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114-583: The Black Guerrilla Family (BGF) was founded by George Jackson in San Quentin State Prison during the Black Power movement . Inspired by Marcus Garvey , the BGF characterizes itself as an ideological African-American Marxist–Leninist revolutionary organization composed of prisoners. It was founded with the stated goals of promoting black power, maintaining dignity in prison, and overthrowing

228-652: A Black nationalist movement in the 1930s, inspiring later groups. It was strongly influenced by Pan-Asianism , especially with respect to Japan, believing in a unity between non-white peoples. Kevin Gaines has argued that in the 1950s, an early version of the Black Power movement was restrained due to Cold War tensions. This was done through methods like the restriction of passports. Figures such as W. E. B. Du Bois , Paul Robeson and Julian Mayfield were part of this and some, including Mayfield, felt forced to emigrate

342-624: A bank robbery . The bomb was detonated, but no one in the church suffered serious injuries. In 1971, several Panther officials fled the U.S. due to police concerns. This was the only active year of the Black Revolutionary Assault Team , a group that bombed the New York South African consular office in protest of apartheid . On September 20 it placed bombs at the UN Missions of Republic of

456-733: A COFO conference in New York, Bob Moses had to see off two challenges to SNCC's future role in Mississippi. First, he had to defend the SNCC's anti-" Red-baiting " insistence on "free association": the NAACP had threatened to pull out of COFO if SNCC continued to engage the services of the Communist Party associated National Lawyers Guild . Second, he had deflect a proposal from Lowenstein and Democratic Party operative Barney Frank that in

570-691: A bloody siege. On November 3, Officer James R. Greene of the Atlanta Police Department was shot and killed in his patrol van at a gas station by Black Liberation Army members. 1972 was the year Newton shut down many Black Panther chapters and held a party meeting in Oakland , California. On January 27, the Black Liberation Army assassinated police officers Gregory Foster and Rocco Laurie in New York City. After

684-554: A bombing campaign in the 1980s. They targeted a series of government and commercial buildings, including the U.S. Senate . On November 3, 1984, two members of the M19CO, Susan Rosenberg and Timothy Blunk, were arrested at a mini-warehouse they had rented in Cherry Hill, New Jersey . Police recovered more than 100 blasting caps, nearly 200 sticks of dynamite, more than 100 cartridges of gel explosive, and 24 bags of blasting agent from

798-625: A church burning in June 1964, they were subjects of a massive manhunt that involved the FBI and United States sailors from a nearby base. In the course of the search the corpses of several black Mississippians were uncovered whose disappearances had not previously attracted attention outside the Delta. Notwithstanding the national outrage generated by the murders, the Johnson Administration

912-818: A coalition, the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), with, among other groups, the NAACP and the National Council of Churches. With VEP and COFO funding SNCC was able to expand its voter registration efforts into the Mississippi Delta around Greenwood , Southwest Georgia around Albany , and the Alabama Black Belt around Selma . All of these projects endured police harassment and arrests; KKK violence including shootings, bombings, and assassinations; and economic sanctions against those blacks who dared to try to register. Although it

1026-409: A corrupted constitution-defiant police and judicial system—while at the same time saving the movement money it did not have. As way to "dramatize that the church, the house of all people, fosters segregation more than any other institution," SNCC students also participated in "kneel-ins"—kneeling in prayer outside of Whites-only churches. Presbyterians churches, targeted because their "ministers lacked

1140-474: A few members. MOVE developed in Philadelphia in 1972 as the "Christian Movement for Life", a communal living group based on Black Liberation principles. When police raided their house in 1978, a firefight broke out; during the shootout, one officer was killed, seven other police officers, five firefighters, three MOVE members, and three bystanders were also injured. In another high-profile incident of

1254-486: A future summer program decision-making be removed from organizers in the field to a new office in New York City responsible directly to liberal-foundation and church funders. Dorothy Zellner (a white radical SNCC staffer) remarked that, "What they [Lowenstein and Frank] want is to let the Negro into the existing society, not to change it." At the end of 1964, SNCC fielded the largest staff of any civil rights organization in

