How the Cry for Black Power Began

...The psychic vacuum that now exists must be filled in the absence of real opportunities for economic and social betterment...

...After the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Bills were passed and the poverty program was initiated, many civil rights supporters concluded that the racial problem was on its way to a happy solution...

...IV At the same time that the movement was going through this severe crisis, new situations were developing that demanded their attention...

...What is to keep a ghetto Negro from accepting the slogan of "black power" and rejecting the non-violence of Martin Luther King if the integration movement seems no more able to change his situation than the nationalist groups...

...And although there are growing doubts about progress, the belief has still not taken hold that all exits from the ghetto are permanently blocked...

...As a result, the Johnson Administration won over the moderates and disoriented the militants...

...Gains won on the national level with the passage of civil rights legisla tion were slow to filter down to the black belt counties of the South...

...Without a national program of its own, the Negro movement reacted to the Administration's economic measures by recognizing their inadequacies in narrow rather than in broad terms...

...For example, most protests have centered around the question of "maximum participation" of the poor in OEO programs...

...Integrationists, both white and Negro, left the two organizations...

...But they were unsuccessful, as the NAACP on one side and SNCC and CORE on the other went their separate ways...

...Moderate groups like the NAACP grabbed on to the President's coattails, to ride out this difficult period, and lost some of their effectiveness...

...SNCC and CORE moved away from the idea of liberal coalition and into a proud isolation...

...and it signifies a rejection of alliances with liberals...

...A few people kept their heads and concluded that the slogan, while full of sound and fury, was only another symptom of America's failure to face the huge economic and social problems underlying its racial crisis...

...But the real problem is that the majority of Negroes have made little or no social and economic progress since the time America and its President became civil rights conscious—and about this crucial fact LBJ kept silent...

...It has been called upon by necessity both to create a new climate of liberalism and prod other social forces into constructive action...

...Two major consequences followed: white supporters, unwilling to turn out when the civil rights leadership was not united, drifted off...

...It sounds militant, but it marks a retreat into the ghettos of the North and enclaves in the South—a continuation of protest without politics...

...Through the inadequacy of its approach to poverty and unemployment, the Johnson Administration has encouraged nationalistic tendencies in both the civil rights movement and the Negro community...

...It will be a sign of frustration and perhaps demoralization...

...But right now it looks like a tactic born of frustration rather than out of a belief that real social change is possible...

...The "separate but equal" echoes that can be heard in the speeches of some exponents of "black power," combined with their advocacy of "selfhelp" economic projects, do not signal any radical departures at all...

...These are the mood of the masses of Negroes in the North and the state of the civil rights movement...

...therefore they do not develop new concepts of themselves based on changed social roles...

...It is in the context of these de velopments that the cry of "black power" raised by the leaders of SNCC and CORE needs to be understood...

...But at the same time, on a grass roots level, the movement remained largely indifferent to the attempts to generate action against Administration compromises with conservatives which watered down minimum wage and unemployment compensation bills, as well as other social welfare legislation...

...If "black power" is widely accepted in the Negro community rather than being a mere way of letting off steam, its acceptance will not be a sign of activism or awareness of potential political power...

...The slogan of "black power"— for it is more a slogan than a strategy—is vague enough to appeal tonationalists, unemployed youth, disillusioned integrationists, Negro businessmen and (it must especially be noted) old-line machine politicians...

...It was one-third stopgap and two-thirds talk...

...This might have been an occasion for some cool reflection and meaningful action by the nation's leaders...

...SCLC, with its support from the Negro Church and Dr...

...It also led to an increase in black nationalist sentiment...

...Although the poverty program was an indirect result of pressure from the civil rights movement, it had not been designed to its specifications and needs...

...Those who will profit most from this slogan will be the cynical Negro machine politicians, not the idealistic militants who want to uplift the Negro masses...

...The inability of the civil rights movement to stimulate significant and concrete socio-economic gains helps along this process of compensation...

...SNCC and CORE workers in the South were embittered by the fact that racial violence was still an everyday occurrence—despite all the marches, protests and legislation...

...There is a growing frustration in the movement which is somewhat different in character from the discontent felt by unorganized Negroes...

