Ayush Midha - 2015 Near Scholar

2014-15

JOHN NEAR GRANT Recipient

Blackout: The Case for Black Power in 1960’s Liberation Politics

Ayush Midha, Class of 2015

BLACKOUT:

THE CASE FOR BLACK POWER IN 1960s LIBERATION POLITICS

Ayush Midha

John Near Scholar

Mentors: Mr. Janda, Ms. Cranston

April 10, 2015

The late 1960s saw the advent of a revolutionary period in African-American history and American race relations. With the decline of the widely heralded Civil Rights Movement, black liberation efforts witnessed the rise of leaders invested in a protest-based, separatist movement known as Black Power.1 Black Power aimed to recreate black identity and reshape black agency in politics by repudiating Civil Rights-era integration and adopting the central theme of political self-determination.2 The phrase was first coined by Stokely Carmichael, leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, during the Meredith March, where he emphasized the movement’s foundational tenets of racial unity, African-American pride, and self-determination.3 The revolutionary rhetoric, while regarded as threatening by many, adopted a theme of avantgarde black activism.4 The vocabulary of Black Power offered a significant shift among prominent leaders away from an emphasis on racial integration and legal reform as the locus of the strategy for black liberation.5 Despite the substantial shift in rhetoric, Black Power’s primary message involved the central objective of uniting black communities across the United States.6 As the movement expanded, it faced substantial criticism from politicians and black leaders but also gained a larger following through student involvement, grassroots political machinery, and the establishment of a coherent ideological platform. While the media, politicians, and even scholars of race relations argued that Black Power ideology undermined and generated social backlash against the incremental, reformist approach of the Civil Rights Movement, Black Power leaders revolutionized African-American activism by fostering a separatist approach to coalitionbuilding and endorsing community-based, grassroots efforts to reshape race relations.

Portraying Black Power

The portrayals of the Black Power Movement presented by the contemporary media, politicians, and political scholars reinforced conventional narratives of the entire movement,

entrenching the belief that Black Power undermined the perceived legal strategy of the Civil Rights Movement. According to Peniel E. Joseph, Professor of History at Tufts University, this widely held perception was founded upon the belief among experts, media personalities, and liberal politicians that the Civil Rights Movement was the linchpin of attempts at racial justice.7

As a result, these powerful forces vilified Black Power ideals for fighting the “New Left,” the form of liberal politics idealized by legal and political scholars.8 These scholars further attacked Black Power by portraying Black Power as a strategy entirely ineffective in achieving its goals and net-worse for black emancipatory politics.9 In a broader sense, though, the entire identity of the Black Power Movement was defined in the context of the civil rights leaders. Newspapers at the time and even retrospective historians described Black Power as a militant outgrowth of an otherwise progressive, peaceful attempt to racial justice.10

Furthermore, white liberal political groups considered the injection of Black Power into racial justice movements to be a “[d]eclaration of war” on the traditional forms of politics.11 As a result, media portrayals of the movement were almost entirely negative; in particular, they heavily emphasized the militant nature of Black Power liberation strategies. Newspapers and politicians decried the movement’s calls for violence while actively ignoring the “movement’s more quiet efforts to transform America,” ones characterized by efforts to revitalize social justice and inspire downtrodden populations.12 In his essay “Black Power, White Fear,” Russell Reno, former professor of theology and ethics at Creighton University, highlights Black America’s embrace of a radical shift from normative race relations.13 While leaders of the Black Power Movement endorsed the same goal of sociocultural liberation as the Civil Rights leaders who preceded them, Black Power introduced an anti-integration, militant ideology to achieve equality.14 These ideas sparked the growth in popularity of leaders like Elijah Muhammad, who

espoused Islam as a means of black liberation and rejected normative modes of thought, including the consensus among liberal politicians of integration as an effective legal strategy for racial equality.15 The result was growing fear in White Americans, jumpstarting backlash from the media.

In particular, newspapers identified the rise of the Black Power Movement as a result of an ideological choice presented to racial justice movements. The classification of newspaper depictions of Black Power can be divided into two groups: one group detailing the disintegration of the harmony between cultural leaders of the Civil Rights Movement and politicians and the other demonizing Black Power for failing to meet the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement. In 1965, The Los Angeles Times declared the derailment of the Civil Rights Movements as policymakers and movement leaders split, noting the “acute and rising anxiety about the next stage of the Civil Rights Movement.”16 According to the Times, the division centered upon the growing perception that legislation was no longer a pragmatic mechanism to foster racial progress.17 The Times concluded that the White House no long agreed with the policy agenda of civil rights leaders, signaling the end of legal progress for civil rights.18 The following year, The Hartford Courant recognized a similar phenomenon, noting the collapse of the Civil Rights Movement as violence grew under the control of the Student Nonviolence Coordinating Committee (SNCC), led by Stokely Carmichael.19 In particular, the Courant detailed the lack of moderates and the alienation of white liberals, caused by the rise of Black Power organizations like the SNCC and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).20 The Courant indicated that “the attitude of segregationists […] hardened but those in the middle of the road [withdrew] in fear.”21 The Boston Globe wrote in 1967 that the fork in the road offered a choice between integration and separation.22 Furthermore, the paper isolated the role of separatist Black Islam in the growth

of Black Power ideology and the call for revolt made by leaders Stokely Carmichael and Floyd Kissick as the linchpin of the movement’s efforts to respond to the growing white backlash.23