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1368-559: A lot of people all doing what they think needs to be done," was for Hayden the very realization of her mentor's vision. Such was "the participatory, town-hall, consensus-forming nature" of the operation Ella Baker had helped set in motion that Hayden could feel herself to be "at the center of the organization" without having, "in any public way", to be "a leader". Yet when Elaine DeLott Baker joined Hayden in Mississippi in May 1964 she found "a hierarchy in place". Based "on considerations of race,

1482-567: A more confrontational approach; for instance, the Black Panther Party introduced a Free Breakfast for Children program and established community clinics, while the Black Liberation Army carried out bombings and killed police officers. As the movement never had a central authority or structure, its influence was diluted by the growing success of Black applicants for government jobs, the passing of legislation such as

1596-620: A movement for social change in the state that would continue to be led by Mississippians. This was, he suggested, what organizing for voter registration was all about – "challenging people in various ways to take control of their own lives." Over the course of Freedom Summer (and with assistance in developing the curriculum from, among others, Howard Zinn ), COFO set up more than 40 Freedom Schools in African-American communities across Mississippi. More than 3,000 students attended, many of whom participated in registration efforts. With

1710-450: A new Executive. It was time to recognize that SNCC no longer had a "student base" (with the move to voter registration, the original campus protest groups had largely evaporated) and that the staff, "the people who do the most work," were the organization's real "nucleus". But the "many problems and many strains within the organization" caused by the "freedom" allowed to organizers in the field were also reason, he argued, to "change and alter"

1824-459: A number of different federal and state prisons. The charges ranged from kidnapping to assault and battery to bank robbery. Assata Shakur was found guilty of the murder of both Foerster and her companion Zayd Shakur, but escaped prison in 1979 and eventually fled to Cuba and received political asylum. Acoli was convicted of killing Foerster and sentenced to life in prison. In 1978 a group of Black Liberation Army and Weather Underground members formed

1938-481: A parallel state Democratic Party primary . The MFDP would send an integrated slate of delegates to the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City and there contest the credentials of the all-white Mississippi regulars. As part of this project SNCC's Charlie Cobb proposed summer field schools. Encouraging youth "to articulate their own desires, demands, and questions," the schools would help ensure

2052-647: A rebel group named after the killed prisoner formed the George Jackson Brigade . From March 1975 to December 1977, the Brigade robbed at least seven banks and detonated about 20 pipe bombs—mainly targeting government buildings, electric power facilities, Safeway stores, and companies accused of racism. In 1977, Newton returned from exile in Cuba. Shortly afterward, Elaine Brown resigned from the party and fled to Los Angeles. The Party fell apart, leaving only

2166-412: A year before). But with the all-white delegations of other southern states threatening to walk out, Johnson engineered a "compromise" in which the national Democratic Party offered the 68 MFDP delegates two at-large seats from where they could watch the floor proceedings but not take part. Fannie Lou Hamer led her delegates out of the convention: "We didn't come all this way for no two seats when all of us

2280-567: Is an event largely remembered for King's delivery of his "I Have a Dream" speech, SNCC had a significant role in the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom . But it was at odds with the other sponsoring civil rights, labor, and religious organizations, all of whom were prepared to applaud the Kennedy Administration for its Civil Rights Bill (the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ). In the version of his speech leaked to

2394-514: Is tired." Activists, Hayden suggests, were staggered to find the Democratic Party "in the role of racist lunch counter owner": "the core of SNCC's work, voter registration, was [now] open to question." In the wake of Atlantic City, Elaine DeLott Baker recalls the desolation of project offices "that had only recently been hives of activity and energy" and the shutting down of Freedom Schools and community centers. In September 1964, at

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2508-406: Is trying to take the revolution out of the streets and put it in the courts. Listen Mr. Kennedy, the black masses are on the march for jobs and for freedom, and we must say to the politicians that there won't be a "cooling-off period." Under pressure from the other groups, changes were made. "We cannot support" the 1963 Kennedy Civil Rights Bill was re-scripted as "we support with reservations". In

2622-652: The San Francisco Chronicle received a letter signed by the BLA claiming responsibility for the attack. Late in the year Huey Newton visited China for meetings on Maoist theory and anti-imperialism. Black power icon George Jackson attempted to escape from prison in August, killing seven hostages only to be killed himself. Jackson's death triggered the Attica Prison uprising which was later ended in

