapid political changes in the black world were pushing the movement to the left. The Portuguese colonial empire in Africa-Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Despite it~s and weakn~, the Mozambique, and Angola-collapsed under Black Power movement's influence is still felt the double assault of the African liberation today in ways that have become so woven movements and the 1974 Portu_guese "Car into the national fabric that few recog- nation Revolution." This outcome, added to nize them as the legacy of this youth-led the defeat of the United States in Vietnam, movement. Laos, and Cambodia, appeared to some On the cultural front, the .Slack Arts American radicals to indicate that revolu ~nt inspired the creation of some tion was imminent in the United States. The eight hundred black theaters and cultural delusion that "revolution was just around centers in the country. Writers and artists in the corner" was a fatal mistake. Divisive dozens of cities, from Newark to San Fran attempts to form a Russian-style revolu cisco, New Orleans, Chicago, and Detroit, tionary party led a number of Black Power created alternative institutions. Many disap groups to demobilize or unravel key national peared, but some are still in operation, as are organizations-including the Congress of Black Arts festivals and journals. The central African People-that controlled vital links influence of the Black Power on htp-hop and in a national political and communications spoken word artists cannot be overstated. infrastructure. In addition, the Russian repu And Kwanzaa has been part of mainstream tation for secret cadres made it even easier America for decades. for police groups and agent provocateurs On the social front, free school break to stir conflict and cause unnecessary strife. fasts, first established by the Black Panther Mutual trust was an invaluable asset to the Party, were the precursors to the free lunch youthful Black Power movement, but by program that exists throughout the country. 1976 that asset was replaced by widespread Sickle-cell anemia awareness campaigns and mutual distrust. At a few New York political testing were.also launched by the BPP, which rallies, activists fought each other with base understood health as a basic human right. ball bats. Howard Fuller and his allies were One further, crucial legacy of the move kidnapped and tortured by rival factions in a ment is so prevalent that it is nearly taken for new "Revolutionary Wing." granted. Following in Black Power's foot Across the broader movement, signs of steps, American Indian, Asian American, His unravelling were everywhere. In academia, panic, LGBT, and women's groups asserted black studies programs were shaken by themselves and demanded representation. ideological debates, and the editors of the The .e9litics of group identity-once limited Black Scholar journal-founded in California to white straight males-entered mainstream ~ ) in 1969-split into two opposing camps: the education, academia, culture, politics, and cultural nationalists accused the others of society at large. favoring a Marxist agenda, which the latter To understand recent African American denied. §lack World, edited by Hoyt Fuller, history, and ultimately American society was shut down by publisher John Johnson more generally, one must come to terms in 1975. Some political organizations disap with the depth and breadth, and the achieve peared overnight. The leaders of the African ments and shortcomings of the Black Power Liberation Support Committee vacated its movement. national headquarters without notice; the regional and local branches were left in chaos. The National Black Political Assem bly, which grew out of the Gary Convention,
XIII CHAPTER I The Black Power Movement
Peniel E. Joseph
he Black Power movement's viewed as a destructive, short-lived, and modern face draws from both politically ineffectual movement that trig the New Negro radicalism gered white backlash, resulted in urban of the 1920s and the Great rioting, and severely crippled the mainstream Depression and World War civil rights struggle. Black Power's classical II-era freedom surges period (1966-75) is most often characterized distinct yet overlapping as a kind of feverish dream dominated by political and historical tradi outsized personalities who spewed words of tions that indelibly shaped fire, making this a justly forgotten era. More twentieth-century radical black activism. over, histories of the New Left tend to blame Black Power activists extolled the virtues of Black Power radicalism for inspiring white radical political self-determination, brokered radicals toward a simplistic and tragically alliances with third-world revolutionaries, romantic view of "revolutionary" violence. and emphasized racial pride as both a shield New scholarship, which I have called against white supremacy and a sword capa "Black Power Studies," is changing the way ble of defeating institutional racism, global in which historians, teachers, students, and capitalism, and Western imperialism. the general public view Black Power, civil Black Power activists observed, criti rights, the 1960s, and more generally, post cized, and participated in the civil rights war American history)Black Power is too movement's heroic years. These years, from often portrayed as a temporary eruption 1954 to 1965, were marked by bus boycotts, that existed outside the confines of Amer sit-ins, political assassinations, and legal and ican history; the movement's important legislative victories that riveted the national antiwar activism, antipoverty efforts, foreign consciousness and have been successfully policy interventions, intellectual and polit upheld by contemporary historians as the ical debates, local character, and national most important social and political develop influence have been virtually ignored. Black ment of the postwar era. The civil rights era Power studies place this history back within has by now become enshrined in America's the broader context of American and African national memory as a collective moral and ¼merican history at the local, national, and political good. international levels. \ However, Black Power is still too often The roots of the modern Black Power
1 '' THE ROOTS OF THE MODERN BLACK POWER MOVEMENT ARE FOUND IN THE DOMESTIC AND INTERNATIONAL FREEDOM STRUGGLES OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION AND WORLD WAR II ERA.,,