Much like the L.A. Times, the Globe noted the lack of potential in legal reformism, emphasizing the ineffectiveness of reformist strategies in liberating those living in abject poverty.24

While articles depicting the decline of the Civil Rights Movement highlighted its emancipatory potential and emphasized the incremental legal progress made by its leaders, media portrayals of Black Power ideals criticized the ideology’s violent nationalist tendencies and defined the ideology entirely in comparison to the incremental progressivism of Civil Rights beliefs. That perception peddled by the media was epitomized by The Washington Post’s 1967 report on Black Nationalist demonstrations in Chicago.25 The Post began its piece by defining the protests in the context of a violent upheaval of the peaceful Civil Rights era, a transition inciting fear among white liberals across America.26 The piece compared the demonstrations to the strategy of Martin Luther King, Jr., characterized by its biracial composition and nonviolent advocacy.27 Those tactics specifically failed to produce change in Chicago while leaders lost support, but as the Post determined, the void in black leadership was filled by “racial hatred masquerading under the banner of Black Power” and “Negro violence” jumpstarted by fear among white politicians.28 The explosion of racial hate sparked fear in the civilians of the city as CORE became a threatening organization.29 Perhaps more importantly, the Post explained that white liberals, whose own “altruistic designs” failed to produce progress, had become overwhelmed by the violent extremism of the Black Nationalist movement.30 The Washington Post concluded that police crackdowns and division among black leaders were the only factors protecting the public from eruptions of violence.31 The Washington Post’s article is representative of the broader media’s depiction of the rise of Black Power, characterizing the

entire ideology in relation to its progressive, peaceful precursor and vilifying the movement for its perceived hatred.32

Dr. Jane Rhodes, Dean for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Macalester College, comprehensively documents the media’s portrayals of Black Power, especially in relation to its precursor, the Civil Rights Movement. Rhodes documents that the “New York Times followed up with a report that SNCC had been taken over by ‘militants’ advocating third-party politics for African Americans.”33 Furthermore, the Times “played up the idea that there was a fundamental conflict between more or less militant members of the organization.”34 By placing the strategic conflict between nonviolence and militarism at the center of the Black Power struggle, the popular media deprioritized Black Power’s ideological coherence and harmony with Civil Rights leaders. The Times continued this pattern in its reporting on the Black Panther Party, which it represented “as extremists in the vein of the Ku Klux Klan.”35 According to Rhodes, the “writer was unwilling to differentiate between the Panthers’ assertive demands for civil rights and white Alabama segregationists’ mission to deny the franchise to black citizens.”36 By emphasizing the “paternalistic and harsh” nature of the Times’ descriptions of Black Panthers, Rhodes highlights the media’s complicity in undermining public and scholarly support for Black Power ideology.37 Rhodes’ critique of this framing relies upon the effectively argued premise that Black Power ideology consisted of more than just an emphasis on militant tactics and fear-inspiring protests.38 By overlooking strategic goals of Black Power organizations and their emphasis on empowering black communities, the media underestimated the movement’s potential for black liberation. The portrayal by media entities is particularly important in studying Black Power because it defined the public’s reaction to the entire movement and influenced the ideological beliefs of political scholars.

Redefining Coalitions

The entire foundation of Black Power’s political ideology relied on redefining the forms of political coalitions valued for productive racial progress. Stokely Carmichael, leader of the SNCC, penned his manifesto “‘The Myths of Coalition’ from Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America” with Charles Hamilton in an effort to challenge traditional liberal views and redefine the struggle for black liberation.39 These traditional views held the belief that in order to succeed in producing social change, black leaders had to form coalitions and alliances with traditional liberal organizations, such as the Democratic Party.40 Carmichael defined the Black Power as a “separatist” movement, one aimed at shifting away from the traditional forms of coalitions to a more effective strategy.41 Despite this belief, he recognized that coalitions were inevitable, but the question he raised was with whom and for whom these coalitions were created. In creating the SNCC policy with regards to this revolutionized form of coalitionbuilding, Carmiachel established Black Power not as a rejection of pragmatism but a revolution in the ways in which pragmatic change would be accomplished.42