2736-585: The 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City , Tommie Smith and John Carlos , the gold and bronze medalists, respectively, in the 200 meters event , each raised a black-gloved hand as the American national anthem was played during their medal ceremony. Afterwards, Smith stated that: "We are Black and we are proud of being Black. Black America will understand what we did." By 1968, many Black Panther leaders had been arrested, including founder Huey Newton for

2850-584: The 2008 presidential election New Black Panther Party members were accused of voter intimidation at a polling station in a predominantly black, Democratic voting district of Philadelphia. After the killing of Trayvon Martin black power paramilitaries formed, including the Huey P. Newton Gun Club , African American Defense League, and the New Black Liberation Militia, all staging armed marches and military training. Some have compared

2964-489: The Black Liberation Army , Assata Shakur , Zayd Shakur and Sundiata Acoli were said to have opened fire on state troopers in New Jersey after being pulled over for a broken taillight. Zayd Shakur and state trooper Werner Foerster were both killed during the exchange. Following her capture, Assata Shakur was tried in six different criminal trials. According to Shakur, she was beaten and tortured during her incarceration in

3078-675: The Black Panther Party in 1968, SNCC effectively dissolved. Because of the successes of its early years, SNCC is credited with breaking down barriers, both institutional and psychological, to the empowerment of African-American communities. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was formed in April 1960 at a conference at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina , attended by 126 student delegates from 58 sit-in centers in 12 states, from 19 northern colleges, and from

3192-654: The Civil Rights Act of 1964 barring discrimination in public accommodations, employment and private education, and the equally broad Voting Rights Act of 1965 , faith in the Johnson Administration and its liberal allies was ebbing, and a gulf had opened between SNCC and other civil rights organizations. In Atlantic City Fannie Lou Hamer confessed she "lost hope in American society." Questions of strategic direction were also questions of "structure". What Stokely Carmichael described as "not an organization but

3306-568: The Edmund Pettus Bridge where two days before ("Bloody Sunday") the first had been brutally charged and batoned, Forman was appalled. Yet within SNCC itself Forman increasingly was concerned by the lack of "internal cohesion". At Waveland Forman proposed that the staff (some twenty), who under the original constitution had had "a voice but no vote," constitute "themselves as the Coordinating Committee" and elect

3420-588: The FBI developed COINTELPRO to investigate black nationalist groups and others. By 1969, the Black Panthers and their allies had become primary COINTELPRO targets, singled out in 233 of the 295 authorized "black nationalist" COINTELPRO actions. In 1968, the Republic of New Afrika was founded, a separatist group seeking a black country in the southern United States, only to dissolve by the early 1970s. At

3534-789: The Fair Housing Act of 1968 , the expansion of federally funded welfare programs, and police action against its activists. Civil rights activists increasingly focused on electing Black politicians. The black power movement declined by the mid-1970s and 1980s, though some elements continued in organizations such as the Black Radical Congress , founded in 1998, and the Black Lives Matter movement, which since 2013 has campaigned against racism and has organized demonstrations when African Americans have been killed by law enforcement officers . The first popular use of

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3648-530: The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) to issue rules giving force to the repudiation of the " separate but equal " doctrine. After the new ICC rules took effect on November 1, 1961, passengers were permitted to sit wherever they pleased on interstate buses and trains; "white" and "colored" signs were to be removed from the terminals (lunch counters, drinking fountains, toilets, and waiting rooms) serving interstate customers. To test

3762-678: The Kennedy Administration , CORE announced it was discontinuing the action. Undeterred, Diane Nash called for new riders. Oretha Castle Haley , Jean C. Thompson, Rudy Lombard, James Bevel , Marion Barry , Angeline Butler, Stokely Carmichael , and Joan Trumpauer Mulholland joined John Lewis and Hank Thomas , the two young SNCC members of the original Ride. They traveled on to a savage beating in Montgomery, Alabama , to arrest in Jackson, Mississippi , and to confinement in

3876-600: The Lincoln Memorial rally. Together with Coretta Scott King and other the wives of civil leaders SNCC staffer and Ella Baker protégé Casey Hayden found herself walking up Independence Avenue while the media recorded the men marching down Constitution Avenue. Despite protesting behind the scenes with Anna Hedgeman (who was to go on to co-found the National Organization for Women ), women were to be featured as singers, but not as speakers. In

