Media American Politics Richard Davis
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Though misunderstood and misrepresented by the media and it is opponents, the 1960s Black Power motion touched each aspect of American culture, and like the “New Negro” Movement of the 1920s, African Americans came of age, getting self-determining and racially conscious. Black people- sharecroppers, unionists, welfare and tenants rights organizers, students, intellectuals, poets, musicians and singers and politicians-grounded in the ideology of Black Power, begun to coordinate around controlling their own lives and institutions. The motion pointedly questioned the capacity of America’s democracy to extend justice, citizenship and equality of chance to African Americans, castigating America for it is failure to live up to the principles of democracy. Unfortunately, the confrontational style and exercise the Black Power Movement has obscured it is pivotal role in transforming American democracy. Yet, it is cultural and political mode of thought and practice- it is selfasserting posture, strong rhetoric and uncompromising critique-permanently altered the political landscape of America as well as the identity of African Americans. At a time when blacks were still referring to themselves as “Negroes”, penitent of being black, of their hair, and their African heritage, the motion for power by black people in 1966 roared on the national stage transforming the consciousness of African Americans. Thus, coined and extrapolated by Kwame Toure, Black Power captured the spirit and imagination of black people, setting a new national agenda with global ramifications. To be sure, the Black Power motion imagined the future prospects or potentials for black empowerment and American democracy. Its unflinching call for the advertising of black history and black studies; it is Pan African impulse; it is far-reaching criticism of racism at home and imperialism abroad, expanded the dialog and parameters of the black freedom struggle. Resultantly, black people begun to turn inward, using their cultural amount of energy to push back versus racism and to affirm their own humanity and to hug an African centric worldview. So far-reaching and so expansive was the tentacles of the Black Power motion that no venue or sector was untouched by it is imaginativeness and critique. The Black Power salute in the 1968 Olympic by Tommie Smith and John Carlos, for example, was the most overly political affirmations in the history of the modern Olympic Games. The salute was share of a protest to call attention to the injustices black Americans were facing. Another sector to a considerable degree impacted by ideology and direction of Black Power Movement, was the music industry. The music in the late 1960s started out to reflect the influence of the movement- James Brown, Say it Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud, the anthem for the Black Power Movement, Nina Simone, To Be Young Gifted and Black, The Temptations, Message From A Black Man. Besides this, the “Natural”, a hair style which evolved into a cultural and political statement for black men and women, and the dashiki, which became the dominant form of dress for African Americans, were representative of the African centric perspective of blacks. Politically, at both the local and national level, black humans started to coordinate around the three ends of Black Power-self-respect, self-determination, and self-defense. In 1967 the introductory Black Power Conference was kept in Newark. A Black Power Manifesto came out of this conference, condemning “neo-colonialist control” of black populations international and calling for the circulation of a “philosophy of blackness” that would unite and direct the oppressed in mutual cause. In 1972 Black Power advocates, organized and called for a State of the Union meeting, firstborn National Black Political Convention. Delegates included elected officials and revolutionaries, integrationists and black nationalists, Baptists and Muslims (the widows of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X- Coretta Scott King and Betty Shabazz- both attended). Participants were buoyed by the spirit of possibility, and themes of unity and self-determination. In a real sense, Black Power ushered in a new black politics. In Dark Days Bright Nights, Peniel Joseph, argues persuasively that the politics of Black Power included a “cultural ethos that redefined black identity by advancing rebelliously ordinary images of racial pride and self-determination.” Peniel adds that Black Power “waged a war of attrition to in order to utilise Black Studies programs…established independent schools, educations centers, cultural centers, and think tanks…the new black politics featured confederacies amongst elected officials and black nationalist militants, and a cultural motion that employed art to exaggerate black knowingness and helped forged an global bequest that viewed African liberation as the crown jewel of a global revolution.” Peniel concludes that all of this in turn “planted seeds that partially inspired post-Black Power era anti-apartheid activisms,” and that; “If the civil rights worked from the outside-in by paving the way for legal and legislative reforms, Black Power worked in reverse, imbuing the race cognizance and pride within the African American communities upon which much of contemporary black identity is based.” In brief, different from the Civil Rights Movement, which has had it is signal events integrated into the fabric of America’s political and cultural foundations and historical memory through the media and academic historians, the Black Power Movement has been specified by it is excesses and demonized by the media and marginalized in history of the 1960s. Yet, failure to recognize the achievements of the Black Power Movement and rescue it is bequest serves only to diminish the history of the social justice movement, including civil rights, and the contemporary racial justice movement. To be sure, this Movement made significant attainments in transforming African American politic and culture, and in reforming American institutions: laying the groundwork for the Jesse Jackson’s candidacy for the Democratic 1984 and 1988 presidential nominations, the election of Ron Brown as the firstborn African American chair of the Democratic National Committee, and the election of Barack Obama, the original African American elected President of the United States of America. |
