How can we define the Black Power Movement? How many images can you remember?

How can we define the Black Power Movement?

How many images can you remember?



LO: To be able to define the Black Power Movement by using a range of sources



Questions to answer in full sentences!

1. Why were some Black People disillusioned by the 1960s?

2. What was the alternative to NVDA?

3. Which groups were leading NVDA?

4. Which groups were leading an alternative approach?

The events of 1961 began a change in the attitude of civil rights campaigners. The violence against freedom riders, including the firebombing at Anniston, was shocking. The lack of federal support for civil rights also discouraged civil rights campaigners. It seemed that the government only acted when they were forced to do so by violence and the publicity that came with it.

More and more people began to believe that peaceful protest was not getting anywhere fast enough. Some of them began to support more radical action, including the 'back to Africa' movement, especially as African countries gained independence in the 1960s.

Other civil rights campaigners, including Martin Luther King, continued to protest by non-violent direct action


In the 1960s, non-violent protests, and the publicity surrounding them, increased. One of the ways that non-violent direct action was supposed to work was to put pressure on segregationists to change by getting them to show themselves in a bad light in the media. The idea was to shame them into obeying anti-segregation laws. In fact, the pressure produced an increasingly violent reaction. This, in turn, pressured the federal government to act.

During the 1960s, a growing number of black people began to agree with the black Muslims, who argued that integration was too slow in coming and, when it came, did not produce equality. They said black people were discriminated against in integrated schools and workplaces, so they were better off living separately.

Malcolm X became the voice of many angry black people who felt non-violent direct action had failed. He had had a troubled childhood and joined the Nation of Islam while in prison. The Nation of Islam was a black group that shared many Muslim beliefs. They also believed that attempts at integration had failed and that black people would be better off living separately (even returning to Africa) rather than in an integrated society where they always had the worst living and working conditions. Many black Muslims replaced their surnames (often that of the slave owner who had owned their ancestors) with the letter X, to represent their lost African name. Malcolm X was a member of the Nation of Islam until 1964, when he left following many angry disagreements with its leader.

Malcolm X spoke out against non-violent action and criticised leaders such as Martin Luther King. He had different priorities. Martin Luther King wanted to work with white politicians and convince them to work for civil rights; Malcolm X did not. He saw white politicians as the enemy, and his speeches made that very clear. While Martin Luther King focused on voter registration and desegregation in the South, Malcolm X focused on the inequalities faced by black people everywhere, North and South. While he assured people he was not urging violent revolt, he did urge meeting violence with violence.


Malcolm X (Film) 2001 Directed by Spike Lee

Note down:• Impression of Malcolm X• How he approaches Civil Rights (what he

says / does)• Links to Black Power Movement

1. Write a sentence to explain how you could you use Source E and the

caption information to show:

•unity between Martin Luther King and Malcolm X

•lack of unity between Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.

2. Design a banner that gets across the message in Source D in a short

phrase.

3. Copy out two sentences from Source H, Source G or both that you

would use if you wanted to show that Malcolm X was encouraging black

people to violence.


The first volunteers left on 20 June. CORE workers Michael Schwerner and James Chaney drove a group to the town of Meridian. The next morning, they heard a nearby black church, chosen as a Freedom School, had been burned down. Schwerner, Chaney and another worker, Andrew Goodman, went to investigate and were arrested. The deputy sheriff released them in the middle of the night, knowing a mob was waiting. Their bodies were found on 4 August. They had all been shot in the head. Chaney had been beaten first - many of his bones were shattered.

At least six civil rights workers were killed in Mississippi during the summer. There were 80 beatings, 35 shooting 'incidents' and over 1000 arrests. Over 60 black homes, businesses and churches were bombed. About 17,000 black people tried to register to vote that summer; only about 1600 succeeded. But the campaign did help to focus attention on black voting rights.


The Voting Rights Act meant more black people registered to vote. But, especially in the South, it was hard for them to find a party to vote for that supported civil rights rather than opposing it. In 1965, Stokely Carmichael and other SNCC workers in Lowndes County, Alabama, set up a political party, the Lowndes County Freedom Organisation, which focused on black rights. The party symbol was a black panther and the party slogan was 'Vote for the panther, then go home'. The aim was to get black people to actually go out and vote, rather than just staying at home. Many people did, although not enough to get a party member elected.

Black people still faced discrimination and violence and felt, often rightly, they could not trust the government or the police to protect them - much of the violence against civil rights campaigners came from the police. In June 1966, James Meredith (the first black student at the University of Mississippi in 1962) led a March Against Fear through Mississippi. He was shot on the second day of the march. Martin Luther King took over the march, joined by Stokely Carmichael of SNCC. King's speeches stressed the need to continue non-violent action, but the more militant speeches of Stokely Carmichael, urging people to demand 'Black Power', gained increasing support.