movement are found in the domestic and international freedom struggles of the Great Depression and World War II era, a time when coalitions of civil rights activists, trade unionists, liberals, radicals, and pan-Africanists demanded a deeper, more expansive vision of American democracy. Political mobilizers such as performing artist Paul Robeson, labor leader Asa Philip Randolph, New Dealer Mary McLeod Bethune, and the venerable intel lectual W.E.B. Du Bois advocated a national movement for racial and economic justice and world peace. Grassroots organizers such as Ella Baker gave the movement local voice, and it took root from Harlem's bleak street corners through the union organizing efforts in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and interracial antiracist activities in Birmingham, Alabama, to the postwar boomtowns of Oak land and Los Angeles. Cold War repression dramatically scaled back these efforts, which would be replaced, at least at the national level, with a southern civil rights movement Over the course of the next decade Malcolm that gingerly couched its efforts within the would practice a unique brand of coalition context of Cold War liberalism's pungent politics that attracted two generations of anti-Communism. African American radicals. The older group In 1954, the same year as the Supreme included veteran street speakers, activists, Court's Brown v. Board of Education desegre and radicals who had come of political age I gation decision, Malcolm X arrived in Harlem during the freedom surge of the 1940s only as the head minister of the Nation of Islam's to be disappointed (and at times criminal Muslim Mosque No. 7 on West 116th Street. ized) by the Cold War. The most notable of I
.2 these figures included the writer John Oliver Hicks were among the coterie of influential ~ns and Harlem historian J,_ohn Henrik --political, journalistic, and civic figures whom Clarke, both leading members of the Har- Malcolm counted as allies. ---lem Writers Guild. Malcolm also attracted- a On February 15, 1961, Maya Angelou, younger generation of activists, including the Abbey Lincoln, and Rosa Guy, at the helm of poets l__eRoi Jones (later Amiri Baraka) and the Cultural Association of Women of African Maya Angelou. Harlem powerbrokers such as Heritage (CAWAH), were joined by many Congressman .f,dam Clayton Powell Jr. and of Harlem's leading activists who viewed New York Amsterdam News editor ,--James Malcolm as their political leader to stage a
3 demonstration at the United Nations Secu Outside of New York City, Malcolm made rity Council in protest against the murder of deep inroads among organizers in Detroit, Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister------ where in 1961 local militants such as Rev of the Democrafic Republic of Congo. In the erend Albert Cleage, James and Grace Lee · ensuing melee dozens were arrested. The Boggs, and Richard and Milton Henry formed New York Times described it as the "worst the ~roup On Advanced Leadership (GOAL), day of violence" in the UN's history. Ralph an organization that represented early Black Bunche may have deplored the "hooligan Power impulses. Detroit also housed the ism" of the blacks who "rioted" at the United militant group UHURU, Swahili for "freedom," Nations, but James Baldwin and Lorraine taken from Kenya's----- Mau Mau movement. Hansberry sounded a different note, writing UHURU featured some of the city's angriest to the Times to express deep disappointment and most youthful militants. On June 23, with stories and rumors that characterized 1963, political organizers in Detroit associ the demonstration as a Communist plot. ated with Malcolm shared a stage with Martin According to Baldwin and Hansberry, the Luther King during the Motor City's massive Lumumba demonstration represented a call "Walk to Freedom," a pro-Birmingham sym for radical democracy that connected anti pathy march that drew 125,000 participants. colonial struggles being waged in Africa with Five months later, Malcolm delivered the key domestic freedom surges engulfing America. note address at the Grassroots Leadership
Were you, like many young peo· basically self-taught. I had a ple involved in the Black Power limited amount of professional movement, part ofthe Second art training at City College of Great Migration ofSoutherners San Francisco where I majored moving west? in commercial art and learned the commercial aspect of doing No, I was born in Grand Rapids, graphic designing for various Michigan. My mother came to types of publications, point-of Michigan from Oklahoma. She purchase displays, posters, film had a sister in San ·Francisco. animation and all the overall Emory Douglas was the minister of I had asthma as a kid, and the production aspects of graphic culture ofthe Black Panther Party. doctors told her that they thought design. While I was in the Black the climate here might be better Arts Movement, there was - for me, so that's why we came to the Northern California Black San Francisco in 1951. Panther Party based in San Francisco; they were planning How did you get involved with an event to bring Betty Shabazz, the Black Panther Party? Malcom X's widow, to the Bay Area to honor her. I was asked I got involved with the BPP by an activist friend to do the while in the Black Arts Move poster for that event. During the ment where I had created and planning sessions they talked contributed my own artwork, about some guys coming over to such as poster art, event the next planning session and announcements, and flyers, along let it be known if they would do with doing simple stage-prop security for the event, which designs for Amiri Baraka's plays. they did agree to do. That was I also did the cover artwork Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. for Sonia Sanchez's first poetry After I met them I asked how book, titled Homecoming. I was
4 < !ft0'4 l oN ornt \ OR ~~· ~l' \.\. tAO~l o" o'4ltt '(OU
The Lowndes County Freedom Organization, which became known-as the "Black Panther Party," chose a black panther because the animal does not attack, but would not move back. Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale later used the name and emblem for the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. ©Dr.Laurance G. Henry Collection. Photographs and Prints Division, Schomburg Center for- Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library.