3990-723: The May 19th Communist Organization , or M19CO. It also included members of the Black Panthers and the Republic of New Africa. In 1979 three M19CO members walked into the visitor's center at the Clinton Correctional Facility for Women near Clinton , New Jersey. They took two guards hostage and freed Shakur. Several months later M19CO arranged for the escape of William Morales , a member of Puerto Rican separatist group Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional Puertorriqueña from Bellevue Hospital in New York City, where he

4104-709: The Nashville Student Movement ; their mentor at Vanderbilt University , James Lawson ; Charles F. McDew , who led student protests at South Carolina State University ; J. Charles Jones , Johnson C. Smith University , who organized 200 students to participate in sit-ins at whites-only department stores and service counters throughout Charlotte , North Carolina ; Julian Bond from Morehouse College , Atlanta; and Stokely Carmichael from Howard University , Washington, D.C. The invitation had been issued by Martin Luther King Jr. on behalf of

4218-828: The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), the National Student Association (NSA), and Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). Among those attending who were to emerge as strategists for the committee and its field projects were Fisk University student Diane Nash , Tennessee State student Marion Barry , and American Baptist Theological Seminary students James Bevel , John Lewis , and Bernard Lafayette , all involved in

4332-671: The Students for a Democratic Society . In late October 1966, Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party. In formulating a new politics, they drew on their experiences working with a variety of black power organizations. The Black Panther Party initially utilized open-carry gun laws to protect party members and local black communities from law enforcement. Party members also recorded incidents of police brutality by distantly following police cars around neighborhoods. Numbers grew slightly starting in February 1967, when

4446-564: The United States government . The BGF's ideological and economic aims, collectively known as "Jamaanomics", are laid out in the group's Black Book . The group has been described as one of the most politically oriented prison gangs. In 1979, former BGF lawyer Fay Stender was shot five times by recently paroled Black Guerrilla Family member Edward Glenn Brooks for Stender's alleged betrayal of George Jackson. Brooks forced Stender to state: "I, Fay Stender, admit I betrayed George Jackson and

4560-486: The civil rights movement in the United States, reacting against its moderate, mainstream, and incremental tendencies and representing the demand for more immediate action to counter American white supremacy . Many of its ideas were influenced by Malcolm X 's criticism of Martin Luther King Jr. 's peaceful protest methods. The 1965 assassination of Malcolm X , coupled with the urban riots of 1964 and 1965, ignited

4674-473: The " Freedom Ride " led by Charles Perkins in 1965. There was a small group of people at the centre of the movement known as the Black Caucus. Bobbi Sykes defined Australian black power as "The power generated by people who seek to identify their own problems and those of the community as a whole, and who strive to take action in all possible forms to solve those problems", while Paul Coe saw it as

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4788-415: The 1970s the black power movement saw a decline, but not an end. In 1998, the Black Radical Congress was founded, with debatable effects. The Black Riders Liberation Party was created by Bloods and Crips gang members as an attempt to recreate the Black Panther Party in 1996. The group has spread, creating chapters in cities across the United States, and frequently staging paramilitary marches. During

4902-537: The Black Panther Party's Ten-Point Program called for "education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American society. We want education that teaches us our true history and our role in the present day society." This sentiment was echoed in many of the other black power organizations; the inadequacy of black education had earlier been remarked on by W. E. B. Du Bois , Marcus Garvey , and Carter G. Woodson . With this backdrop, Stokely Carmichael brought political education into his work with SNCC in

5016-515: The Black Panthers began purging members due to fear of law enforcement infiltration, engaged in multiple gunfights with police and one with a black nationalist organization. The Panthers continued their "Free Huey" campaign internationally. In the spirit of rising militancy, the League of Revolutionary Black Workers was formed in Detroit, which supported labor rights and Black liberation. In 1970

5130-788: The Bloods and the Crips denied the allegations, released a video statement asking for calm and peaceful protest in the area, and joined with police and clergy to enforce the curfew. At one occasion, gang members helped to prevent a riot at the Security Square Mall by dispersing attempted rioters. On other occasions, rival gang members helped each other to protect black-owned businesses, black children, and reporters, diverting rioters to Chinese - and Arab -owned businesses instead. Black Power movement The black power movement or black liberation movement emerged in mid-1960s from

