Ideology Behind Black Power

The ideology behind Black Power has been around since before Marcus Garvey and was subsequently not created in the 1960s. However, the term Black Power was originally popularised as a slogan in 1966 by Stokely Carmichael, the leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), who quickly became prominent in the civil rights era, because he knew the United States would never be a truly biracial society, with police brutality and sheer racial living standards inequalities especially in northern cities. As a result, he knew non-violent direct action was not the answer to gaining economic gains for a strong African American society, this term evolved to describe the ideology for an African American movement focused on gaining not only
Black Power also had a militant political wing of Black Nationalism, the Black Panther Party (BPP) are the most popularised example of a Black Nationalist paramilitary movement, they emphasised there Fifth Amendment, and promoted the use of guns for African Americans to defend against white brutality. Black Power also produced a revolution within the artistic community, which produced a new controversial era in popular culture and literature, which included a Black Pride music movement, James Brown highlighted this revolutionary ideology within many of his song in this era, including the song “Black Power”. Although Black Power definition has been widely debated amongst historian, it is evidently represented throughout African American society; this essay will highlight the ideology and physical aspects behind Black Power within respect to Black Nationalism, self-defence movements and the cultural effects Black Power has had and how it collectively defines what Black Power was in African American society in this
Stokley Carmichael is a key example, he had a distrust for the white liberal involvement in African American Civil Rights, he thought they saw their involvement as somewhat charity work, which was not needed to solve the majority of African American struggles, this reflected within the party which resulted in a rediscovered thinking for an direct nationalistic movement. This new found philosophy of Black Nationalism within the SNCC subsequently resulted in discontent; many members of the movements called for complete removal of all white members, this change in attitude resulted in Carmichael election as chairman. This change in leadership consequently shows a change in ideology within the Civil Rights Movement as a result of the desperation within American society for African American Americans; this is evident with the SNCC previously being a non-violent movement which evolved into a mass Black Power movement. June 1966, was the culmination for the popularisation of the slogan Black Power; at the Meredith Marches Carmichael was publically arrested to gain substantial coverage whilst he chanted “Black Power” to the onlookers. Getting publicly arrested helped get the