could I join. That became my first The newspaper, the Black on April 2, 1967. It was a mimeo introduction and the beginning Panther, is renowned globally graph paper. It was after that first of my transition into the Black because ofyour art; andfifty issue that I began to work on the Panther Party, in late January years later you're still inw.ted newspaper. I was the revolutionary 1967, about three months after all m,er the world to show it and artist, it was my first title. In mid- the Party started. I was just about talk about it. Were you involl'ed 1967, that is when we first started to twenty-one, going twenty-two. in the paperfrom the start? get titles. And then later I became The pioneering members were the minister of culture. from sixteen to eighteen, nine When I joined the BPP the news teen yea.rs of age. I think Huey paper had not started as yet Bobby The newspaper looked quite Newton was twenty-three and Seale and Elbert ''Big Man" How professional. Bobby Seale and Elbert "Big ard, who was the first editor and Man" Howard were around an original member of the Black In the beginning it was just twenty-eight and thirty. Panther Party, put out the first issue myself and Eldridge Cleaver
... 5 and then Kathleen Cleaver; and exile because he didn't want estate. and they helped us rent we used to work out of a studio to go back to prison. He went apartments we shared collec apartmept. But then we devel to Cuba and then he was on tively; Plus, we knew how to oped to the point where I had his way to Algeria. Kathleen hustle the game. When Panthers a eadre of people who worked worked it out for me to travel went to see about renting apart with me We had a photogra with her to Algeria. We went to ments-but not in uniform-they phy department, we had our France first, and we stayed with would tell the building man- typesetters, we had editors. We Julia Wright, Ri~hard Wright's ager, "I wora at such and such a had those who coordinated the daughter, and her mother Ellen. place, this is the number." So the design and lettering and for And from there we went to landlords or the agents would call matting, and we had a darkroom Algiers. I remember we met the Panther number that we had where we developed film and Yasser Arafat, who was there f set up for them to inquire about photographs. As we evolved, or a conference. We had round the rental application details. Of the quality got better. It was tables with all the different course there was always high a grassroots paper but as we African Liberation movements. praise given. Then you had vet critiqued and evaluated our work, And we were invited in 1969 eran Panthers who came out of we improved. Our newspaper to participate in the first Vietnam into the Party. They got national distribution operation Pan-African Cultural Festival Gl loans and could buy houses. was located in San Francisco, where countries from all over We had veterans in the organi where the production work was Africa were represented. zation across the country who done to ship the papers to the bought houses where we lived different chapters and branches What was it lilteto live and collectively. and to wherever else they were work with the Panthers? being requested. Edui:ation was a crucial part As the Party evolved, it became ofthe Bladt Panther Party and Two yedrS after joining the clear what it needed to do in the Black Power movement in .Airty you went to Al.geria. order to stay cohesive and to get general. the .work done was to develop hi 1969, l went to Algeria for our collective living situation; We We always had political edu tie first·time. Eldridge was in knew people who were in real cation classes; we talked about
6 The National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO), active the Black Panther Party's call for armed between 1966 and 1975, had at its height about thirty thou self-defense and viewed Malcolm X and sand members, mostly African American women, and over Robert ~ Williams as the leaders of a radical three hundred local affiliates. The objective of the NWRO was to improve the liv~s of welfare recipients and provide them movement for African American liberation. with adequate income and respectful treatment. The organi This loose coalition of militants included zation used demonstrations, lobbying, and boycotts to reach journalist y./illiam Worthy, who founded the its goals. March in Atlanta, Georgia. Photographer Boyd [reedom Now Party in 1963 and formed a Lewis. Boyd Lewis Papers, Kenan Research Center, Atlanta political relationship with Malcolm X and Dan History Center. Watts, the publisher of the radical month~) magazine Liberator, which documented the relationship between the Third World and domestic civil rights struggles. Conference in Detroit, an event that featured In short, from 1954 up until his death in key early Black Power activists and culminated 1965, Malcolm X led a movement for Black in an effort to build a national movement for Power that paralleled and intersected black self-determination. with the civil rights movement's high tide. In Ohio in 1962, militant black college Conventional civil rights historiography students formed the Revolutionary Action largely ignores this story. Instead, it begins Movement (RAM), a group that anticipated \ its coverage of Black Power in June 1966,
world history and domestic to start a revolution. But the been doing to help people in issues. There were required people are not rising up. It's the need and by so doing we became readings in the Party. Even Black Panthers being shot and the government's public-enemy though people weren't on the the people on the sideline say number one. same level, you had to put the ing, "Right-on Black Panthers," effort in, read the newspaper, but they're not getting involved What iB the Panthers' legacy? discuss what was in it, critique en masse. So it was time for and evaluate our work and us to take off the uniform and The Party's legacy is that we responsibilities. How to improve get into the community and left a blueprint not to duplicate but to be inspired by: our social the quality of work; all those begin doing some real serious things were always a part of organizing. It was like, "Put programs, genuine love for the learning process. And that down the books, now you know the community, and out self became consistent all across all the theory; go out there and determination for basic human the country. The chapters and put it into practice." We went rights. branches that wanted to start to merge with the community, - Interview by Sylviane A. Diouf had to come out to the base here to serve the interests and needs in California to see how things of the community and to be an were run. There was a structure. inspiration. We also educated They were required to sell news and enlightened people about papers and help with education their government's misdeeds. classes. And that's how you have all these alternative institutions 'l'JJe Panthers' community work and schools. People were really iB often overlooked. interested in that and it became the real thorn in the side of the There was a time when we were government, because now we're in uniforms, and there were all beginning to transform the these shootouts happening and mindsets of people about what we were thinking we were going the government should have l 7 TOP: Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale co-founded the Black Panther Party for Self Defense in October 1966. The Party's earliest political thinking was rooted in "revolutionary nationalism," a combination ofblack nationalism and anticolonialism. Oakland, 1972. © Stephen Shames. LEFT: SNCC activists Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown embrace after Carmichael's release from prison in Prattville, Alabama, in June 1967. Jim Peppler/Southern Courier Photograph Collection/Alabama Department of Archives and History, Montgomery, Alabama. RIGHT: With twelve thousand delegates, the March 1972 National Black Political Convention in Gary, Indiana, was perhaps the zenith ofBlack Power politics. Delegates drafted a fifty-five-page document, the National Black Agenda, which challenged the white establishment monopoly on American political discourse. © Chester Higgins Jr.jchesterhiggins.com. All rights reserved.
8 II BLACK POWER IS NOT USUALLY ASSOCIATED WITH WELFARE, TENANT-RIGHTS ACTIVISM, AND ANTIPOVERTY EFFORTS, YET THE MOVEMENT MADE THESE ISSUES SOME OF ITS CORE PRIORITIES.