5244-528: The Congo (Kinshasa) and the Republic of Malawi . In February 1971, ideological splits within the Black Panther Party between leaders Newton and Eldridge Cleaver led to two factions within the party; the conflict turned violent and four people were killed in a series of assassinations. On May 21, 1971, five Black Liberation Army members participated in the shootings of two New York City police officers, Joseph Piagentini and Waverly Jones. Those brought to trial for

5358-574: The Honorary Prime Minister of the Black Panther Party, Stokely Carmichael, traveled to various countries to discuss methods to resist " American imperialism ". In Trinidad, the black power Movement had escalated into the Black Power Revolution in which many Afro-Trinidadians forced the government of Trinidad to give into reforms. Later many Panthers visited Algeria to discuss Pan-Africanism and anti-imperialism. In

5472-740: The ICC ruling and in the hope of mobilizing the local black community in a broader campaign, in October 1961 SNCC members Charles Sherrod and Cordell Reagon led a sit-in at the bus terminal in Albany, Georgia . By mid-December, having drawn in the NAACP and a number of other organizations, the Albany Movement had more than 500 protesters in jail. There they were joined briefly by Martin Luther King Jr. and by Ralph Abernathy . King sought advantage in

5586-636: The Kennedy Administration with large liberal foundations, the Voter Education Project (VEP) was formed in early 1962 to channel funds into voter drives in the eleven Southern states. Inducted by sit-in campaigns and hardened in the Freedom Rides, many student activists saw VEP as a government attempt to co-opt their movement. Lonnie C. King Jr. , a student from Morehouse College in Atlanta, felt that "by rechanneling its energies" what

5700-527: The Kennedys were "trying to do was kill the Movement." But others were already convinced that obtaining the right to vote was the key to unlocking political power for Black Americans. Older Black southerners had been pressing SNCC to move in this direction for some time. Mississippi NAACP leader Amzie Moore had tabled a voter registration drive at the SNCC's second conference in October 1960. A split over

5814-533: The Lee County Public Works building, the Leesburg Stockade . It took SNCC photographer Danny Lyon smuggling himself into the Stockade to publicize the case nationally In the fall of 1963, with the assistance of 100 northern volunteers SNCC conducted the Freedom Ballot , a mock gubernatorial election in which over 80,000 black Mississippians demonstrated their willingness to exercise the constitutional right to vote that state law and violent intimidation had denied them since Reconstruction . (Only 6.7 per cent of

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5928-424: The Maximum Security (Death Row) Unit of the infamous Mississippi State Penitentiary --"Parchman Farm". Recognizing SNCC's determination, CORE and the SCLC rejected the Administration's call for a "cooling off" period and joined with the students in a Freedom Riders Coordinating Committee to keep the Rides rolling through June and into September. During those months, more than 60 different Freedom Rides criss-crossed

6042-438: The Panther , Hugh Pearson alleges that Newton was addicted to crack cocaine, and his extortion of local BGF drug dealers to obtain free drugs added to their animosity. Robinson was convicted of the murder in August 1991 and sentenced to 32 years for the crime. In 2015, Baltimore police stated that the Black Guerrilla Family, the Bloods , and the Crips were "teaming up" to target police officers. Later, however, leaders of both

6156-432: The SCLC, Executive Secretary James Forman saw himself as championing popularly accountable, grassroots organization. Believing it "would detract from, rather than intensify" the focus on ordinary people's involvement in the movement, he had not appreciated King's appearance in Albany in December 1961. When on March 9, 1965, King, seemingly on his own authority, was able to turn the second Selma to Montgomery march back at

6270-405: The SCLC, but the conference had been conceived and organized by then SCLC director Ella Baker . Baker was a critic of what she perceived as King's top-down leadership at the SCLC. "Strong people don't need strong leaders," she told the young activists. Speaking to the students' own experience of protest organization, it was Baker's vision that appeared to prevail. SNCC did not constitute itself as

6384-494: The South, most of them converging on Jackson, where every Rider was arrested, more than 300 in total. An unknown number were arrested in other Southern towns, and many were beaten including, in Monroe, North Carolina , SNCC's Executive Secretary James Forman . It is estimated that almost 450 people, black and white in equal number, participated. With CORE, SNCC had been making plans for a mass demonstration in Washington when Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy finally prevailed on

