Black Power: Black Pride And African-American Culture

"Black Power" was seen as a way of resurrecting "Black Pride" and African-American culture. Carmichael said in 1966: "We have to do what every group in this country did - we gotta take over the community where we outnumber people so we can have decent jobs." For years, the movement's leaders said, blacks had been trying to aspire to white ideals of what they should be. Now it was time for blacks to set their own agenda, putting their needs and aspirations first. ~ http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/black_power.htmThe NAACP condemned "Black Power" as a "menace to peace and prosperity, no negro who is fighting for civil rights can support black power, which is opposed to civil rights and integration." ~
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/black_power.htmMartin
Luther King was more diplomatic in his criticism of the phrase. He believed that the term "Black Power" was “unfortunate because it tends to give the impression of Black Nationalism, black supremacy would be as evil as white supremacy.” ~ http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/black_power.htmInitially forming for the protection of African American neighbourhoods from police brutality, the party evolved to provide social services to improve health and alleviate poverty in the inner cities. ~ https://www.boundless.com/u-s-history/textbooks/boundless-u-s-history-textbook/the-sixties-1960-1969-29/the-expansion-of-the-civil-rights-movement-220/black-power-1224-9760/When King was murdered in 1968, Stokely Carmichael stated that whites murdered the one person who would prevent rampant rioting, and that blacks would burn every major city to the ground. Racial riots broke out in the black community in cities from Boston to San Francisco following King's death. As a result, the white population fled from many areas in these cities and city crews were often hesitant to enter affected areas, leaving Blacks in a dilapidated and nearly irreparable city. ~ https://www.boundless.com/u-s-history/textbooks/boundless-u-s-history-textbook/the-sixties-1960-1969-29/the-expansion-of-the-civil-rights-movement-220/black-power-1224-9760/The movement uplifted the black community as a whole by cultivating feelings of racial solidarity, often in opposition to the world of white Americans, a world that had physically and psychologically oppressed Blacks for generations.
Through the movement, Blacks came to understand themselves and their culture by exploring and debating the question, “who are we?” in order to establish a unified and viable identity. ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Power#Impact_on_African-American_identity Though the same social messages may no longer consciously influence individual hair or clothing styles in today’s society, the Black Power movement was influential in diversifying standards of beauty and aesthetic choices. The Black Power movement raised the idea of a black aesthetic that revealed the worth and beauty of all black people. ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Power#Impact_on_African-American_identityThe Black Power salute was a noted human rights protest and one of the most overtly political statements in the 110 year history of the modern Olympic Games. African American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos performed their Black Power salute at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico
City.
Smith and Carlos were immediately ejected from the games by the United States Olympic Committee and were later issued a permanent lifetime ban. ~

The Black Arts movement, seen by some as connected to the Black Power movement flourished in the 1960s and 1970s.
Young black poets, authors, and visual artists found their voices and shared those voices with others. Unlike earlier black arts movements such as the Harlem Renaissance, the new movement primarily sought out a black audience. ~http://law.jrank.org/pages/4776/Black-Power-Movement.html#ixzz3HTGBvdeGThe solutions that some Black Power leaders advocated seemed only to create new problems. Some, for example, suggested that blacks receive paramilitary training and carry guns to protect themselves. Though these individuals insisted this device was solely a means of self defence and not a call to violence, it was still unnerving to think of armed civilians walking the streets. ~Black Power Movement - Blacks, Rights, Whites, and Civil - JRank Articles http://law.jrank.org/pages/4776/Black-Power-Movement.html#ixzz3HTIuPzkMBlack Power movement was never a formally organized movement; it had no central leadership, which meant that different organizations with divergent agendas often could not agree on the best course of action. The more radical groups accused the more mainstream groups of capitulating to whites, and the more mainstream accused the more radical of becoming too ready to use violence. By the 1970s, most of the formal organizations that had come into prominence with the Black Power movement, such as the SNCC and the Black Panthers, had all but
disappeared.
The Black Power movement did not succeed in getting blacks to break away from white society and create a separate society. Nor did it help end discrimination or racism. It did, however, help provide some of the elements that were ultimately necessary for blacks and whites to gain a fuller understanding of each other.