...But SNCC and CORE, lacking these resources and without any social base, are having a difficult time...

...In past periods of stagnation, since the times of Booker T. Washington and Marcus Garvey, nationalistic ideologies and self-help economic programs took a strong hold on the Negro masses...

...To some extent the slogan accurately reflects moods in the ghetto...

...It offers a rallying point for Negro and white supporters of integration and economic progress...

...The thrust of Administration actions thus far has been toward moderate improvement within the slums, rather than a fundamental program to break down ghetto walls...

...Those of us who believe "black power" leads to a dead end and that a basic change can only come through an alliance of Negroes, trade unionists, liberals, and democratic radicals, must now prove our point in the political arena...

...It will not, in the present circumstances, be easy...

...II To understand the emergence of the "black power" slogan at this time there are two things to be considered besides the narrow political-economic scope of Administration policy...

...Unlike those periods of retreat, 474 however, the mood today among Negroes is still assertive...

...Perhaps they will explain...

...Today, as distinct from the Eisenhower era and other periods of stagnation, there are real possibilities for social change But the failure of the traditional liberal organizations to move effectively for programs that deal with the problems of the ghetto has placed an enormous burden on the civil rights movement...

...It should therefore, not be surprising that this tendency is also reflected in the thinking of some sections of the civil rights movement, particularly among those groups which have no economic program as a basis for action...

...Some were tempted by good salaries...

...When he appropriated the moral rhetoric of the Negro revolution in his "We shall overcome" speech, the movement had still not developed a meaningful economic program to challenge the LBJ moderate consensus...

...In part, this reflects the nature of the poverty program which "Balkanizes" the Ne gro community by requiring local groups to compete for inadequate funds...

...President Johnson, aware of the weakened state of the movement, could more easily resist its pressures...

...And the cumulative effect was organizational crisis of major proportions...

...It has been forced to confront not only discrimination, but all the basic inequalities in American society...

...Indeed, "black power" would be at an advantage...

...The activists left in SNCC and CORE face not only the general crisis in the movement over program and strategy, but their own very organizational problems...

...The civil rights movement, as Bayard Rustin points out, has succeeded, through the admirable qualities it displayed in adversity, in destroying the stereotypes ascribed to the Negro by white society, that he is lazy, dirty, happy-go-lucky, without ambition and willing to accept his condition...

...Leaders like Martin Luther King, A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin tried to maintain the unity of the movement around an economic program and a strategy for implementing it through "coalition politics...

...Others, like the new leaders of CORE, hailed it as the solution for black Americans...

...Negroes who no longer accept the myth of racial inferiority, still lack decent jobs, schools and housing...

...Equality was promised to Negro citizens...

...This paradox is another reason for frustration in the movement...

...The painful rebuffs Negroes receive from American society can then be reversed and a Negro can say "I don't want to integrate with them," "I don't need any white allies," etc...

...Government measures, at best, are limited to improving conditions of Negro life in the confines of the ghetto...

...In Chicago, where Martin Luther King is trying to organize a movement for integration and economic equality, the Negro community still has some hope for change and the attraction of nationalist ideologies is limited...

...Thus, civil rights groups were growing organizationally weaker at a time when there came about new problems and increasing activity in the Northern ghettos around the issue of poverty and in the South around voter registration and political action...

...King's popularity in the liberal community, can sustain itself...

...The Voting Rights Bill opened new possibilities in the South, but SNCC's income fell off drastically and its programs had to be curtailed...

...The poverty program has also absorbed many skilled civil rights acti vists...

...Furthermore, the minimum basis for Negro unity, once provided by campaigns for the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Bills, no longer existed...

...It provides a national plan with specific economic targets, a timetable for end *Full details will be presented by the A. Philip Randolph Institute this fall...

...But the movement has not been fully able to replace the old stereotypes with positive concepts and values...

...Many Negroes therefore seize on their blackness as something of positive value—even as an indication of superior worth...

...III If "black power" makes inroads against "freedom and jobs now" in the Negro community, the decline in strength of the civil rights movement will be an important reason...

...President Johnson, a man not noted for his pacifist qualities, responded to the July riots by warning Negroes that they are only 10% of the population, and ended with a veiled threat that if they continued to act up, he might have to stop donating their rights to them...