6498-454: The South. Yet to many the movement seemed to be at a loss. In Mississippi Casey Hayden recalls everyone "reeling from the violence" (3 project workers killed; 4 people critically wounded; 80 beaten, 1,000 arrests; 35 shooting incidents, 37 churches bombed or burned; and 30 black businesses or homes burned), and also from "the new racial imbalance" following the summer influx of white student volunteers. The local black staff, "the backbone" of

6612-647: The United States and continue their activism elsewhere, with Mayfield going to Ghana. Malcolm X is largely credited with the group's dramatic increase in membership between the early 1950s and early 1960s (from 500 to 25,000 by one estimate; from 1,200 to 50,000 or 75,000 by another). In March 1964, Malcolm X left the Nation due to disagreements with Elijah Muhammad ; among other things, he cited his interest in working with civil rights leaders, saying that Muhammad had prevented him from doing so. Later, Malcolm X also said Muhammad had engaged in extramarital affairs with young Nation secretaries‍—‌a serious violation of

6726-430: The United States to the civil rights movement during the 1960s. Emerging in 1960 from the student-led sit-ins at segregated lunch counters in Greensboro, North Carolina , and Nashville, Tennessee , the Committee sought to coordinate and assist direct-action challenges to the civic segregation and political exclusion of African Americans . From 1962, with the support of the Voter Education Project , SNCC committed to

6840-486: The amount of time spent in the struggle, dangers suffered, and finally, of gender," this was not a hierarchy office, but "an unspoken understanding of who should speak up at meetings, who should propose ideas in public places, and who should remain silent." Black men were at the top, "then black women, followed by white men, and at the bottom, white women." Field staff, among them "women, black and white," still retained "an enormous amount of operational freedom, they were indeed

6954-607: The black voting age population of Mississippi was registered, compared to 70.2 per cent of the white voting age population). In coordination with CORE, the SNCC followed up on the ballot with the 1964 Mississippi Summer Project, also known as Freedom Summer . This brought over 700 white Northern students to the South, where they volunteered as teachers and organizers. According to Julian Bond , their presence can be credited to freelance social activist Allard Lowenstein : white students, he had proposed, would not only "provide needed manpower", "their white skins might provoke interest from

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7068-485: The building. MOVE members shot at the police, who returned fire with automatic weapons. The police then bombed the house, killing several adults and children, and causing a large fire that destroyed the better part of a city block. In 1989, well into the waning years of the movement, the New Black Panther Party formed. In the same year on August 22, Huey P. Newton was fatally shot outside by 24-year-old Black Guerilla Family member Tyrone Robinson. The fifth point of

7182-406: The citizens of Danville, Virginia who must live in constant fear in a police state. This bill will not protect the hundreds of people who have been arrested on trumped-up charges like those in Americus, Georgia, where four young men are in jail, facing a death penalty, for engaging in peaceful protest. I want to know, which side is the federal government on? The revolution is a serious one. Mr. Kennedy

7296-445: The committee and its support staff) were to be recognized as "the primary expression of a protest in a given area." Under the same general principle, that "the people who do the work should make the decisions", the students committed to a " participatory democracy " which, avoiding office hierarchy, sought to reach decisions by consensus. Group meetings were convened in which every participant could speak for as long as they wanted and

7410-465: The convention's credentials committee were televised, giving a national and international audience to the testimony of SNCC field secretary Fannie Lou Hamer : to her portrayal of the brutalities of a sharecropper's life, and of the obstruction and violence encountered by an African American in the exercise her constitutional rights. (Hamer still bore the marks of beatings meted to her, her father and other SNCC workers by police in Winona, Mississippi , just

7524-468: The encouragement of SNCC field secretary Frank Smith , a meeting of cotton pickers at a Freedom School in Shaw, Mississippi , gave birth to the Mississippi Freedom Labor Union. At its peak, in the summer of 1965 the MFLU had 1,350 members and about 350 on strike. On August 4, 1964, before the state MFDP convention, the bodies of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner were discovered buried in an earthen dam. Missing for weeks since disappearing after investigating

7638-492: The event, a few women were allowed to sit on the Lincoln Memorial platform and the NAACP's Daisy Bates , who had been instrumental in the integration of Little Rock Central High School , was permitted a brief tribute to “Negro Women Fighters for Freedom”. From their “bitterly humiliating” experience in Washington, Pauli Murray , who later coined the term “Jane Crow” to describe the double handicap of race and sex, concluded that black women "can no longer postpone or subordinate

