2.1 - CR - BPM & black panthers Flashcards
(5 cards)
What did Black Power mean?
The black power movement developed in the mid 1960s and it had a variety of meaning. For instance Cleveland sellers of SNCC said ‘there was a deliberate attempt to make ambiguous so that it meant everything to everybody’ but most white people associated black power with violence but for many black people it meant political and social independence particular racial pride. MLK also stated that there was a dire need for some dignity and offence pride and he thought that the black power movement was an attempt to develop that pride.
What were Stokely Carmichael’s main views and how did these differ from those of Martin Luther King and the SCLC?
Stokely Carmichael wrote in his book black power that nonviolence is foolish when faced with someone who was white then on destroying you he urged black Americans to close ranks and reject interracial protests instead he emphasise solidarity with anti colonial movements in the less developed nations Carmichael envision eventual integration but only when black Americans could be accepted as real equals
How successful were the Black Panthers in meeting their aims? Explain both their successes and failures in reaching your judgement.
Black power movement contributed to growing black pride and the movement raised black American morale especially by encouraging college courses on black history and culture. However black power failed to solve ghetto problems but they were probably insoluble given white unwillingness to fund improvements. There is considerable disagreement over the impact of black power in relation to violence as what most black Americans considered to be self defence most white Americans perceived as violence. Some suggest that self defence and or violence alienated whites and damaged the previously effective civil rights movement so that it was unable to achieve much after 1965 but others point out the impossibility of progress in dealing with ghetto problems. Some argue that black power movement played a part in encouraging some white support for affirmative action.
► The black Panthers won support among many ghetto residents with their practical help they had over 40 clinics advising on health welfare and legal rights for example they're on breakfast programmes for thousands of poor black school children and raised awareness of sickle cell anaemia a disease that disproportionately affected black people in 1969 the Black Panther set up their first liberation school a summer school for black children in Berkeley the curriculum in the schools was designed to generate knowledge of and pride and black culture and history other schools followed in cities such as Philadelphia and New York A major Black Panther aim was to combat police brutality they stockpiled weapons for self defence and tailed the police in hopes of exposing their brutality in 1967 Black Panther surrounded and entered the California State legislature to protect repressive legislation such actions coupled with their paramilitary uniforms weapons and rhetoric made the black Panthers appear strong and fearless to those who had long been oppressed however such actions antagonised the white authorities and not surprisingly the black Panthers were targeted by the police and the FBI out of the many court cases against the black Panthers the most famous was the case of the Chicago eight who arrested for conspiring to incite a riot at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968
Stokely Carmichael
- One of the original SNCC freedom riders of 1961. Inspired by Malcolm X, Carmichael became one of the most popular and controversial Black leaders of the late 1960s. June 1966, uses the term ‘Black Power’ in a speech in Mississippi.
- In 1967, he went on a trip to visit revolutionary leaders in Cuba, North Vietnam, China and Guinea. After joining the Black Panthers, Carmichael settled in Washington DC and from this time onwards, he was under nearly constant surveillance by the FBI. Critical of the Vietnam War.
- J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI, targeted him, and Carmichael fled to Africa in 1968. He re-established himself in Ghana, and then Guinea by 1969, where he adopted the new name of Kwame Ture.
- The Cold War. 1959: Cuba’s communist revolution (Fidel Castro and Che Guevara). From the mid-1960s, escalation of the Vietnam War.
- Decolonisation in Africa. 1960s: wars of liberation in Angola and Mozambique (Portuguese colonies). Apartheid in South Africa.
- 1966: the SNCC voted to expel all white members, and Rap Brown (the new leader) called on black Americans to take over white-owned stores in black ghettos, using violence if necessary
1966: CORE chose a new chairperson, radical Floyd McKissick; at its Baltimore convention they endorsed Black Power. In 1967 they removed the term ‘multiracial’ from their aims and by 1968, whites were excluded.
Black Panther Party
- Founded 1966, Oakland CA, Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale (right). Focus: police brutality, ghettos, economic discrimination
- Eventually developed into a Marxist revolutionary group that called for the arming of all African Americans, the exemption of African Americans from the draft and from all sanctions of so-called white America, the release of all African Americans from jail, and the payment of compensation to African Americans for centuries of exploitation by white Americans.
At its peak in the late 1960s, Panther membership exceeded 2,000, and the organization operated chapters in several major American cities.