with Stokely Carmichael's fiery decla Black Power is not usually associated ration on a humid Thursday evening in th welfare, tenant-rights activism, and Greenwood, Mississippi. Yet even the Black ntipoverty efforts, yet the movement made Power era's classical period has received ese issues some of its core priorities. The inadequate attention by professional ational Welfare Rights Organization, which historians. ~(epresented a far-flung series of local welfare Black Power grew out of the political, rights chapters and organizations, stands out economic, and racial reality of postwar as one of the most important Black Power America, when the possibilitie , of AmerJc:::~n groups of the 1960s and early 1970s. Activ democracy seemed unlimite . Black Power ists in such cities as Baltimore, Philadelphia, activists challenged American hegemony New Orleans, Newark, Los Angeles, and Las at home and abroad, demanded full citi Vegas used the movement's insurgent rhet zenship, and vociferously criticized political oric, bold strategies, and defiant tactics to reforms that at times substituted tokenism push for bread-and-butter issues, especially and style over substance. ome activists those impacting poor black women heading did this through a sometimes bellicose single-family households. advocacy of racial separatism contoured by The movement advocated radical goals threats of civ~s sought equal that were tempered by an at times surprising access to predominantly white institutions, and effective blend of militancy and pragma especially public schools, colleges, and ~ Organized protests for Black Studies, universities, while many decided to build efforts to incorporate the Black Arts Move independent, black-led institutions designed ment into independent and existing institu to serve as new beacons for African Ameri tions, and the thrust to take control of major can intellectual achievement, political power, American cities through electoral strength and cultural pride. Yet such efforts did not exemplified these impulses. Black Power exist in a vacuum. Organized black activists activism's influence stretched from prisons encountered political repression at the local, to trade unions to local and national political national, and international levels. A complex elections. Internationally, Black Power mili web of criminal justice and police agencies tants forged alliances with iconic Third World infiltrated, harassed, and helped to even leaders including Fidel Castro, Mao Tse-tung, tually cripple Black Power's most visibly Kwame Nkrumah, Sekou Toure, Amilcar militant groups. Cabral, Nelson Mandela, Mohammad Babu,
9 and Julius Nyerere. Leading American polit LEFT: Amiri Baraka became the general-secretary of the Na ical figures of the postwar era, most notably tional Black Political Assembly that grew out of the 1972 Gary Convention. Left to right: Congress ofAfrican People chair, Lyndon Baines Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, Amiri Baraka; Detroit, Michigan, U.S. representative and Black Ramsey Clark, Nicholas Katzenbach, Richard Congressional Caucus chair Charles Diggs; and Gary, Indiana, Nixon, and J. Edgar Hoover, regarded the mayor Richard Hatcher at G~tion press conference. movement as dangerous, unpredictable, and © Risasi Zachariah Dais. RIGHT: Saidi Nguvu of the Newark a threat to national security. Yet the move Congress ofAfrican People; Stokely Carmichael/Kwame Ture ment's impact on American history, its suc and Cleveland Sellers ofthe All African People's Revolution ary Party. Ture and Sellers were veterans ofSNCC. © Risasi cesses, failures, and shortcomings as well as Zachariah Dais. it contemporary legacy, remain undervalued and understudied. The historiography of the modern civil rights movement generally views Black Power as a movement composed of armed urban historical imagination. The Black Panthers are militants inspired more by rage than an actual most often remembered for their bold public . olitical program. The Black Panther Party persona-replete with leather jackets, tilted for Self-Defense (BPP), a group of young berets, and guns-than for their ten-Qoi_Q! black men and women from California's Bay program, which called for the fundamental Area, has come to personify the period in the transformation of black poverty in central
The Black Power movement and and other forms of resistance to found Us, September 7, 1965, our organization Us emerge at across the United States; and 4) we were well aware of and a critical juncture in the history the liberation struggles of conti eager to engage in these critical of our people, this country, and nental Africans and other peoples struggles. We saw ourselves as the world. It is a time of fun of the Third World. the ideological sons and daugh damental turning defined and Malcolm X noted in Malcolm ters of Malcolm, veterans of the shaped by several interrelated X Speaks that "We are living in an Watts rebellion, and heirs of a factors including: 1) the histori era of revolution and revolt, and long legacy of struggle. We were cal exhaustion of the civil rights the (African American) is a part new soldiers and warriors who " period of the Black Freedom of the rebellion against oppres would carry the struggle forward movement and the emergence sion and colonialism which has in honor of our ancestors, in of its Black Power period; 2) the characterized this era;' Thus, the interests of our people, and assassination and martyrdom of Us is conceived and constructed in cooperative advancement of Min. Malcolm X and the embrace in the crucible of struggle, both the hberation of the world from of his legacy by Us and other political and ideological, and racism and white supremacy in nationalist groups; 3) the Watts when I called together a cadre its various forms. rebellion and subsequent revolts of men and women to my house We called our organization
12 Us, i.e., us Black people, African well known, Kawaida philosophy philosophical grounding and a people. It was a name chosen is not only the intellectual anchor guide to daily living for millions to declare commitment to all and animating philosophy of of African people throughout the of us, all of our people, every these institutions, but the foun global African community and where; to stress the collective dation and framework for all of thousands of organizations repre and cooperative character of our Us's work, struggle, and achieve senting a wide range of educa philosophy, practice, and project; ment. Indeed, both Kwanzaa and tional, political, social, economic, and to express and maintain the Nguzo Saba are creative and and cultural formations. Indeed, a clear distinction between us intellectual products of Kawaida, no other organization or philoso and "them;' the oppressor, on which is defined as an ongoing phy from the 1960s has had such a every vital and necessary level. synthesis of the best of African similar widespread programmatic Moreover, we declared our thought and practice in constant and philosophical impact on selves a revolutionary vanguard, exchange with the world. African organizational, family, and committed to our people and to Part ofUs's uniqueness and personal life. our liberation struggle. Clearly, importance lies in its role as We defined Black Power as the Us's signature, most widespread, the founding organization of collective struggle of our people and most known achievements Kwanzaa, celebrated by millions to achieve three overarching and . are the pan-African institu- throughout the world African yet basic goals: self-determination, tion of Kwanzaa and the black community and which I created self-respect, and self-defense. value system of Nguzo Saba, the in 1966. Kwanzaa is a communal Self-determination called for Seven Principles: Umoja (unity), practice that stresses and reaf control of the space we occupied, Kujichagulia (self-determina firms Africanness and binds Black the end of internal colonialism, tion), Ujima (collective work and people together in ways unlike any liberation from oppression in all responsibility), Ujamaa (cooper other institution or celebration. forms, and freedom to realize our ative economics), Nia (purpose), The Nguzo Saba, at the heart of potential and flourish as persons Kuumba (creativity), and Imani Kwanzaa, are not only central and a people. Self-respect called (faith). And although it is not as to its practice, but also serve as for a rootedness in the best of our
L 13 cities. The BPP's organizational history offers alliances with Detroit radicals James and Grace a window into the era's political and ideo Lee Boggs, and helped publish §Ru/book, logical diversity. The group's earliest political an influential political magazine whose staff thinking was rooted in "revolutionary nation included Bobby Seale and Ernie Allen. ·alism," a combination of black nationalism The organizational genealogy that pro and anticolonialism that gained momentum in duced the Panthers usually ignores the pow the early 1960s through not only the CAWAH erful, direct influence of the L,owndes Co\d..Qty United Nations protest but also the cultural Freedom Or ·on (LCFO), which com- _.criticism of writer Harold Cruse and the e._oliti bined local grassroots activism with a call for ~I activism of Robert F. Williams. radical self-determination that proved his The BPP's co-founders, Huey P. Newton toric. Student Nonviolent Coordinating Com and Bobby Seale, adopted""'" an interpretation of mittee (SNCC) activists Stokely Carmichael, revolutionary-- nationalism that they were intro- Bob Mants, and Judy Richardson in Lowndes duced to via the~ve County and H. Rap Brown in Greene County rngnt CRAt:1), a group that included Muhammad joined forces with local sharecroppers and _Ahmad (Max Stanford) and Donald Freedman activists to help transform the buckle of and came to be considered a forerunner to Alabama's black belt into the headquarters Black Power-era groups of the late 1960s. of a political revolt whose reverberations RAM admired Malcolm X and Williams, formed reached all the way to Oakland, California.