Note down reasons why YOU THINK a ‘Black Power’ movement emerged

–Find sources that offer reasons

-Find sources that link Malcolm X to the Black Power Movement

-How significant was Malcolm X’s role in the Black Power

Movement?

Black power emerged because of Malcolm X

Black Power emerged for other reasons

Note down reasons why YOU THINK a ‘Black Power’ movement emerged

–Find sources that offer reasons

-Find sources that link Malcolm X to the Black Power Movement

-How significant was Malcolm X’s role in the Black Power

Movement?

Black power emerged because of Malcolm X

Black Power emerged for other reasons

Black Muslims staging a counter-demonstration at an NAACP rally in Harlem

A

William Gadsden, who was crossing the road rather than protesting, being set on by one of 'Bull' Connor's police dogs, 3 May 1963. Marches were often held at noon, when people were out over lunchtime. Think about why the photographer took the photo.

B

A bookstore in Harlem, New York, photographed in 1964. Black people could register for the Back to Africa movement here. Think about what its owners might mean by 'proper propaganda'.

C

It's time for you and me to be more politically mature, to realise what the ballot [vote] is for. If we don't get to cast a ballot, then we're going to have to cast a bullet. It's either a ballot or the bullet. In the South, you don't get a ballot. In the North, they do it a different way. When Negroes begin to get too much political say in an area, the white man changes the district lines. I haven't seen a Negro change any lines, they don't let him get near the line. No, the white man changes the situation. And usually it's the white man who grins at you most, pats you on the back and is supposed to be your friend. He may be friendly, but he is not your friend. What I'm trying to tell you is this: you and I are not facing a segregationist conspiracy, we're facing a government conspiracy. The government that you go abroad to fight and die for is the government that is conspiring to deprive you of your voting rights, your economic opportunities, decent housing, a decent education. It is not just your employers; it is the government of America that is responsible for the oppression and exploitation of black people in this country.

A speech made by Malcolm X on 3 April 1964 in D

The only meeting between Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, in Washington, on 26 March 1964.

From Look Out Whitey! Black Power's Gonna Get Your

Momma! A book about Black Power

written in 1968.

More than anyone else, Malcolm X was responsible for the growing awareness and militancy among black people. His clear words cut the chains on black minds like a giant blowtorch. He

didn't want to wake America's conscience about

black rights. He knew America had no conscience.

EF

Malcolm Little, the son of an African American Baptist preacher, Earl Little, was born in Omaha, Nebraska, on 19th May, 1925. Malcolm's mother, Louise Little, was born in the West Indies. Her mother was black but her father was a white man.

Little moved to Boston to live with his sister. He worked as a waiter in Harlem and after becoming addicted to cocaine, turned to crime. In 1946 he was convicted of burglary and sentenced to ten years imprisonment. While in prison he was converted to the Black Muslim faith. After his release from prison in 1952 he moved to Chicago where he met Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam sect. He changed his name to X, a custom among Muhammad's followers who considered their family names to have originated with white slaveholders. Malcolm soon became a leading figure in the Nation of Islam. He went on several speaking tours and helped establish several new mosques. He was eventually assigned to be minister of the mosque in New York's Harlem area. Founder and editor of Muhammad Speaks, Malcolm rejected integration and racial equality and instead advocated black power. Malcolm was suspended from the movement by Elijah Muhammad after he made a series of extremist speeches. This included his comments that the assassination of John F. Kennedy was a "case of chickens coming home to roost". In March 1964 Malcolm left the Nation of Islam and established his own religious organization, the Organization of Afro-American Unity. After a pilgrimage to Mecca, Malcolm rejected his former separatist beliefs and advocated world brotherhood. Malcolm now blamed racism on Western culture and urged African Americans to join with sympathetic whites to bring to an end. Malcolm X was shot dead at a party meeting in Harlem on 21st February, 1965. Three Black Muslims were later convicted of the murder. The Autobiography of Malcolm X, based on interviews he had given to the journalist, Alex Haley, was published in 1965.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAmalcolmX.htm

G

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAmalcolmX.htm

From a speech made by Malcolm X on 31 December 1964 to a group of black students from Mississippi who had come to New York to

visit various civil rights groups.

How do you think I feel — I belong a generation ahead of you - to have to tell you 'we sat around like

a block of wood while the whole world fought for human rights, so now you still have that same fight'? We did nothing. Don't you make the same mistake. You'll get your freedom by letting your enemy know

you'll do anything to get it. Don't you run around trying to make friends with somebody who's

depriving you of your rights. They're not your friends, no, they are your enemies. Treat them like that and

fight them and you'll get your freedom.

H

Despite his premature death, Malcolm X’s emphasis on self-sufficiency and armed defense was a clarion call for others dissatisfied with “love and nonviolence.” For example, the leader of the SNCC, Stokely Carmichael, began to incorporate black nationalism into his own philosophy in the mid-

1960s and eventually convinced fellow organizers to expel white members in 1966.

