Please write a short answer response 2-3 paragraph in response to the following question I attach on files.

W h a t E v e r H a p p e n e d to B la c k P o w e r ? (A n d D o W e

C a r e ? )

by Reniqua Allen (/writers/reniquaallen)

W hen M alcolm X was assassinated on a sunny winter's day in 1965, m any thought black

radicalism would die with him . "M alcolm is our only hope. You can depend on him to tell it like it is

and to give W hitey hell," one m an told the New York Post. But the m ovem ent did not die in the

Audubon ballroom that tragic day. It in fact catapulted, sparking talk of revolution in black Am erica

and third world nations around the world and bloom ing into a black nationalist m ovem ent that

helped shape the politics of race for decades to com e.

Recently, there has been a lot of debate about M alcolm 's life and politics, due to a new biography, "The

Reinvention of M alcolm X (http://www.m alcolm xbio.com /)," by the late scholar M anning M arable

(http://colorlines.com /archives/2011/04/m anning_m arable_scholar_activist_visionary.htm l). The book depicts an

activist in constant m etam orphosis, a m an who went from being the target of the U.S. governm ent's anti

None:

Thu, M ay 12, 2011 10:19 AM EDT

Share5/17/2015 What Ever Happened to Black Power? (And Do We Care?) | Colorlines

http://www.colorlines.com/articles/whateverhappenedblackpoweranddowecare 1/7 intelligence program s to being heralded on a postal stam p 35 years later. However, while the debate rages on

about the reinvention of M alcolm , very few have questioned whether and how the black nationalist m ovem ent he

helped foster m atters today, or whether it should m atter.

A Proquest search of The New York Tim es archives shows that the phrase "Black Power" turned up at least 615

tim es in the paper in 1965, as M alcolm died and the m ovem ent shifted and grew. In 2010, the num ber was zero.

This highly unscientific study reflects how m uch the language, at least, has changed. But what about the ideas

and the politics it represented?

"As a m ovem ent it's part of our history, but its no m ore alive than the abolition m ovem ent," says Cedric Johnson,

a professor at Hobart and W illiam Sm ith Colleges, who wrote "Revolutionaries to Race Leaders: Black Power

and the M aking of African Am erican Politics (http://www.upress.um n.edu/Books/J/johnson_revolutionaries.htm l)."

"There's people who still are fighting for ideals, but I don't see it as a living breathing m ovem ent."

The black power m ovem ent rose to prom inence as a

counterpoint to engagem ent with the m ainstream political institutions of Am erica, particularly electoral politics.

Student activist Stokely Carm ichael, later known as Kwam e Ture, a leader of the Student Nonviolent

Coordinating Com m ittee, popularized the political label "Black Power" in 1966, saying it was tim e for black

people to unite and build their own com m unities. "The concept of Black Power rests on a fundam ental prem ise:

Before a group can enter the open society, it m ust first close ranks," wrote Ture and coauthor Charles Ham ilton

in a sem inal 1967 political treatise.

Ture and Ham ilton went on to explain how selfdeterm ination and selfdefinition are essential prerequisites to

revolutionand they did m ean revolution, not m erely change. The m ovem ent was often considered separatist

and antiwhite, but its adherents insisted it was just problack.

"W e shall have to struggle for the right to create our own term s through which to define ourselves and our

relationship to the society, and to have those term s recognized," Ture and Ham ilton wrote. "This is the first

necessity of a free people, and the first right that any oppressor m ust suspend."

These ideas, which have stirred through black politics in one form or another since slaves first revolted, have

influenced the politics of com m unity em powerm ent ever since. The right to selfdefinition as a precursor to

liberation has anim ated m ovem ents ranging from sexual freedom to disability rights. And black power itself cam e5/17/2015 What Ever Happened to Black Power? (And Do We Care?) | Colorlines

http://www.colorlines.com/articles/whateverhappenedblackpoweranddowecare 2/7 to dom inate race politics in densely black urban com m unities like O akland, Newark, Los Angeles, and Detroit

during its zenith.