own culture in ways that gave us Thus we defined ourselves as and held antiwar rallies and the consciousness and capacity Kawaida cultural nationalists, teach-ins against imperialist wars to be ourselves, free ourselves, revolutionary cultural national in Africa, Asia, and Latin Amer and reaffirm our identity, dignity, ists, in spite of mischaracteriza ica, and supported the right of and humanity. And self-defense tions and misinformation about self-determination for all peoples. called for a defiant assertion of Us spread by the FBI and other We advocated reparations and our right and responsibility to opponents. Kawaida cultural prisoners' rights, trained Kasisi protect ourselves and our people, nationalism is for Us thought and (chaplains) to counsel and advise resist oppression, and seek free practice rooted in three basic prisoners, and provided literature dom by any and all appropriate propositions: 1) the defining and lawyers where possible. As and necessary means-armed or feature of a people or a nation is pan-Africanists, we support~d , otherwise. its culture; 2) for a people to be Afric~ liberation movements · Reading and absorbing the itself and free itself, it must be and pan-Africanist projects; and writings of the major revolu self-determined, self-conscious, we built alliances with various tionaries and liberation leaders and rooted in its own culture; and Third World organizations engag of our time, especially Malcolm 3) the quality oflife of a people ing in the struggles that gave rise X, Frantz Fanon, Sekou Toure, and the success of their liber to and defined the tim~ Julius Nyerere, Robert Williams, ation struggle depend on their Realizing with other libera Amilcar Cabral, Marcus Garvey, waging cultural revolution within tion movements that we have to and others, we stressed cultural and political revolution without, build and sustain the people as revolution, liberation struggle, resulting in a radical restruc we fight, we committed ourselves pan-Africanism, and Third World turing-of self and society and to work, service, struggle, and solidarity. We took Malcolm's ultimately impacting the world. institution-building. Thus, we teachings that we are a nation We were anticapitalist, established numerous organizing within a nation, and we under advocating African socialism, initiatives and worked in cooper stood our people as a nation, a defined in great part by Mwalimu ative community projects to build cultural nation struggling to come Nyerere's concept of Ujamaa. We institutions to provide affordable into political existence, i.e., strug taught and practiced draft resis housing, accessible health care, gling to free itself and be itself. tance, cooperatively organized and quality education; end police
14 In an effort to gain political autonomy, the Committee for a Unified Newark~N) and LCFO ran local candidates for political officE:, later' the Congress of African People (CAP). featuring a Black Panther on the ballot-a For a brief but important time, Us was one symbolic repudiation of the Democratic and of the most important Black Power groups, Republican parties as well as racial terror organizing thec:National Black Power Confer.- ists who practiced violent intimidation in an ~ and showcasing the way in which black effort to quell black power. nationalists in Los Angeles utilized culture in The organization Us (black people, African an effort to transform the racial and politi- people) helped raise black consciousness cal consciousness of the black community. through its promotion of cultural practices, By 1969, however, Us and the Panthers were but is most often remembered for a series of engaged in violent and sectarian conflicts violent confrontations with the Black Pan thers. Us introduced the black holiday Kwan zaa to the African American community. Founder Maulana Karenga's (formerlyBQ.Q_ Everett) advocacy of a black value system Stokely CarmichaeVKwame Ture of the All African People's Revolutionary Party, a Pan-Africanist, socialist party that ad foundits most important disciple inA.r!:!J._rj vocated the revolutionary unity ofAfrica. Stokely Carmichael, Baraka (LeRoi Jones), who would adopt and 0227527, Special Collections Research Center, North Carolina revise the Nguzo Saba in Newark through the State University Libraries, Raleigh, North Carolina. LEFT: The Black Panthers provided free sickle-cell anemia testing. Oakland, 1972. © Stephen Shames. RIGHT: The Young Lords Party was founded in New York in 1969. It offered free breakfasts and daycare centers for children, and helped bring about changes in public sanitation, improvements in health care facilities, elimination of lead-based paints, and reforms at the Board of Corrections. Co-founder Felipe Luciano (on stage with microphone) introduces the YLP at a meeting in Tompkins Square Park, New York, July 26, 1969. © Hiram Maristany.