Conventional coalitions rested on the foundational belief that black interest can align with liberal beliefs.43 Furthermore, they argued that those in power, both economically and politically, can cooperate with the downtrodden to foster progress.44 In particular, leaders of these forms of coalitions used moral appeals to involve the elite in producing change.45 Carmichael contested all of these ideological beliefs and put forth the thesis that liberal organizations cannot further black interests in American society.46 He began with the foundational claim that at their core, liberals do not have the same objectives as black liberation movements.47 Because the law itself is founded upon anti-black ideals and upholds a society defined by whiteness, reforms cannot overcome systemic and institutionalized racism.48 At its

simplest level, Carmichael argued that what is good for white people is not good for black people, making a coalition between the two fundamentally impossible. Carmichael further declared “no matter how ‘liberal’ a white person might be, he cannot ultimately escape the overpowering influence—on himself and on black people—of his whiteness in a racist society.”49

The foundational assumption for Carmichael’s argument was that the powerful cannot collaborate with the world’s insecure populations. Such alliances will never prioritize the concerns of the downtrodden, so a productive movement should begin by foregrounding racial concerns over economics, society, politics, and security. Because white groups are more economically secure than black folks, an alliance dependent on white support is impossible. Populist movements in the past failed to address black concerns because the white leaders turned against black supporters immediately after their demands were met. Because they prioritize personal gain, political and economic interests will always take precedence for white coalitionists.50 As a result, appeals to conscience fail to bring meaningful progress; at its core, politics is defined by self-interest. Even if passionate appeals to morality convince individuals to change their views on race in society, they fail to overcome the inherent political drive to act selfishly. Carmichael argued that civil rights legislation was not the exception but proved this rule.51 The calls by religious groups or passionate speakers did not affect the passage of these laws; rather, the Democratic Party seized an opportunity to appeal to a previously untapped demographic. The most significant piece of evidence in support of Carmichael’s argument was that while the legislation created a popular set of talking points for the party, it failed to create substantive local change in policy areas like housing segregation.52 While de jure segregation

decreased, de facto segregation, characterized by growing gentrification, remained entirely untouched.

As a case study, Carmichael pinpointed city projects instituted by liberals in Chicago; they universally supported public works projects, increasing jobs for white blue collar workers. However, the implementation of the projects ignored expectations of black organizations, including failures to redefine building codes and enforce police efficiency. As a result, controversial subjects were left unaddressed, preventing the interests of African American-led organizations from being met.53

The experience of Atlanta served as a particularly dangerous example of the risks of liberal coalition for black emancipation. The entire city was rife with segregationist policies, but with a black population exceeding 60,000, organizations across the city responded with protests.54 The city responded with the coalition-based liberal politics that residents were used to seeing, developing a progressive model of public health, housing, and development. But the situation in Atlanta’s ghettoes barely improved, leaving transportation, housing, health, and education neglected in the African-American population centers.55 While the perceived progress quelled riots, it did almost nothing to produce material change for Atlanta’s black population.

Organized labor represented another example of the failure of political liberalism in producing racial justice. Unions fought to reduce government intervention and obviated the need for protection, undermining legal attempts at racial equality.56 In fact, the unions were one of the primary reasons black workers lost their jobs at exceedingly high rates; prioritizing economic interests ensured racial equality was impossible. Furthermore, organized labor encouraged increased industrialism, which produced negative externalities, including environmental damage and toxic waste dumping, and low-wage menial labor that was net-worse for black workers in the

United States.57 These examples offered an appealing message to black leaders by demonstrating that black liberation lay not in reliance upon cooperation with white politics, but in a grassroots forum for empowering and uniting black communities.

Furthermore, Carmichael argued that even if black folks were given equal footing in coalitions, their voices would be excluded under the guise of liberal reformism. The elite would continue to ignore black concerns because articulating the interests of black folks was declared racist. Moreover, formulating policy around the interests of black people was derided as racebased politics, which was further vilified in the entire political sphere.58 Carmichael recognized the success of particular individuals in the sphere of liberal reformism but countered that their success stemmed from their position in upper-class American society rather than the functionality of liberal coalition-building. In the best possible case, according to Carmichael, the reformers would do “for the blacks,” building a paternalistic approach to civil rights and increasing black dependence on white liberal politics.59

