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
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
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