abuse and violence; establish a political campaign I called accompanying dialog and deci economic cooperatives; increase "Peace and Power" and during sions on mutual respect, equality, political participation; and which I trained and organized and shared responsibility in life, expand space for cultural ground political workers and candidates. love, and struggle; 4) the chang ing, creativity, and performances. This initiative involved the build ing context of the Movement Practicing the Kawaida principle ing of a Black united front, the itself and the need for Us to reaf of operational unity, unity in Committee for a United Newark firm its revolutionary character; diversity, unity without unifor (CFUN,) and led to the election and 5) the demand ofKawaida mity, Us initiated and helped of many city councilpersons and to practice the best of African build Black united fronts across Newark's first Black mayor. culture in constant exchange the country in places such as Los Like other organizations of with the world. Representative Angeles, Newark, San Diego, and the Black Liberation Movement, documents of this dialog and Dayton. Us was initially patriarchal. change are the Malaika Women's Having been invited to par However, the organization Statement, "View from the Wom ticipate in the first Black Power began to change to an egalitarian an's Side of the Circle," published Conference in Washington, D.C., formation as a result of sev- in Us's paper, Harambee, on April called by Rep. Adam Clayton eral interrelated factors. These 25, 1969, and in articles I wrote Powell in 1966, Us played a major include: 1) the ongoing dialog on in the Black Scholar during my role in co-planning, co-hosting and gender relations in which the political imprisonment including providing ideological grounding women of Us began to question '~ Strategy for Struggle: Turn for the two subsequent Black and resist established relations; ing Weakness into Strength" Power Conferences in Newark, 2) the heightened state of sup (1973) and "In Love and Struggle: 1967, and Philadelphia, 1968. At pression of the organization and Toward a Greater Togetherness" the Newark conference, we were an increasing number of male (1975). given the assignment of orga members being imprisoned or Although it is routinely omitted nizing a political campaign to going underground or in exile; 3) in the literature, we, like other actualize Black Power and chose the emergence of the women in Black Power organizations, were Newark as the site for the initia new and expanded administra victims of the COINTELPRO, the tive. There we led and organized tive, security, and public roles and FBI program to "discredit, disrupt
16 LEFT: White radicals and activists who wanted to work with white youth in poor and working-class neighborhoods ofChicago to help overcome deep-seated racism founded Rising Up Angry. They allied themselves with the Black Panther Party, the Young Lords, and other groups to form the Rainbow Coalition.© Michael James. RIGHT: Deputy chairman and co-founder ofthe Illinois chapter ofthe EPP Fred Hampton (center with beret) alongside co-founder and former SNCC member Bobby Rush at a Panther rally in Chicago, 1969. Hampton launched the Rainbow Coalition. During an early morning raid on December 4, 1969, the police assassinated Hampton and fellow Black Panther Mark Clark while they slept and wounded seven other members. © Hiroji Kubota/Magnum Photos.
and destroy and otherwise a series of U.S. Title 18 Codes, but rather the unity and coordi neutralize" all Black leadership including those against: "revolu nated struggle of our groups as a and organizations deemed to be tion or insurrection,'' "seditious self-conscious revolutionary and a security threat. Other targets of conspiracy,'' and "advocating transformative social force. this program included the Nation overthrow of the Government:' We are simultaneously victims of Islam, the Student Nonvio- as well as Title 22 concerning and survivors of the COINTEL lent Coordinating Committee, "Neutrality Matter.s," i.e., dealing PRO, refusing to be dispirited, the Republic of New Afrika, the with foreign countries deemed defeated, or diverted from the Black Panther Party, the Rev enemies. ongoing struggle to radically olutionary Action Movement, This led to ongoing surveil restructure society and contnbute and the Movement in general. lance and suppression of Us and meaningfully to a new history and We were on every list any other its members by the national and hope for Africans and human Black Power group viewed as a local police and security forces, kind. In September 2015, Us threat to the country's security resulting in deaths, shootings, advocates/members celebrated \fas on. According to FBI files, attacks on our homes and head the fiftieth anniversary of the such a group was considered a quarters, persistent harassment, organization and the Nguzo Saba, revolutionary organization if it and continuing character assassi and by extension Kawaida, the was "armed and dangerous,'' if nation. Us members were driven philosophy and value system used its leader "plans a revolution, ... underground and into exile, and by millions of Africans through is currently training members in in some cases, including my own, out the world African community revolutionary tactics and is cur suffered political imprisonment to ground themselves, do their rently storing arms,'' and if it is an on trumped-up charges. Also, work, and to orient, enrich, and "organization whose aims include the FBI was responsible for expand their lives. the overthrow of or destruction manipulative propaganda and df the U.& by unlawful means!' the provocation ofintergroup Us has continued to play a And according to another report, struggles, especially the deadly unique and vanguard role in the FBI stated it had "information shootouts between the Panthers Black intellectual, creative, and which indicates Us is engaged in and Us. What Hoover feared, political culture since the 1960s, activities which could violate" after all, was not any one group, including Black Arts, Black
17 that were based on ideological disputes, Karenga belonged to the Los Angeles chap personal grudges, and youthful ego, ten ter of the Afro-American Association. a Bay sions that were exploited by the FBl's illegal Area black consciousness-raising group that COINTELPRO Program, which attempted to included Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton. destroy black radicalism through harassment, Like Newton and Seale, Karenga considered surveillance, and sometimes violence. himself a disciple of the slain black icon, Us also illustrates the close and over Malcolm X. Karenga presided over the Black lapping organizational histories of the era. Congress, an early effort at organizational solidarity, including Elaine Brown and the BPP. The Black Congress helped to coordi nate California's Black Power organizations, mediate disputes, and was an early supporter Members ofthe Brown Berets, a Chicano organization founded by David Sanchez, an East Los Angeles high school student, in of efforts to free Black Panther minister of 1967. The Brown Berets had close to ninety chapters in