The solution according to Carmichael involved overhauling the “political and economic institutions of this society,” an objective that would require a revolutionary strategy to recreate the structures of contemporary society.60 The most cogent upshot of this approach involved the realization that incremental reforms would only mask the inherent whiteness of American institutions and a broad-based revolution would be necessary. In order to build this revolution, Carmichael pinpointed the particular characteristics that would create a viable coalition-building strategy. He argued that all the members should have “mutually beneficial” goals and contended that in the context of racial justice, this meant that black people should prioritize their own interests.61 The “genuine power bases” would rally the base, foster unity, and induce independence from white liberal organizations.62 The entire philosophy of Black Power was

founded to create the genuine power base necessary for a societal upheaval. According to Carmichael, post-Civil War Reconstruction failed to produce progress and overcome residual anti-blackness because the decisions were made by white politicians.63 Similarly, gains from Civil Rights era legislation would be reversible because the movement failed to meaningfully shift power away from the white American elite. Black Power leaders intended to rectify that mistake, building on the progress of the Civil Rights Movement by unifying the AfricanAmerican population and deprioritizing alliances that upheld contemporary power structures. Although the perceived consequence of this ideology was that white people were excluded from Black Power, Carmichael contended that white Americans could play a potentially significant role in the struggle for black liberation.64 He invited white citizens to put away their color-blind vision of the world, actively behave in an anti-racist matter, and join in the upheaval of racist institutions. While Black Power coalitions should not be dependent on white support, they should involve white leaders in a new emancipatory curriculum for politics. Although collaborative, the efforts of white and black organizations should be efficiently divided so that white leaders can influence white communities while black organizations should be populated with black members.

In his essay “The Black Power Movement: A State of the Field,” Professor Joseph highlights examples of Carmichael’s vision of effective coalition-based organizing. According to Joseph, Black Power was, rather than an antagonist of the Civil Rights Movement, a natural outgrowth of the entire project of Civil Rights era politics.65 Black Power endorsed the same struggle but offered different tactics to help materialize the very objectives put forth by the Civil Rights Movement. Joseph further explains that the symbiotic coexistence of both movements is underappreciated as the conventional narrative normatively defines Civil Rights as effective and

Black Power as counter-productive. Carmichael himself helmed the SNCC, once a core Civil Rights organization, as it underwent a transition from its nonviolent integrationist agenda to one espousing the ideals of Black Power.66 The radical organization Revolutionary Action Movement founded its ideology upon the intersection of Black Nationalism and Marxism, fostering intellectual radicalism at the roots of Black Power.67 Their transnational vision represented a revolutionary vision of politics, redefining the struggle for racial equality on an international scale. Even beyond mainstream organizations, individuals played a role in setting up Black Power infrastructure. For example, the poet and novelist Amiri Baraka organized communities and mobilized groups in Newark around the ideals of Black Power and Pan-Africanism, fostering a pragmatic but ideology-based approach to community organizing.68 Together, these groups and individuals materialized the revolutionary vision for racial justice put forward by Stokely Carmichael.

The Black Panther Party

The most commonly cited example of Carmichael’s ideal coalition is the well-known Black Panther Party. According to Professor Joseph, the Black Panthers have earned the “most sustained scholarly attention” as an organization with Black Power ideals fighting for racial justice.69 The party’s entire platform was founded on a clear belief in intellectual radicalism. This form of militant radicalism translated into violent behavior, forcing crackdowns by law enforcement agencies. However, as a community organization, the Black Panthers offered wideranging social services and played a critical role in addressing local issues like poverty in African-American population centers.70 With its decentralized approach, the BPP was able to tailor its decision-making process to be driven by local needs under a central operation.71 As a

political organization, the Black Panthers were activists, especially in the early 1970s, with goals to change institutions that were historically hostile to black populations in the United States.

The BPP’s intellectual platform relied on a radical critique of the very foundations of American civil society. In particular, the party leaders opposed the non-violent integrationist strategy of the Civil Rights leaders much like Carmichael’s critique of liberal coalition-based politics.72 At its core, the BPP fought to defeat police brutality, as indicated by its original name, the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, and the origins of its ten-point platform. But as the platform and the broader movement for racial equality evolved, the Black Panther Party expanded its agenda to spark a grassroots revolution against American ideals.73 By empowering and liberating the black working class population of the United States, the BPP began to reverse the widespread perception that the transition away from Civil Rights political strategy was to be feared and opposed. In fact, the Panthers often embraced “working with the system” to produce material change for those who needed it most.74 Bobby Seale, one of the co-founders of the BPP, himself ran a federal anti-poverty program in Oakland. He carried this experience to the Party’s agenda, instituting breakfast programs, health clinics, and bus trips for prison families in attempts to empower the downtrodden. Despite these efforts, though, the Black Panther Party lacked “genuine solidarity” or the ideological cohesion to do much other than mask the deeper “social cleavages” in American society.75 However, the Panthers revolutionized coalitionbuilding and created a revered model for the struggle for racial equality.