7752-473: The fight against discrimination because of sex to the civil rights struggle but must carry on both fights simultaneously.” The previous month, July 1963, SNCC was involved in another march that eventually made headlines. With the NAACP in Americus, Georgia , SNCC organized a protest march on a segregated movie theater that concluded with the arrest of upwards of 33 high-school girls. The "Stolen Girls" were imprisoned 45 days without charge in brutal conditions in

7866-401: The group to flee. Four were eventually caught by French authorities in Paris, where they were convicted of various crimes, but one—George Wright—remained a fugitive until September 26, 2011, when he was captured in Portugal. After being accused of murdering a prostitute in 1974, Huey Newton fled to Cuba. Elaine Brown became party leader and embarked on an election campaign. In the late 1970s

7980-425: The group's principles of nonviolence , of white participation in the movement, and of field-driven, as opposed to national-office, leadership and direction. By this time many of SNCC's original organizers were working with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and others were being lost to a de-segregating Democratic Party and to federally-funded anti-poverty programs. Following an aborted merger with

8094-408: The group's teachings. On February 21, 1965, Malcolm X was shot and killed while speaking at the Audubon Ballroom in Washington Heights , New York City. Three Nation members were convicted of assassinating him. Despite this, there has long been speculation and suspicion of government involvement. The forty police officers at the scene were instructed to "stand down" by their commanding officers while

8208-420: The impasse," Casey Hayden tried to attach to Forman's proposal various sub-committees and provisos to ensure that "leadership for all our programs" would continue to be driven from the field, and not from central office "which makes many program areas responsible to one person rather than to all of us." For Forman this still suggested too loose, too confederal a structure for an organization whose challenge, without

8322-416: The killings, a note sent to authorities portrayed the murders as a retaliation for the prisoner deaths during 1971 Attica prison riot. To date no arrests have been made. On July 31, five armed BLA members hijacked Delta Air Lines Flight 841 , eventually collecting a ransom of $ 1 million and diverting the plane, after passengers were released, to Algeria. The authorities there seized the ransom but allowed

8436-705: The late 1960s and early 1970s, many African Americans adopted " Afro " hairstyles, African clothes, or African names (such as Stokely Carmichael , the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee who popularized the phrase "black power" and later changed his name to Kwame Ture) to emphasize their identity. Others founded Black-owned stores , food cooperatives , bookstores, publishers, media, clinics, schools, and other organizations oriented to their communities. American universities began to offer courses in Black studies , and

8550-840: The late 1960s onwards, especially in Sydney , Brisbane and Melbourne . The term became widely known after the Victorian Aborigines Advancement League (AAL), led by Bruce McGuinness and Bob Maza , invited Caribbean activist Roosevelt Brown to give a talk on black power in Melbourne in 1968, causing a media frenzy. The AAL was influenced by the ideas of Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael. The Australian "black power movement" had emerged in Redfern in Sydney, Fitzroy , Melbourne, and South Brisbane , following

8664-444: The manpower and publicity of white volunteers, was to mount and coordinate a Southwide Freedom Summer and "build a Black Belt political party." At her last Committee meeting in the fall of 1965, Hayden told both Forman and Chairman John Lewis that the "imbalance of power within SNCC" was such that, if the movement was to remain "radically democratic", they would need to step down. Forman and Lewis did step down in their own time, in

8778-523: The meeting would continue until everyone who was left was in agreement with the decision. Given the physical risks involved in many activities in which SNCC was to engage this was thought particularly important: "no one felt comfortable making a decision by majority rule that might cost somebody else's life." Initially the SNCC continued the focus on sit-ins and boycotts targeting establishments (restaurants, retail stores, theaters) and public amenities maintaining whites-only or segregated facilities. But it

8892-517: The modern movement Black Lives Matter to the black power movement, noting its similarities. The Movement for Black Lives openly promotes black power. Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee , and later, the Student National Coordinating Committee ( SNCC , pronounced / s n ɪ k / SNIK ) was the principal channel of student commitment in

