Black power movement

Black Power movement
Part of Black Power
Black Panthers standing guard with shotguns
Date	Late 1960s to Today
Location	Mainly the USA
Caused by	Racism in the United States
Goals	Black empowerment
Methods	Occupations, Armed Revolts, Protest
Status	Weakened but Ongoing
Parties
Gangs Almighty Black P. Stone Nation Black Guerrilla Family Insurgents Black Liberation Army Black Panther Party MOVE Symbionese Liberation Army Weather Underground White Panther Party Black Radical Congress Communist Party USA League of Revolutionary Black Workers New Black Panther Party Government of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation US Police
Lead figures
Various leaders Huey P. Newton Donald DeFreeze Bill Ayers Pun Plamondon John Africa Government Leaders (President of the United States) Police Leaders

The Black Power movement was a political movement to achieve a form of Black Power and the many philosophies it contains. The movement saw various forms of activism some violent and some peaceful, all hoping to achieve black empowerment. The Black Power movement did not solely represent Black supremacy movements but also socialist ones all with the general motivation of improving the standing of black people in society.

History

Background

Main article: African-American Civil Rights Movement (1954–68)

The first popular use of the term "Black Power" as a social and racial slogan was by Stokely Carmichael (later known as Kwame Ture) and Willie Ricks (later known as Mukasa Dada), both organizers and spokespersons for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). On June 16, 1966, in a speech in Greenwood, Mississippi after the shooting of James Meredith during the March Against Fear, Stokely Carmichael used the term.

By the late 1960s Black Power came to represent the demand for more immediate violent action to counter american white supremacy. Most of these ideas were influenced by Malcolm X's criticism of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s peaceful protest methods. The 1965 assassination of Malcolm X coupled with the urban uprisings of 1964 and 1965 ignited the Black Power movement. By 1968 Black Power was a recognizable movement with a growing force of people who sympathize. New organizations began to form such as the Black Panther Party each supporting Black Power philosophies ranging from socialism to black nationalism. Each organization promoting illegal protest as a way to achieve their goals.

Beginning in the early 1960s

The organization Nation of Islam began developing a black nationalist movement since the 1930s, inspiring later black nationalist groups. The Nation of Islam continues to function to this day. In the early 1960s the Almighty Black P. Stone Nation gang developed into a black power group supporting black nationalism. Malcolm X rose rapidly to become the minister and national spokesperson for the Nation of Islam. Highly influenced by Malcolm X's membership, the Nation claimed a membership of 30,000. In March 1964, Malcolm X was excommunicated from the Nation due to disagreements with Elijah Muhammad; among other things, Malcolm X found issues with Muhammad's adherence to Muslim teachings, and Malcolm X's fame had led to media attention and a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) infiltration into the Nation of Islam. In April 1964, one month later, Malcolm X founded Muslim Mosque Inc., stating, "I never left the Nation of Islam of my own free will. It was they who conspired with Captain Joseph here in New York to pressure me out of the Nation." Malcolm X would late be assassinated in February of 1965.

After the Watts riots in Los Angeles in 1965, the civil rights group the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, decided to break their ties with the mainstream civil rights movement and the liberal organizations that supported it. They argued instead that blacks needed to build power of their own rather than seek accommodations from the power structure in place. SNCC migrated from a philosophy of nonviolence to one of greater militancy after the mid-1960s, as an advocate of the burgeoning “black power” movement, a facet of late 20th-century black nationalism. The organization continued its militancy later on and established ties with radical groups such as the Students for a Democratic Society. In late October 1966, Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party (originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense). In formulating a new politics, they drew on their experiences working with a variety of Black Power organizations.

Escalation in the late 1960s

The initial tactic of the Black Panther Party utilized contemporary open-carry gun laws to protect Party members when policing the police. This act was done in order to record incidents of police brutality by distantly following police cars around neighborhoods. Numbers grew slightly starting in February 1967, when the party provided an armed escort at the San Francisco airport for Betty Shabazz, Malcolm X's widow and keynote speaker for a conference held in his honor. By 1967 the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee began to fall apart due to policy disputes in its leadership and many members left for the Black Panther Party. Through out 1967 the Panthers staged rallies and disrupted the California State Assembly with armed marchers. In late 1967 the FBI developed COINTELPRO to investigate black nationalist groups and other civil rights leaders. By 1969, the Black Panthers and their allies had become primary COINTELPRO targets, singled out in 233 of the 295 authorized "Black Nationalist" COINTELPRO actions. Today less socialistic organizations have taken power such as the New Black Panther Party often supporting Black nationalism.

See also

• Abolitionism
• African-American Civil Rights Movement (1954–68)
• Chicano Movement
• Civil rights movements
• History of the socialist movement in the United States
• Marxism–Leninism
• Nation of Islam
• New Left
• Protests of 1968
• Red Power movement

References

• Radical Caribbean: From Black Power to Abu Bakr - Brian Meeks;