The struggle revolved around unity and cohesiveness within the Party. Although each individual in the Party played a distinct role in the organization, similarities among members in terms of background drove a sense of a shared struggle. The members throughout their lives all experienced to various extents police brutality, poor housing, underfunded education, and a

consistent lack of sufficient food. The similar experiences of oppression forged a common enemy among the members of the Party, creating an achievable goal for the entire Party. The common forms of oppression allowed the BPP to form and effectively implement “survival programs” for the otherwise downtrodden.76 The commonality inspired among the members an impressive work ethic and consistent political ideology; in particular, the platform fostered intraparty cohesion. Furthermore, party leaders used sensationalism in rhetoric to create a common opposition for “lashing out at the enemy.”77 Huey Newton himself used his time in jail to lead, formulate his revolutionary doctrine, and gather more followers. As he continued to build his party, Newton came to be known as a “master rhetorician” by scholars and members of the media.78 More importantly, the Black Panther Party members came to view him in a “‘lost Saint’ image,” creating unity within the entire movement.79

The complexity of the Black Panther Party has perplexed historians and scholars for decades after the rise and peak of the Party’s fame. In his essay “The Historiography of the Black Panther Party,” Joe Street, Senior Lecturer in American History at Northumbria University, comprehensively examines the BPP’s place in Civil Rights history. Street elucidates that the Panthers are traditionally seen among non-experts as merely a violent wing of the Civil Rights Movement, but “such studies imply that the BPP was an unfortunate reaction to the decline of the nonviolent movement.”80 To more deeply delve into historiography of the Party, Street divides scholarly works about the BPP into three phases: the Participant-observer period, the next period defined by Hugh Pearson’s biographical critique of Huey Newton and the Black Panther Party, and the Post-Pearson phase.81 According to Street, the first phase was defined mostly by primary sources gathered from former Panthers and witness accounts; they effectively detailed the radical approach undertaken by the Black Panther Party.82 The next phase, which

was characterized almost entirely by Hugh Pearson’s biographical narrative of the Party, was largely critical of the Party’s militant approach. Pearson’s book, Shadow Of The Panther: Huey Newton And The Price Of Black Power In America, inspired in most opposition to the thesis of Black Power but also fostered a balanced view in others.83 For example, Pearson highlighted the BPP’s free breakfast program, which inspired many readers to value the Party’s role in black empowerment.84 The transition to the post-Pearson period was characterized by novel approaches that re-evaluated the role of the Black Panther Party. In particular, scholars examined the political importance of the BPP, especially in the context of broader racial trends in American society.

According to Street, the Participant-observer period, during the rise of the Party and immediately after its decline, involved primary source works. In particular, members of the Party and experts focused on the leaders, including Bobby Seale and Huey Newton.85 Street further explains that the Party members tended to “mythologize” BPP leaders, emblematic of the entire party’s approach to charismatic leadership.86 The accounts further emphasized the party’s role in defeating police brutality, which was the foundational party platform. The period was characterized by a decline in violent rhetoric from the Party itself combined with growing group unity against perceived external enemies.87 Especially in this context, most of the accounts from the Participant-observer period were one-sided, supporting the mission of the BPP without evaluating critical approaches. Street also contends that the only critical accounts were largely vacuous, lacking intellectual strength and scholarly vigor.88 A prime example of the Participantobserver primary source accounts is Bobby Seale’s essay “The Black Panther Party: The Early Years.” Seale’s memoir defined the BPP almost entirely as community organizers who originally organized to fight police brutality and expanded their message to empower the downtrodden

through efforts like their well-known breakfast program in Oakland.89 The Party’s ten-point platform centered upon the destiny of a cohesive black community with the specific emphasis on housing, employment, education, crime, overseas wars (Vietnam), police brutality, and jury representation.90 In the context of education, Seale emphasized an emancipatory curriculum, centered upon teaching African-American history as a core aspect of the primary and secondary school syllabi.91 Seale also highlighted the Party’s development of community controlled economics, an economic theory that involved grassroots control of economic structures to minimize negative externalities and maximize public benefit.92 The Black Panthers implemented the theory, alongside their belief in communitarianism, to produce benefits and jobs for black families entrenched in poverty. The objective of these specific tactics and the broader strategy of a cohesive community involved ending “institutionalized racism,” fighting legal discrimination, and redefining traditional power hierarchies.93 Furthermore, Seale claimed, the Party’s vision of success involved controlling the political sphere and refocusing the political sphere to address concerns of systemic racism.94 In more than a few ways, the Party leaders were inspired by leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X, who rallied to fight structural racism and gathered the attention of the political sphere. Despite the claims of mutual antagonism made by liberal leaders and popular media, the origins of Black Power thought rested in the same ideology as Civil Rights-era liberation politics.