the West defense Huey P. Newton. Also, in an event and the Southwest, as well as in Michigan and Minnesota, that attracted 6,500 people, Karenga hosted and about five thousand members total. Reies Lopez Tijerina keynote speaker Stokely Carmichael one year (center) crusaded for land grants for Chicanos in New Mexico, after the Watts rebellion. as the Republic ofNew Afrika did for African Americans in the South. Oakland, 1968. Bob Fitch Photography Archive, © Stan Stokely Carmichael Clater KIA@me Ture) ford University Libraries, Department ofSpecial Collections. is usually dismissed as a temperamental rabble-rouser who helped to subvert more had been transformed by traumatic and tragic promising movements for social justice. experience. The group issued a stinging denun Yet such a characterization ignores Carmi ciation against the Vietnam War, a manifesto chael's civil ri_ghts activism in the Deep South that placed the organization at the cutting between 1960 and 1966, where he suffered edge of a Black Power-led anti-imperialist physical violence and racial terror in pursuit movement that would soon include the Black of radical democracy. Carmichael's willing Panthers, Students for a Democratic Soci ness to endure personal sacrifice and years ety, and the New Left. In 1970 SNCC activists of stru le for democratic principles that (!:ances Beal and Gwen Patton organized the upheld black s arecroppers as symbols of a Third World's Women Alliance CTWV::iA), which new American egalitarianism complicates ola grew out of SNCC's Black Women's Liberation narratives of the Black Power era. Carmi Committee. A daring combination of radical chael's political evolution took place within black feminism, socialism, and Black Power SNCC, the most important grassroots civil era militancy, TWWA organized black and rights/Black Power-era organization. Puerto Rican feminists in consciousness-raising SNCC housed competing political ideol groups, political demonstrations, and anti ogies, including liberal integrationism, black imperialist discourse. The organization also nationalism, feminism, and anti-imperialism. By published Triple Jeopardy, a cutting-edge rad 1966 SNCC's dreams of interracial democracy ical newspaper that illustrated the intersection
Power, Black Studies, Black Stu an awesome obligation to wage dent Unions, independent schools the revolution he had conceived and rites of passage, and Black and called for. Thus, as Simba liberation theology and ethics. Wachanga, the Young Lions, we More recently, it has played a youthfully and self-confidently key role in the movements of declared for ourselves and our Afrocentricity, ancient Egyptian generation that "We are the last studies, Black united fronts, Maa revolutionaries in America. If we ,,wE ARE THE LAST tian and Ifa ethics, reparations, fail to leave a legacy of revolution· REVOLUTIONARIES and the Million Person Marches. for our children, we have failed In fact, I wrote the mission state our mission and should be dis IN AMERICA. IF WE ment for the Million Man March/ missed as unimportant:• FAIL TO LEAVE A LEGACY Day of Absence on behalf of the The message retains its original OF REVOLUTION FOR executive committee. meaning and urgency even today OUR CHILDREN_,. WE HAVE Internationally, Us has main and we remain ever grounded in FAILED OuR MISSION tained relations with continental our culture and steadfast in our AND SHOULD BE and other diasporic organizations struggle to create a just, good, DISMISSED AS and activists, and participated in and sustainable world and help UNIMPORTANT. [)).ajor African projects such as rebuild the liberation movement the second Pan-African Festival to achieve this. For we embrace of Arts and Culture (FESTAC the ancient African ethical '77) and initiatives by the African imperative: to know our past and Union. Us continues to main honor it; to engage our future tain relations and work with and improve it; and to imagine a other Third World activists and whole new future and forge it in organizations. As I have noted the most ethical, effective, and elsewhere, in the 1960s we had expansive ways. stood up, seeing ourselves as descendants of Malcolm with
19 ----
of race, class, and gender on social movements ~~:"'a~n~d"'""""G"'-r;;:;.ac.::.e;;....:L:.:e:..:e;..;B::..:,o.:::.,:ggs and had been a long before such an intellectual intervention part of the early Black Power group ~U. became the topic of conversat!.on among were part of the ~e Revolution Union professional scholars. Movement (DRUM). Beginning in 1967, DRUM Black Power transformed American ~hallenged whitesupremacy in the United democracy. At the local level, in cities such as Auto Workers labor union through a series New York, Baltimore, New Orleans, Philadel of highly effective and nationally disruptive phia, St. Louis, Oakland, and Los Angeles, strikes. The revolutionary union movement urban militants used the movement's ethos consolidated its forces in the _League of of self-determination and cultural pride to f
distorted the shape and character of Amer ican democracy. Carmichael's call for Black Power included eloquent and angry denuncia tions against the Vietnam War that made him the subject of a wide-ranging, meticulous, and illegal surveillance by the FBI, White House, CIA, and State Department. Carmichael may have become the most visi ble face of black militancy in the late 1960s, but Black Arts icons such as _Sonia Sanchez,~ Baraka, and Larry Neal advocated a cultural ~tion that carried with it profound politi cal implications. Black Arts activists promoted .. a redefinition of black identity that wedded indigenous African American cultural traditions to a reconstructed vision of Africa, the Carib bean, and the wider global black diaspora. Poet Amiri Baraka's political influence ,. reached new heights with the organization of the Congress of African People (CAJ:) in ~nity (SOBU) to drop its back-to-Africa 1970. CAP formed one of the leading groups program and to publish African World, one in what historian Komozi Woodard has char of the most sophisticated Bl-iock Power-era acterized as a "Modern Black Cooveotjon Movement," on~ that echoed nineteenth 1 publications. African World argued that \ the Black Liberation Movement required a century organizational efforts to achieve practical and theoretical understanding of black citizenship. The modern version of the workings of global capitalism. SOBU, this movement included the -:'frican Liper \ which later became the Youth Organization ation Support Committee (ALSC), which of Black Unity (YOB~. defined racism as promoted f,frican Liberation Day (ALD) as a the institutional arm of a dying empire. The global event designed to promote anticolo organization exposed and analyzed the racial nialism, resist economic inequality globally face of capitalism, highlighting the economic and domestically, and educate a new gener exploitation of African workers abroad and ation of black activists about the history of black workers in the United States. pan-Africanism and imperialism. In fact, the Nationally, activists such as Stokely Car ALSC and CAP went on to become United michael argued that institutional racism had Nations NGOs.
