‘‘Black Power’’

Although African American writers and politicians used the term ‘‘Black Power’’ for years, the expression first entered the lexicon of the civil rights movement during the Meredith March Against Fear in the summer of 1966. Martin Luther King, Jr. believed that Black Power was ‘‘essentially an emotional concept’’ that meant ‘‘different things to different people,’’ but he worried that the slogan carried ‘‘connotations of violence and separatism’’ and opposed its use (King, 32; King, 14 October 1966). The controversy over Black Power reflected and perpetuated a split in the civil rights movement between organizations that maintained that nonviolent methods were the only way to achieve civil rights goals and those organizations that had become frustrated and were ready to adopt violence and black separatism.

On 16 June 1966, while completing the march begun by James Meredith, Stokely Carmichael of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) rallied a crowd in Greenwood, Mississippi, with the cry, ‘‘We want Black Power!’’ Although SNCC members had used the term during informal conversations, this was the first time Black Power was used as a public slogan. Asked later what he meant by the term, Carmichael said, ‘‘When you talk about black power you talk about bringing this country to its knees any time it messes with the black man … any white man in this country knows about power. He knows what white power is and he ought to know what black power is’’ (‘‘Negro Leaders on ‘Meet the Press’’’). In the ensuing weeks, both SNCC and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) repudiated nonviolence and embraced militant separatism with Black Power as their objective.

Although King believed that ‘‘the slogan was an unwise choice,’’ he attempted to transform its meaning, writing that although ‘‘the Negro is powerless,’’ he should seek ‘‘to amass political and economic power to reach his legitimate goals’’ (King, October 1966; King, 14 October 1966). King believed that ‘‘America must be made a nation in which its multi-racial people are partners in power’’ (King, 14 October 1966). Carmichael, on the other hand, believed that black people had to first ‘‘close ranks’’ in solidarity with each other before they could join a multiracial society (Carmichael, 44).

Although King was hesitant to criticize Black Power openly, he told his staff on 14 November 1966 that Black Power ‘‘was born from the wombs of despair and disappointment. Black Power is a cry of pain. It is in fact a reaction to the failure of White Power to deliver the promises and to do it in a hurry.… The cry of Black Power is really a cry of hurt’’ (King, 14 November 1966).

As the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and other civil rights organizations rejected SNCC and CORE’s adoption of Black Power, the movement became fractured. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Black Power became the rallying call of black nationalists and revolutionary armed movements like the Black Panther Party, and King’s interpretation of the slogan faded into obscurity. - End -