Critics say the m ovem ent also brought with it a culture of sexism and violence. M oreover, it was said that the

m ovem ent was m ore talk and m achism o than real action and organizing. But it is nonetheless credited with

som e concrete achievem entsassisting in efforts to elect black m ayors and other governm ent officials in places

like Newark, Cleveland and Detroit; helping to institutionalize Black Studies departm ents on college cam puses;

the creation of the AfricanAm erican holiday Kwanzaa, which is celebrated worldwide; and creating and fostering

a cultural arts m ovem ent that produced artists like Sonia Sanchez, Am iri Baraka, and Nikki G iovanni.

Despite these accom plishm ents, black power faded in subsequent decades, both as an ideology and as a

m ovem ent. A testam ent to how m uch things changed is reflected in an early 1990s Ben & Jerry's advertisem ent

featuring Black Panther cofounder Bobby Seale. In the ad, Seale can be seen sm irking at the cam era as he

sports the Panthers' signature black beret, with a raised clenched fist in one hand and a container of vanilla ice

cream in the other. This im age of Seale, who also put out a collection of barbque recipes, was quite the contrast

from the m an who was on trial for inciting a riot at the Dem ocratic National Convention in 1968 and m urdering

an alleged police inform ant in the 1970s. O ther signs of the m ovem ents' shift with age are not as am using, or

stark; m any of the leaders entered academ ia, started nonprofits, or becam e politicians. Though younger

generations occasionally have reignited the nonconform ist, m ilitant vibe in pop culture (like Public Enem y and

Dead Prez), no one has quite captured the sam e spirit of political urgency.

"W e are m issing the m ilitancy, the love for discipline and the love for blackness that it gave us," argues O akland

based activist Lateefah Sim on of the Lawyers' Com m ittee on Civil Rights. She says that while there are strains of

the m ovem ent on the ground in O akland, the city once known as hom e to the Black Panther Party is virtually

bereft of viable black power politics today. "There is a lack of being unapologetically black, and I have not com e

across large, organized black power m ovem ents. The urgency, at least in this area, I don't think is alive."

Baraka, who once fam ously declared "it's nation tim e," argues that the urgency is gone because younger people

and m iddleclass African Am ericans have replaced the idea of com m unity with the ideal of the Am erican Dream .

"There are a whole lot of people in the younger generation that think things have always been like thisthat it's

about them , personally, m oving on up, like the show used to say, rather than understanding the struggle of the

whole people," Baraka says. "The black m iddle class [also] doesn't feel like their future is tied to the future of

black Am erica."

This is ironic, if true, since black youth and the m iddle class have been am ong the hardest hit during the

econom ic downturn, and President O bam a has yet to release a specific policy to address their needs.

Unem ploym ent for black youth

(http://colorlines.com /archives/2010/11/will_great_recession_widen_racial_wealth_gap.htm l) is at nearly 42

percent, and 19 percent for black high school graduatesthat sam e group that played such a prom inent role in

black power m ovem ents. The m iddle class is not faring m uch better

(http://colorlines.com /archives/2011/02/backward_m obility_and_am ericas_broken_prom ises.htm l). Black

hom eownership is steadily falling, foreclosure rates in the black com m unity are the highest am ong any group,

and in 2010 black college graduates under the age of 25 were unem ployed at alm ost twice the rate of white

graduates. But an aversion to politics in the black m iddle class is also not a new assertion; it was a core critique

of the black power m ovem ent from its inception.5/17/2015 What Ever Happened to Black Power? (And Do We Care?) | Colorlines

http://www.colorlines.com/articles/whateverhappenedblackpoweranddowecare 3/7 Chawn Kweli, a spokesm an for the controversial New Black

Panther Partya group whose leaders have been known for m aking disturbing statem ents like "I hate white

people" and "kill every goddam n Zionist in Israel"feels optim istic about the future of a new black power

m ovem ent. He sees m ovem ent on the ground, and says events like the NBPP's Day of Action, held in 60 cities in

April, prove there is energy, though he adm its it's "not the sam e as before."

