Thoughts on Black Power

...P P ROBABLY THE MOST SIGNIFICANT and ominous development in the civil-rights movement during the past two years has been the rise of the black-power rhetoric and movement in certain segments of the Negro population...

...No person can tell another human being how much he values human justice and how much or how he should struggle for its attainment...

...The above statement does not mean that I have personally given up on the goal of reorganizing our public-school system from its present system of racial segregation to a nonsegregated system...

...His statement was first delivered as an address to a session of the American Jewish Congress and appeared in the Congress Bi-Weekly, from which it is here reprinted with permission.—ED...

...to seek racial justice through an intensification (Continued on page 192) THOUGHTS ON BLACK POWER (continued from page 98) of racial segregation...

...This is a job for all concerned and committed Americans...

...If the quality of education in the predominantly Ne gro schools is to be increased to a tolerable level of efficiency, this will require the combined thinking, energy and commitment of Jews, Catholics, Protestants, of whites and Negroes, to develop and implement immediately an effective program for the attainment of this limited goal...

...Some black-power advocates suggest that they differ from the segregationists in that they see the racial separatism which they are demanding as essentially positive because it comes from Negroes themselves...

...It is difficult therefore to generalize about even those individuals and groups who describe themselves as black-power advocates...

...Those black nationalists who seek to pre-empt this struggle for themselves betray the fact that they are among the most pathetic victims of the virulence of American racism...

...In spite of this fact, the various groups and individuals who characterize themselves in terms of the black-power slogan appear to have the following common characteristics: (1) they place their emphasis upon the desirability of some form of racial separation as the way of obtaining racial justice in America...

...In many respects, the black-power movement is chaotic and diversionary...

...Indeed, some of the black-power advocates assert explicitly or imply that the greater the extent of isolation and alienation of Negroes from whites in America, the greater the chances of their obtaining some form of undefined racial justice...

...Other black-power advocates have asserted that their form of racial separatism is positive because it is the only realistic approach to racial justice in a racist America...

...Black power is generally an emotional reaction to racial injustice and is a pathetic manifestation of the extent to which the American racist disease has infected its victims...

...4) they hold a romantic and chauvinistic belief that the Negro can obtain power and racial justice in America through his own efforts without regard to the extent of alienation or isolation from whites...

...In this regard, the blackpower advocates are not unlike the white segregationists, many of whom give lip service to the goals of justice but insist that it be obtained through racial segregation...

...It reflects the fact that the promises of racial progress inherent in the Brown decision of 1954 and the civilrights legislation of 1964 and 1965 have not been fulfilled and certainly have not resulted in any observable changes in the predicament of the masses of Negroes in the South and in the Northern cities...

...2) they assert some degree of rejection of whites and white participation in the civilrights struggle...

...THIS PROBLEM CANNOT BE REMEDIED by the blind-alley approach of the black nationalists who are insisting upon all-black schools in allblack communities...

...It is imperative that these schools be raised to a level of efficiency as an integral part of an effective and serious program of public-school desegregation...

...Probably the most important thing which must be understood about the present black-power movement is that it emerges out of the frustration and the despair of the masses of Negroes...

...They however do not answer the question of why or how segregation demanded by Negroes will have any more beneficial effect than the historic forms of segregation imposed upon Negroes by whites...

...Kenneth B. Clark, professor of psychology at the City University of New York and president of the Metropolitan Applied Research Center...

...It is not a job which will be facilitated either by blacknationalist polarization and intensification of the realistic racial problem...

...The blackpower advocates and the white segregationists share the belief in the magic of race and color and the belief that it is possible for American democracy to function effectively under a system of racial segregation...

...Given the possibilities that the present version of the black-power nationalist movement can either be directed toward a constructive role in the struggle for racial justice in America or become a dangerous retrogressive force, it is essential that this movement be studied and understood with a clarity which rejects either sentimental acceptance or wishful underestimation...

...If I were white, I would consider it absurd that anyone could tell me that by virtue of my color I am disqualified in asserting and working for justice and human dignity...

...This more moderate black-power point of view is not the main thrust of the diverse and ambiguous black-power movement, however...

...This movement, a contemporary version of the black nationalism of Marcus Garvey that dominated the Negro protest movement in the 1920's, also has its roots in the variety of forms and cults of Negro nationalists which have been recurrent through the Depression, the 1940's, and approached a climax in the activities of Malcolm X and the Black Muslims in the early 1960's...

...There is absolutely no evidence which supports their contention that they will be any more successful in making the myth of separate but equal a positive reality than were the white segregationists...

...It is important that I not be misunderstood...

...3) they express an increasing tendency to verbalize varying degrees of resentment against whites in general—varying from the extreme of overtly expressed antiwhite feelings to indications that whites in general have not really been serious in their involvement in the struggle for racial justice in America...

...Black power is generally not seen and accepted by its proponents as an interim phase toward racial justice and certainly not generally proposed as a step toward racial integration...

...It is not a job for Negroes alone...

...What I mean is that the present level of criminal inefficiency of the public schools is absolutely intolerable and must be remedied and that it cannot be remedied by intensifying racism in the public schools...

...nor is it a job which can be successfully accomplished by Jewish and white withdrawal—even when this withdrawal comes under the transparent mask of acquiescence to the black-power demands for Negro control of their own schools...

...These common characteristics add up to the fact that the black-power movement is essentially a racist movement which basically rejects the goals of integration and somehow attempts...

...I would consider myself demeaned if I were intimidated into removing myself from this struggle by black or white racists...

...To go in this direction would make a mockery of the Brown decision and would perpetrate a hoax on all American children, black and white...

...They do not deal effectively with the question of why the separatebut-equal doctrine and myth can be more positive and realistic when advocated by Negroes than when advocated by white segregationists...