...Civil rights groups thereby lost contributions and membership...

...And in turn this setback strengthened those who advocated going it alone...

...In the absence of a new basis for unity, which by now only an economic program might have provided, conflicts among the civil rights groups increased...

...The NAACP with its substantial base in the Negro middle class, can ride out this difficult period...

...To do this is to solidify the racial divisions that provoked the cry of "black power" in the first place The response of those who believe in integration and equality must be to act militantly and intelligently to challenge President Johnson's moderate consensus with a program for economic and social equality—a program on the order of A, Philip Randolph's $100 Billion Freedom Budget.* The Freedom Budget offers a solution to the organizational and social problems that have generated the slogan "black power...

...This is because at base the problem is not ideological or psychological, but political and economic...

...most by the possibility of working on socio-economic problems voluntary organizations lack the resources to handle...

...Stokely Carmichael, who has said that for a Negro to join the Democratic party is tantamount to a Jew joining the Nazi party, joins hands in declaiming for "black power" together with Adam Powell, who is as deep in this same Democratic party as anyone can be...

...At least it provides psychological comfort...

...The overwhelming victory of Lurleen Wallace in Alabama was a sharp blow to those in the movement seeking to work out alliances with Southern white moderates and labor...

...They reflect a mood more than respond creatively...

...Meanwhile, it is clear that the slogan of "black power" is aimed at the liberal coalition as well as at white racists...

...The response of white liberals to "black power" must not be to preach against "racism in reverse" and withdraw support, as so many have already done, from the civil rights struggle...

...Discontent mounted in the ghetto, but CORE did not have the resources or manpower to organize slum dwellers...

...In Detroit, where jobs have opened up in the auto industry and unemployment is at a low ebb, nationalism has declined since the last election when some Negro groups were advocating an all-Negro slate for the Detroit city council...

...ing poverty and de facto segregation, and an alternative to the Administration's present gradualist approach...

...The frustration experienced by activists was turned inward and became a source of bitter internal disputes...

...Many white liberals felt they could now sit back, and so did a considerable section of the Negro middle class, which had most profited in recent years...

...One of the reasons was that the Admini stration moved very slowly, and most times only after pressure, to imple ment the new laws...

...but problems within the movement itself have prevented it from taking full advantage of the possibilities it opened up...

...One reason is that the situation is not uniform...

...The solution they see to their dilemma is to tap the vein of anger that runs through the Negro community...

...The militant verbiage that frightens so many whites may well hide conservative tendencies...

...The civil rights movement, more than President Kennedy, got "America moving again...

...Hopes raised by the civil rights revolution have been dashed...

...Many of these activists were lost to the movement, not because they were "bought off," but because the movement had developed no strategy for dealing with the poverty program And without a strategy the estimated (according to the Citizen's Crusade on Poverty) 7,000 local voluntary—that is, unfunded— antipoverty groups, which have mushroomed in poor communities, are without coordination and lack a political and economic perspective...

...but, by and large, their response was panic, or an opportunistic simulation of panic...

...Such measures had at least as great a potential for attacking poverty as all the OEO programs combined...

...little has been delivered...

...Its failure to develop and fight for an economic program and to move from protest to politics fast enough, enabled Johnson to outmaneuver it...

...This indicates the need for more constructive economic action from Washington and fewer sermons from on high...

...Most important was the national concern about curing poverty...

...It is the basis for revitalizing and unifying the civil rights movement, by giving it a national perspective and program to coordinate activities of grass-roots action and antipoverty groups—and a constructive political outlet for the anger and frustration in the Negro community...

...By joining with the nationalists, themselves a tiny minority in the Negro community, the SNCC and CORE remnants hope to stir the ghetto into action and force the white community to make concessions—though how they mean to do this is not yet clear...

...Frustration has accumulated...

...The NAACP was absorbed still further into the Johnson consensus...

...Their ideas could easily coexist with the consensus framework being laid down by the Johnson Administration...

...tearing down the ghetto and building new integrated communities are not the Administration's aims...

...No wonder that those who raised the slogan might have concluded that these two words have some mystical power...