He says today's m ovem ent m ay not be as visible, but the ethos of power through unity rem ains. "I can't point

you to an Afro or dashiki and say it's a sym bol of the m ovem ent, but I can say that the unity today is [a sym bol].

Today, you can't look at a person with a leather jacket and say that's a Panther. It's the brother with a suit, and

that brother with a bandana, too."

In fact, som e foundational ideas from the m ovem ent have endured within the black com m unitythough with a

strikingly different em phasis. Selfdeterm ination and personal control over one's destiny are today central talking

points for everyone from President O bam a to Bill Cosbyhardly the revolutionaries Ture had in m ind back in '66.

Johnson argues that the selfem powerm ent rhetoric of today, however, has m orphed the idea into a focus on

personal and cultural responsibility, rather than using it as a tool to strike at the structural flaws Ture addressed.

"The cultural stuff its am iable to the tim e," Johnson says. "It coincides with the idea of a New Dem ocrat. It

survives because it's not troublesom e. In the earlier period it was a general consensus that the system was to

blam e, [but then we were told] it was not system atic, it was cultural. Now [that opinion] is widely held."

Kom ozi W oodard, a history professor at Sarah Lawrence College, and a form er m inister of econom ics in

Newark's black nationalist m ovem ent, believes m om entum for the black power of Ture's day was lost after the

m ovem ent m ade gains. "W hen black students won m ajor victories in term s of adm issions and financial aid, Black

Studies courses and black professors, som e of the basic reasons for their origins had been satisfied," he

suggests. "Consequently, m any student m ovem ents experienced dem obilization."

So what would a rem obilized black power m ovem ent look like, in an era with a black president and sprawling

black suburbs? Baraka suggests it m ay have m ore of a focus on electoral politics and an increase in alliances

and coalitions with other organizations. Sim on, of the Lawyers' Com m ittee, sees m ore respect for wom en, who

have always been a cornerstone of com m unity politics but were often overshadowed by m en in black power

circles. She also believes an engagem ent with the queer com m unity will be essential. In other words, a whole5/17/2015 What Ever Happened to Black Power? (And Do We Care?) | Colorlines

http://www.colorlines.com/articles/whateverhappenedblackpoweranddowecare 4/7 (/archives/2014/05/life_cycles_of_inequity.html)

Crim e, Punishm ent and Black Politics (/articles/crim epunishm entandblackpolitics)

by Katti Gray on May 28, 2010 12:05 PM

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host of things that were anathem a to the original ideology, which eschewed the white m an's political institutions,

was deeply skeptical of alliances (Ture and Ham ilton included a chapter titled "The M yths of Coalition") and

featured som e infam ously hom ophobic m achism o.

Perhaps that's why Johnson is skeptical of a revival of any kind. "I kind of doubt that sam e history will repeat

itself," he says.

M arable writes in his new biography of M alcolm that "no single personality ever captured him fully, in this sense

his narrative is a brilliant series of reinventions, M alcolm X just being his best known." Perhaps the sam e can be

said of Black Power, with no single person, event or era fully capturing the essence of an ideology that has been

a part of black culture, in one form or another, since the 18th century. Perhaps it is an evolving part of black

history, with peaks and zeniths, that is continually growing, revitalizing, and of course reinventing the narrative of

the people.

Reniqua Allen is a freelance journalist who has worked with outlets ranging from PBS's "Bill M oyers Journal" to

Black Enterprise m agazine. She is a Ph.D student at Rutgers University in Am erican Studies, focusing on the

intersections of the black m iddle class, pop culture and politics.5/17/2015 What Ever Happened to Black Power? (And Do We Care?) | Colorlines

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by Reniqua Allen on May 12, 2011 10:05 AM

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