Black Power Movement

Introduction

W.E.B. Dubois was the first Afro-American to graduate from Harvard University with a Ph.D. He founded the Niagara Movement in 1906. Dubois was approached by a white body of people approached him to let ten absorb his all-black membership to launch a national interracial organization following a race loot in Springfield, Illinois in 1908. This led to the establishment of National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). They utilized the legal system as an indirect approach to bring change, but it was very slow to surface. This led to the increase in cry for “Black Power” through the streets of United States. This was a call for direct action by means of economic boycotts, voter registration, standing up to police brutality, and additional engagements.

The purpose of this research is to examine how the proponents of direct action used a strategic approach to send out their message to the economic base of United States; to operate from a platform of non-violence so that people at home and abroad could identify the real aggressor of racism, and to launch an out-out front for self defense to withstand the battleground of retaliation against black people. During the movement, there was a radical artistic renaissance, massive political organizing, and vigorous ideological debate. The characteristics of the movement were a variety of bookstores, alternate magazines and underground newspapers and radio, television programs.History

James Meredith was the first Afro-American to graduate from the University of Mississippi and a veteran of the Civil Rights Movement. In 1966, Meredith began a symbolic walk that he believed would help tear down the fear that had gripped the Negroes in Mississippi. However, unfortunately Meredith was shot by a sniper on the second day of the march that put an end to his “March against Fear”. This attack on Meredith was considered by many Afro-Americans to be the ultimate futility of nonviolent resistance as a direct-action strategy against racism and fear.

The Civil Right Movement sent its mainstream members to stop the March including Martin Luther King Jr., Stokely Carmichael and Willie Ricks. Upon reaching Greenwood, Carmichael was arrested for trespassing on public property, and when he was released from the police later that even, he galvanized the audience with calls for “Black Power”. The Black Power Movement consisted of groups like the Black Panther Party (BPP), the US group, and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

Black Power Movement was in many comprised of everything that the non-violent movement did not advocate including racism, use of violence and self-reliance. It aimed to improve the political and economic condition of the Black people and attempted to change the Black culture. It considered Black unity to be the fundamental building block of the race and attached a lot of importance to self determination and taking pride in the black culture. Malcolm X founded the basis of the ideology for the black power philosophy with his consistent demand for creating a sense of pride and self reliance among the ...