The following year, Carmichael and several other disgruntled SNCC leaders broke away from the SNCC and co-authored the book Black

Power to promote Malcolm X’s message. Carmichael went a step further than Malcolm X and began campaigning to split the United States into

separate countries—one for blacks, one for whites. The term black power, coined in Carmichael’s book, came to be synonymous with

militancy, self-reliance, independence, and nationalism within the ranks of the civil rights movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

http://www.sparknotes.com/history/american/civilrights/section6.rhtml

I

http://www.sparknotes.com/history/american/civilrights/section6.rhtml

The Black Panthers

In October 1966, in Oakland, California, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale set up the Black Panther Party. The group had a ten-point plan, but the one that the media paid most attention to was the monitoring of police brutality and carrying guns for self-defence (which was legal in California, as long as guns were not concealed). The Panthers had a uniform: black jackets and trousers, blue shirts and a black beret. Many black people came to see them as a more effective community police than the state police force. They also organised community projects, such as free breakfasts and healthcare in poor black areas. Not surprisingly, the government saw them as a threat, especially as the movement spread. By 1968, there were Black Panther groups in 25 American cities.

A Black Panther badge from the 1960s. The phrase 'Power to the People‘ was picked up and used by many

J

A simplified, shortened version of the Black Panthers‘ ten-point | plan of 1966, based on a full version on the Black Panthers‘ website. Point 1 was suggesting a form of separation, but with government funding.

• We want freedom. We want the power to run our black and oppressed communities.

• We want full employment for our people.• We want an end to the capitalist exploitation of our black and

oppressed communities.• We want decent housing, fit for human beings.• We want a decent education for our people, that teaches us our true

history and our role in the present-day society.• We want completely free healthcare for all black and oppressed

people.• We want an immediate end to police brutality and murder of black

people, other people of colour, and all oppressed people inside the US.

• We want an immediate end to all wars of aggression.• We want freedom for all black and oppressed people now held in US

federal, state, county, city and military prisons and jails. We want trials by a jury of peers for all persons charged with so-called crimes under the laws of this country.

• We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice, peace and people's community control of modern technology.

K

From a 1990 interview with Artie Schart, a SNCC worker who was on the March Against Fear.

Stokely gave this really fierce speech, in which he said we couldn't count on support from the white man and that blacks had to do it on their own. He said blacks were being sent to Vietnam and killed when they couldn't even vote. They had no rights in their own communities and were going to have to gather the courage to do it on their own. Many people saw this as a cry for separation - but many black leaders, even if they supported the idea of Black Power, still wanted integration. They saw it as the only way to get justice all through the USA.

In groups, discuss the ways in which the aims of the civil rights movement were different from those of the Black Panthers. Decide on three points of similarity and three points of difference in their aims.

L

A Black Panther poster from 1970.

From a book about the civil rights movement written in 1990.

The explosion of black consciousness in Lowndes County, Alabama, had a

national, and international, impact. The image of the

black panther — the snarling black cat ready and able to

defend itself- spread through Alabama and was

adopted by the Black Panther Party in California. By the end of the 1960s the

image was being used in most major US cities and

even in Europe.

M O

Willie Ricks from the SNCC asked people what they wanted; they answered, 'Freedom Now'. He urged them not to demand 'Freedom Now' but 'Black Power'. And he kept on and on until everyone was roaring 'Black Power'. It was chilling. Suddenly, I felt threatened. It seemed a message to well-meaning Northern boys like me, 'Go home, white boy, we don't need you'. Later, around the tents, there was hostility. To many people I wasn't David anymore. I was a 'honkey'. We left the march a couple of days later. When we came, we had felt wanted. When we left, we didn't feel wanted. There was a sense that this was the time for black people to lead the strategy and whites should not be involved. We accepted that.

From a 1990 interview with David Dawley, a white Civil Rights campaigner in the 1960s

P

After looking at all the sources what do you think Black Power is?

Black Power is…

So what is Black Power? How has it been defined?

• Black Power is a political slogan and a name for various associated ideologies. It is used in the movement among people of Black African descent throughout the world, though primarily by African Americans in the United States. The movement was prominent in the late 1960s and early 1970s, emphasising racial pride and the creation of black political and cultural institutions to nurture and promote black collective interests and advance black values. "Black Power" expresses a range of political goals, from defense against racial oppression, to the establishment of separate social institutions and a self-sufficient economy.

Organisations, events and people involved in civil rights

Reasons why Black Power Emerged

Evidence of Malcolm X’s influence

Voting rights

Copy and complete this table using your timelines, your book and your own knowledge

Documents

How can we define the Black Power Movement? How many images can you remember?