As Street elucidates in his comprehensive review, the primary source-focused period was followed by Pearson’s account of the BPP in its context of Black Power.95 Pearson largely flipped the previously dominant perception of the Party, emphasizing the negative aspects of Black Panther ideology. Pearson’s gang-like portrayal of the BPP was especially critical of the idolization of Huey Newton, whose criminality and intellectual radicalism Pearson heavily

criticized.96 However, Street describes Pearson’s account as “problematic” because it relies almost entirely on an oral history, ignores important events in Newton’s and the BPP’s history, and centralizes the criminal history without addressing the intellectual vitality of the movement.97 By characterizing the entire Party’s Black Power message as the Civil Rights Movement’s “evil younger brother,” Pearson crafts a distinctly distasteful vision of the BPP and trivializes the role of the Black Panther Party in the struggle for racial justice.98 Furthermore, Street is most critical of Pearson’s failure to detail the connection between the Party’s acts of violence and its broader political agenda. By portraying Newton as a radical and depicting his vision of “intercommunalism” as a militant ideology, Pearson reduces the value of BPP activity.99

This portrayal of the BPP is widely pervasive to this date, and Pearson’s work is still considered the defining work in today’s perception of the Black Panther Party. The wide-ranging influence of Pearson’s work most disturbs Street as he calls for a reassessment of the Party, criticizing Pearson’s unbalanced account. In particular, he ascribes fault to both the Participantobserver phase and the Pearson phase for emphasizing individual, local events and the persona of particular leaders for the purpose of sensational scholarship.100 Instead, he calls for a renewed emphasis on the decentralized, grassroots nature of the entire Black Power Movement and the importance of local activists away from the focal point of leaders such as Martin Luther King.101 The decentralized local approach was particularly effective in defeating the effects of Jim Crow laws in the United States.102 In the context of the BPP, Street calls for scholarly focus to shift away from Newton and Seale and away from its context within the Civil Rights Movement to efforts by individuals like Daniel Crowe, who led the effort to cope with growing populations in Bay Area inner cities, and others who used anti-colonialist rhetoric to combat suburban

gentrification.103 Street also emphasizes the intellectual importance of the Panthers’ ideology, particularly the “radical internationalism” and socialist context of the party.104 For most comprehensively portraying these aspects of the Black Panthers, Street values the post-Pearson period of BPP historiography. For example, the author Dr. Jeffrey Ogbar, professor of history at the University of Connecticut, places the BPP at the center of Black Power ideology and assigns particular value to the Party’s role in defining African-American identity.105 While others have criticized Panther violence for alienating non-members and driving central decision-making, the majority of post-Pearson scholars recognize the militant ideology’s role in the party’s momentum and the value it placed on social reform.106 Perhaps most importantly, though, Street values the scholarly emphasis placed on cultural aspects of the Black Panther Party, including revolutionary art, use of white liberal guilt in influencing other radical organizations, impact on Latino radicalism, and development of media attention on racial equality.107

Grassroots Community-Building

One of the central aspects of Black Power ideology that has been overlooked in scholarly literature remains its emphasis on cultural strategies to overcome systemic racism. Black Power leaders emphasized reforming school districts, implementing free breakfast programs in inner cities, creating new economic organizations to defeat poverty, and leading mass demonstrations involving the downtrodden. The decentralized community organizing approach of many Black Power organizations facilitated local activism to revitalize the struggle for black emancipation. Professor Joseph argues that scholars should “take Black Power activism seriously as a touchstone for the era’s social, political, cultural, and economic transformations and upheavals.”108 Although some contend that the militant rhetoric produced only violence, Joseph concludes that members “utilized the militant rhetoric of black power politics to mobilize

grassroots efforts to fight poverty, slum living conditions, and poor social services.”109

Furthermore, the strategy of local activism created a model across radical organizations with varying goals. As Joseph further explains, “the movement’s major impact resonated in the grassroots activism of thousands of community organizers, students, trade unionists, prisoners, intellectuals, low-income women, and preachers who adopted Black Power’s ethos of selfdetermination as an organizing tool.”110 Perhaps Black Power’s most significant consequence involved redefining the mechanisms and purpose of local activism in multiple social and political spheres.

Joseph isolates various examples of the positive effects of Black Power on local activism in American cities, including CORE’s Target City project, intended to further community-based strategies for the pursuit of racial equality. Organization US, a Black Nationalist entity with antiwar leanings, fought for political self-determination in local communities and an emphasis on revitalizing the popularity of Black arts.111 Collectively, the Organization fostered a “collective black consciousness, politicized art, and independent cultural centers.”112 In Philadelphia, Black Power leaders pursued decentralization of schools to foster an approach based on community control; while school board leaders opposed these moves, African-American families greatly benefited from attempts to reform the school district.113 Additionally, organizations created new private antipoverty services and fought the city for welfare rights to be implemented and enforced in an equitable manner. Perhaps most importantly, Black Power fought to alleviate the effects of police brutality as one of its core efforts in Philadelphia.114 In Atlanta, activist networks espousing Black Power ideology pursued pragmatic strategies to reform the police, education, welfare, tenant rights, and the dissemination of social services.115 As Joseph further explains, “Black power was manifested in Atlanta in eclectic ways, ranging from a radical think

tank called the Institute of the Black World to a local Panther chapter to a new class of black political leaders.”116 In particular, the SNCC operated heavily to connect the message of Black Power to international concerns by protesting against the Vietnam War. Collectively, these measures transformed city-wide race relations in Atlanta. New Orleans saw a substantially more radical approach, characterized by attempts to democratically overhaul most of the city’s functions.117 Ideologically, this approach was driven by a belief in self-determination in local politics; Black Power leaders argued that although the United States was in theory a supporter of self-determination for foreign countries but failed to provide that right to those struggling domestically.118 Furthermore, female icons of Black Power in New Orleans lobbied for improved access to social services; this role was largely emblematic of the need for a broader role for black women in Black Power organizations nation-wide.119

