With the dissertation put to rest you may have thought it was plain sailing until exams… 7 weeks free to revise, until May 28th… Dun-dun-dun day! But I had one teeny, tiny, little thing to do first, only it wasn’t so small, and well… teeny.
Everyone has to do a special subject in their third year, its a unit worth 40% because you’re supposed to be so special at … its kinda like the category you would pick in mastermind. Only with so many things going, and the dissertation still whirling on waaaay into Easter I was a bit fecked for the first Special trial. The long-essay. A coursework-type piece, 6,000 words long that was supposed to take a far while to research. Those doing a dissertation were really supposed to keep Easter free to research and a draft of the thing. Then the second friday into Easter term we were to hand it in. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
Now don’t get me wrong. I loved the essay almost as much as my coursework because I’d taken the Martin Luther King jnr. and the Civil Rights Movement Special… and there was vast scope for the essay question, so it didn’t feel too much like a directed piece. In fact, I chose one of the most obscure elements of the Civil Rights Movement – well obscure to those outside of studying it – the Black Power Movement.
Black Power has received a largely negative press since its believed emergence at the decline of the traditional Civil Rights Movement, post-65…. However, the essay title was clearly asking for the student to examine this view, and challenge it:
‘The impact of Black Power on the civil rights movement was negative and self –destructive.’ Discuss.
A history student knows each, and every essay title formula. And it helps. The word ‘discuss’ should set off an automatic alarm bell ringing; it is asking you to closely look at the question, the point of view it raises and more often the not, challenge it.
Black Power. Most students of the Civil Rights Movement were not put off by BP, instead it is a popular topic. Why? For one, it goes against the historiographic flow of most literature, or at least it did until 00’s. Most historians had found themselves an easy scape goat for the failures of the Civil Rights Movement, citing Black Power as the cause of the mainstream movement’s demise, failing to see it growing dominance in black culture as a result of this decline instead. It was all too easy to focus on the violence, the anti-white message, the apparent loss of hope and the absence of a shining leader. The bad and the ugly were brought to the fore each time.
Recently however, historians have been less linear in their approach, they have taken a more critical trek through the ever expanding story of the Civil Rights Movement, and more fairly assessed its achievements and failures. And consequently, they have seen the long and deep roots of Black Power. The good, the bad and the ugly. The use of armed defence before the wild, late sixties. The growing despair and difficulties experienced working with white activists in the field. The realisation that the golden leader had his flaws like every human on the planet. Mostly, that the cynicism with the cause did not begin and end with Black Power. It was a deep routed and unending realisation – some people would forever believe in separate and (not so) equal.
* * *
I concluded;
Martin Luther King summed up the problematic nature of defining the impact of Black Power on the civil rights movement: ‘Black Power means different things to different people and indeed, being essentially an emotional concept, it can mean different things to the same person on different occasions.’ In essence, when the words “Black Power” were first uttered it was an emotional cry to action, but as yet not defined; different figures within and without civil rights movement interpreted the call to action in various ways. Black Power did seem to embody a change in the direction of the civil rights movement. Those who rallied to the call were no longer advocating non-violent tactics and were no longer working towards a strictly inter-racial political, social and economic future. Moderate civil rights leaders and the white public were perturbed; it seemed that the key concepts of the civil rights movement were being denounced. The Black Power Movement’s call for armed-self defence was interpreted as a call for violent insurrection. Black Power’s critics contrasted it with the mythical image of a non-violent civil rights movement, failing to see the movement’s increasingly militant stance as a response to developments within the civil rights struggle itself. The resulting atmosphere of fear and paranoia was fanned by the white media. The aggressive message implied in armed self-defence coupled with the demands for a black-controlled community, and black self-determination were denounced as ‘negative’ and ‘self-destructive’ responses. In reality, Black Power was a continuation of the struggle and a response to new predicaments. Black Power emerged in 1966, just as the mainstream movement was changing direction in response to the more insidious and invisible consequences of white oppression. We need to move beyond the notion that Black Power was diametrically opposed to the southern, non-violent and inter-racial movement. Black Power was born out of the tensions inherent within the long black freedom struggle. It was not as palatable a message as the civil rights movement, but it represented a logical response to the continued desire for political, economic and social equality.
In my own way I experienced: the good – writing about something I was really, really interested in, the bad – shattering certain illusions I had about the Civil Rights Movement, and the downright ugly – researching and writing the piece in less then 3 weeks!
For those interested in Black Power and keen to learn more, I suggest a rather less scholarly and more involving historical read: Peniel E. Joseph, Waiting ‘til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America, (Owl Books, 2006)
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