21 THE BLACK POWER MOVEMENT REPRESENTS NOTHING LESS THAN AN EPIC IN AMERICAN AND WORLD HIS TORY, ENCOURAGING HUMAN RIGHTS STRUGGLES FROM LONDON TO PARIS, FROM JAMAICA TO INDIA, AND FROM ISRAEL TO AUSTRALIA.
Internationally, activists visited Africa, a Third World revolution capable of defeating formed lobbying groups, and made decolo Western capitalism and imperialism against nization the hallmark of efforts to tr~m mighty odds. ~an foreign policy toward the Third Black Power's reach extended to white World. By 1972 the movement was driven as activists in the New Left as well as a broad much by international political considerations range of racial and ethnic minorities ranging as local and domestic ones. A remarkable but from Puerto Rican militants in Chicago to Mex ultimately short-lived alliance between urban ican Americans in Los Angeles to Asian Amer militants and black elected officials resulted icans in the Bay Area and Native Americans in in arguably the most diverse array of voices in the Midwest. The Young Lords Organization -~ African American political history speaking at (YLO), which formed political beachheads in the 1972 National Black Political Convention in Ehicago and New York, transformed Puerto Gar~ndiana. Simultaneously, Kwame Ture·~ Rican and Dominican former gang mem- African People's Revolutionary Party (AAPR-P) bers into political activists who fought urban argued that black liberation in America was renewal, demanded clean streets and safe rooted in the liberation of Africa under scien neighborhoods at the local level, exposed tific socialism. The AAPR-P defined itself as police brutality, and (inspired by the Black a cadre-, rather than mass-, based organiza Panthers) called for an anti-imperialist world tion. African socialism rooted in the thought revolution. At the local level the Young Lords of pan-African giant Kwame Nkrumah and fought for better social services, Nuyorican personified by the political practice of Guinean architecture, antipoverty programs, and ten president Sekou Toure became the hallmark of ants' rights in New York City. The Young Lords, the group's efforts to build cadres in the United like the West Coast-based !3rown Berets, the States and around the world. Ture, who moved American Indian Movement (AIM). and Asian to Guinea in 1969, returned to the States for Am~ radicals of the Red G'iRird, reflected -::~ frequent and well-publicized tours extolling Black Power's racial and ethnic diversity, what the virtues of intense historical study, the need historian Jeffery Ogbar has characterized as for political organizing, and the inevitability of the era's "rainbow radicalism." ' 24 Jtf~. HOM£LAnP. .
LEFT: Republic ofNew Afrika leaders. Sitting from left: Ma activists and groups. New scholarship bel Robinson Williams; Robert Williams Sr., RNA president; attempting to chronicle this era can only co-founder Gaidi Abiodun Obadele (Milton Henry). Stand do justice to its vast panorama by studying ing first row: Audley "Queen Mother" Moore and co-founder both the iconic and the obscure. On this Imari Abukari Obadele (Richard B. Henry). Detroit News Collection/ Walter P. Reuther, Archives ofLabor and Urban score, important historical figures such as Affairs, Wayne State University. MIDDLE: The RNA de Stokely Carmichael, Kathleen Cleaver, Huey clared Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South P. Newton, and Angela Davis helped to Carolina its national territory, and asked for reparations shape the movement through participation to establish an African American nation in the Deep South. in local, national, and global liberation strug Manuscripts Archives and Rare Books Division, Schomburg gles. Similarly, the intellectual and political Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library. RIGHT: Black Panther Party and Republic ofNew work of Black Arts icons such as Sonia Afrika (RNA) signs,fiiers, posters and graffiti. Roxbury, Sanchez, Amiri Baraka, and Haki.. MadhubutL Boston. 1971 © Stephen Shames. transformed the era's cultural and intellec- tual landscape in profoundly important and historically resonant ways. The movement's intellectual legacy is comprised of the pub lication of thousands of books, pamphlets, The Black Power movement represents speeches, essays, and poetry; and institu nothing less than an epic in American and tionalized through bookstores, independent world history, encouraging human rights schools, black studies programs and depart struggles from London to Paris, from ments, and educational and community Jamaica to India, and from Israel to Aus activism that flourish in hundreds of grass tralia. Like any watershed historical period, roots organizations around the country. the era is filled with iconic individuals and Most importantly, thousands of grassroots organizations as well as more obscure and activists-ranging from welfare mothers to relatively anonymous, but no less important, trade unionists to school teachers-adopted
26 the rhetoric of Black Power militancy in an and inspired millions of global citizens to effort to transform the local conditions of reimagine a world free of poverty, racism, everyday black people, especially during the sexism, and economic exploitation. From height of Great Society reform. Thus Black Harlem to Haiti, New Orleans to Nigeria, and Power, while usually associated with the Birmingham.to Bandung, black liberation fiery revolutionary polemics of groups such activists called for a new and more humane as the Black Panthers, had a compassionate political order, one that would be democrat side that surfaced in the political programs ically controlled. Ultimately, Black Power's of local activists across the United States. legacy reverberates through organizations The Black Power movement transformed that gave the era its full breadth and depth the political, cultural, and historical land of expression and the people who animated scape of post~r America and the larger their dreams of a liberated future in move world. The movement's multifaceted organi ments that simultaneously burst forth in vio zations, from SNCC to the National Welfare lent staccato, threatening upheavals in their Rights Organization, radically altered Amer wake and unfolding with the gentle fury of ica's social, political, and cultural landscape. a soul- and blues-tinged gospel song. Black In doing so they helped give birth to and Power was and is jazz, blues, gospel, and _ sustain.£_ne of the twentieth century's most hip-hop. It transcended the boundaries and important, and controversial, movements limits of blackness even a~ it filled in the for social justice. Black Power's impact unseen contours of a blues people whose was panoramic, triggering revolutions in country, Amiri Baraka reminds us, always knowledge, politics, consciousness, art, was and always will be black. public policy, and foreign affairs along lines of race, class, gender, and sexuality. The movement's heyday forced a reexamination of race, war, human rights, and democracy
27