Black Power organizations led efforts in the particular policy areas of food distribution and public education. For example, the Black Panther Party actively involved itself in food politics by shifting its focus from violence to distribution programs.120 Their efforts began with breakfast programs to unite community members in Oakland and expanded to provide free groceries to impoverished families. The program relied on donations from grocery stores, and those who refused earned condemnation from the BPP for withholding food from poor children.121 This rhetoric fueled the BPP’s broader revolutionary stance against capitalism for its dangerous effects on minorities and the impoverished. Collectively, the food programs served to unify black families and generate support for the Panthers’ broader mission. As an emergency program for the undernourished, the food programs disabled opposition to the Black Panther Party.122 As Mary Potorti, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Social Sciences at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, contends in her essay “Feeding Revolution: The

Black Panther Party and the Politics of Food,” “How can anyone be against feeding kids?”123

Furthermore, Potorti argues that the food programs were politically strategic as they provided a “flexible and logical response to official efforts to thwart the Party's growth and influence.”124

The efforts represented not a transition from militancy to reformism but an aspect of the BPP’s radical critique of normative hierarchies.125 Furthermore, the survival programs mobilized the poor and spread the Party’s ideology to local youth, highlighting the failure of white liberal reformism.

In the policy area of public education, Black Power fought to reform access to education and to revolutionize the scholarly discussion of race in academia. Intellectual leaders fought to refocus social studies scholarship around issues of social justice and examine varying intellectual theories of black resistance and liberation. In particular, Black Nationalist consciousness fostered a revolutionary pedagogical approach involving an emphasis on African traditional thought.126 Just as important for Black Power organizations were the efforts to transform school districts across the country. According to Randolph G. Potts of the College of the Holy Cross’s Psychology Department, schools play a substantial role in reinforcing oppression and social injustices. Potts begins by defining oppression as both a state and a process.127 As a state, oppression is “reflected in pervasive social asymmetries,” and as a process it constitutes “systems of domination that marginalize, demonize, and rob the target group of dignity.”128 Inequality in education meets both of these definitions and reinforces existing social hierarchies. As a result, Potts advocates for a curriculum of emancipatory education, which addresses forms of oppression present in education and empowers students by preparing them to create social change.129 In the context of African-American youth, Potts argues for involving the study of African culture in the core curriculum, declaring that “ideas from emancipatory education […]

and African-centered education […] should guide school-based interventions in communities of people of African descent.”130 Potts connects his defense of emancipatory education as a source of empowerment to Black Power ideology by describing the efforts of “the SNCC Freedom Schools, the Liberation Schools of the Black Panther Party, the Malcolm X Academy in Detroit, Sankofa Shule in Lansing, the Institute for Positive Education/New Concept Development Center in Chicago, the Benjamin E. Mays Institute in Hartford,” each representative of Black Power’s ideology of revolutionizing education.131 The recognition of the valuable efforts of Black Power organizations in multiple policy areas and in cities across the nation serves to defeat the vision of Black Power as antagonistic to the Civil Rights Movement. The growth of Black Power as a parallel, supplementary aspect of the Civil Rights Movement opposes the perception that Black Power rose out of the ashes of civil rights.

More broadly, though, Black Power was a watershed moment for black activism by generating movements for community-based progress and transforming coalition-building strategies for racial justice and political self-determination. Despite the growing sociopolitical backlash against Black Power ideology, the movement thrived primarily because it espoused and emphasized a unified approach to a revolutionary ideology. While some Black Power programs were more effective than others, together they formed a movement that will forever serve as a blueprint for the effort to repair race relations in the United States.

Notes

1 Peniel E. Joseph, "The Black Power Movement: A State of the Field," The Journal of American History 96, no. 3 (December 2009): 752, accessed August 14, 2014, ProQuest.

2 Ibid.

3 Ibid, 755.

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid, 757.

6 Ibid.

7 Ibid, 751.

8 Ibid.

9 Ibid, 752.

10 Ibid, 764.

11 Ibid, 755.

12 Ibid, 756.

13 R. R. Reno, "Black Power, White Fear," First Things, March 2013, 3, accessed August 13, 2014, ProQuest Research Library.

