Black Power

Black Power

Early stages
1. The Nation of Islam
  1. Founded in 1930 by Wallace Fard Muhammad
  2. Fard outlined a distinctive teaching
    1. Allah created man and the first humans were black
      1. But 6000 years ago Yacub (an evil scientist) started selective breeding to create white people
        They were morally weak and unable to do good - over the years they enslaved all people that weren't white
        This doctrine - that asserts the superiority of black people - has been called black supremacism
  3. Elijah Muhammed led from 1934
    1. Fard mysteriously disappeared in 1934
    2. Added political and practical edge to Fard's teachings
      1. Advocated separatism
        Black people should choose to live apart from white people
        Practical terms - creating a self governing all-black state in the territory of North America
      2. Stay pure and work hard.
        Believed they could be seduced in northern cities by drugs, cigarettes, alcohol and sex.
        Taught that these and coffee, pork, jazz, blues gambling and the cinema were another way of enslaving black people
        Only way to guarantee self improvement
  4. Attractive to young black men in working class areas of northern cities
    1. Trying to escape from glamourous but illegal world of gambling, prostitution and drugs
    2. Encouraged them to find dignity in hard work and self-discipline
      1. This appealed to black ex-convicts
        Practically none who joined re-offended
Organisation of Afro-American Unity (OAAU)
1. Set up by Malcolm X after his break from the NoI
  1. But collapsed after his assassination
2. Link betwen the strggle against white oppression in America and the anti-colonial struggle in Africa
  1. Aimed to organise and re-educate black Americans in order ot gain economic security for black people across the world
3. In America they organised:
  1. voter registration campaigns
  2. school boycotts in areas where the education for black people was unsatisfactory
  3. social programmes to help drug addicts
  4. rent strikes where housing was inadequate
  5. Encouraged re-education through publishing new textbooks and developing new teaching methods
    1. home schooling to emphasise self-relance, black pride and solidarity with black Africans struggling against colonialism
4. Integration
  1. Malcolm X started to rethink integration
    1. 'The Ballot or the Bullet' speech 1964
      1. Advocated working within the American political system
    2. Announced willingness to work with organisation such as CORE and SNCC
      1. In order to improve conditions for black people
    3. After his Hajj, reconsidered possibility of a society where black and white people could live as equals
      1. Witnessed harmony between the two in Mecca
      2. Saw white students trying to improve conditions for black people in Africa
Black Panthers
1. Founded on 15th October 1966
  1. Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale
2. Focused on two aspects of black liberation
  1. self-defence
    1. Black people needed an organised defence
      1. Couldn't trust the police or the American justice system
    2. Formed its own militia who patrolled black neighbourhoods
      1. Uniform: black beret, blue shirt and black leather jackets
  2. economic improvements

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	Created by Abbie Fisher about 10 years ago