14 Ibid.

15 Ibid, 4.

16 Joseph Alsop, "Civil Rights Movement Seems Derailed at Critical Junction," Los Angeles Times, December 1, 1965, sec. A, accessed August 7, 2014, ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

17 Ibid.

18 Ibid.

19 "Civil Rights Movement Has Been Derailed," The Hartford Courant, October 11, 1966, accessed August 3, 2014, ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

20 Ibid.

21 Ibid.

22 Crosby Noyes, "Road Forks for Civil Rights," Boston Globe, January 12, 1967, accessed August 7, 2014, ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

23 Ibid.

24 Ibid.

25 Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, "Black Nationalists May Take Over Civil Rights Movement in Chicago," The Washington Post, December 14, 1967, sec. A, accessed August 3, 2014, ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

26 Ibid.

27 Ibid.

28 Ibid.

29 Ibid.

30 Ibid.

31 Ibid.

32 Ibid.

33 Jane Rhodes, Framing the Black Panthers: The Spectacular Rise of a Black Power Icon (New York: New Press, 2007), 61.

34 Ibid.

35 Ibid, 77.

36 Ibid.

37 Ibid, 78.

38 Ibid.

39 Stokely Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton, "'The Myths of Coalition' from Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America," Race/Ethnicity: Multidisciplinary Global Contexts 1, no.

2 (Spring 2008): 171, accessed October 10, 2014, Project MUSE.

40 Ibid.

41 Ibid.

42 Ibid, 172.

43 Ibid.

44 Ibid.

45 Ibid, 181.

46 Ibid, 173.

47 Ibid.

48 Ibid.

49 Ibid.

50 Ibid, 178.

51 Ibid, 183.

52 Ibid.

53 Ibid, 174.

54 Ibid, 179.

55 Ibid.

56 Ibid, 181.

57 Ibid.

58 Ibid, 175.

59 Ibid.

60 Ibid, 176.

61 Ibid, 183.

62 Ibid.

63 Ibid, 184.

64 Ibid.

65 Joseph, "The Black Power Movement," 762.

66 Ibid.

67 Ibid, 761.

68 Ibid, 760.

69 Ibid, 762.

70 Ibid, 763.

71 Ibid, 764.

72 Cedric Johnson, "Panther Nostalgia as History," review of Black against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party, by Joshua Bloom and Waldo E. Martin, Jr, New Labor Forum 23, no. 2: 113.

73 Ibid.

74 Ibid.

75 Ibid, 114.

76 Carolyn R. Calloway, "Group Cohesiveness in the Black Panther Party,"Journal of Black Studies 8, no. 1 (September 1977): 60, accessed October 10, 2014, SAGE Journals Online.

77 Ibid, 62.

78 Ibid, 71.

79 Ibid, 72.

80 Joe Street, "The Historiography of the Black Panther Party," Journal of American Studies 44, no. 2 (May 2010): 352, accessed August 17, 2014, ProQuest.

81 Ibid.

82 Ibid.

83 Ibid, 353.

84 Ibid.

85 Ibid, 354.

86 Ibid.

87 Ibid, 355.

88 Ibid, 356.

89 Bobby Seale, "The Black Panther Party: The Early Years, Bobby Seal" (speech, Kutztown University, February 27, 2009).

90 Ibid.

91 Ibid.

92 Ibid.

93 Ibid.

94 Ibid.

95 Street, "The Historiography of the Black," 363.

96 Ibid.

97 Ibid, 362.

98 Ibid.

99 Ibid, 363.

100 Ibid.

101 Ibid, 367.

102 Ibid.

103 Ibid, 369.

104 Ibid.

105 Ibid, 370.

106 Ibid.

107 Ibid, 371.

108 Peniel E. Joseph, "Rethinking the Black Power Era," The Journal of Southern History 75, no. 3 (August 2009): 715, PDF.

109 Joseph, "The Black Power Movement," 765.

110 Joseph, "Rethinking the Black Power," 716.

111 Joseph, "The Black Power Movement," 770.

112 Ibid, 771.

113 Ibid, 766.

114 Ibid.

115 Ibid, 768.

116 Ibid.

117 Ibid.

118 Ibid.

119 Ibid.

120 Mary Potorti, "Feeding Revolution: The Black Panther Party and the Politics of Food," Radical Teacher, no. 98 (Winter 2014): 45, accessed October 10, 2014.

121 Ibid.

122 Ibid.

123 Ibid, 46.

124 Ibid, 47.

125 Ibid.

126 Peniel E. Joseph, "Dashikis and Democracy: Black Studies, Student Activism, and the Black Power Movement," The Journal of African American History 88, no. 2 (Spring 2003): 182, accessed October 10, 2014, JSTOR.

127 Randolph G. Potts, "Emancipatory Education versus School-Based Prevention in African American Communities," American Journal of Community Psychology 31, nos. 1-2 (March 2003): 173, accessed October 3, 2014, ProQuest.

128 Ibid, 174.

129 Ibid.

130 Ibid, 173.

131 Ibid, 173.

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