9006-855: The movement took a major interest in creating and controlling its own media institutions. Most famously, the Black Panther Party produced the Black Panther newspaper, which proved to be one of the BPP's most influential tools for disseminating its message and recruiting new members. WAFR was launched in September 1971 as the first public, community-based black radio station. The Durham, North Carolina, station broadcast until 1976, but influenced later activist radio stations including WPFW in Washington, D.C., and WRFG in Atlanta. The American black power movement influenced Aboriginal Australian activists from

9120-490: The movement. While thinkers such as Robert F. Williams and Malcolm X influenced the early movement, the Black Panther Party 's views are widely seen as the cornerstone. They were influenced by philosophies such as pan-Africanism , black nationalism , and socialism , as well as contemporary events including the Cuban Revolution and the decolonization of Africa . During the peak of the black power movement in

9234-469: The murder of a police officer (Newton's prosecution was eventually dismissed), yet membership surged. Black Panthers later engaged the police in a firefight in a Los Angeles gas station. In the same year, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated , creating nationwide riots , the widest wave of social unrest since the American Civil War . In Cleveland , Ohio, the "Republic of New Libya" engaged

9348-540: The murder of activist Herbert Lee , persuaded many that in the Deep South voter registration was as direct a challenge to white supremacy as anything they had been doing before. "If you went into Mississippi and talked about voter registration they're going to hit you on the side of the head and that," Reggie Robinson, one of the SNCC's first field secretaries, quipped is "as direct as you can get." In 1962, Bob Moses garnered further support for SNCC's efforts by forging

9462-527: The national media attention his arrest had drawn. In return for the city's commitment to comply with the ICC ruling and to release those protesters willing to post bail, he agreed to leave town. The city reneged, however, so protests and subsequent arrests continued into 1962. News reports across the country portrayed the Albany debacle as "one of the most stunning defeats" in King's career. What they also reported

9576-681: The need for Aboriginal people to "take control both of the economical, the political and cultural resources of the people and of the land…so that they themselves have got the power to determine their own future". Activist and later academic Gary Foley later wrote that in Australia, black power "was essentially about the necessity for Black people to define the world in their own terms, and to seek self-determination and independence on their own terms, without white interference". The Aboriginal Legal Service in Redfern grew out of this activism. After

9690-514: The news media that black skins could not produce." With the murder of two of their number, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner , alongside local activist (Freedom Rider and voter educator) James Chaney , this indeed was to be the effect. Freedom Summer attracted international attention. For SNCC the focus of summer project became the organization, through the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), of

9804-444: The ones that were keeping things moving." But from those leading the debate on new directions for the movement DeLott Baker saw "little recognition of that reality," and the ground was shifting. The violence and emotional stresses of four years had eroded the focus and spirits of many veteran field staffers who appeared to central office staff as increasingly unpredictable and unreliable. Communication between core staff and field staff

9918-603: The party provided an armed escort at the San Francisco airport for Betty Shabazz , Malcolm X's widow and keynote speaker at a conference held in his honor. By 1967, the SNCC began to fall apart due to policy disputes in its leadership, and many members left for the Black Panthers. Throughout 1967, the Panthers staged rallies and disrupted the California State Assembly with armed marchers. In 1956

10032-585: The police in the Glenville shootout , which was followed by rioting. The year also marked the start of the White Panther Party , a group of whites dedicated to the cause of the Black Panthers. Founders Pun Plamondon and John Sinclair were arrested, but eventually freed, in connection to the bombing of a Central Intelligence Agency office in Ann Arbor, Michigan , that September. By 1969,

10146-531: The press John Lewis remarked that those marching for jobs and freedom "have nothing to be proud of, for hundreds and thousands of our brothers are not here—for they have no money for their transportation, for they are receiving starvation wages...or no wages at all." He went on to announce: In good conscience, we cannot support the administration's civil rights bill. This bill will not protect young children and old women from police dogs and fire hoses when engaging in peaceful demonstrations. This bill will not protect

10260-454: The priority to be accorded voter registration was avoided by Ella Baker's intervention. She suggested that the organization create two distinct wings: one for direct action (which Diane Nash was to lead) and the other for voter registration. But the white violence visited in the summer of 1961 on the first registration efforts (under the direction of Bob Moses ) in McComb, Mississippi , including

10374-481: The prison movement when they needed me most" just before he shot her. Stender was left paralyzed below the waist by the assault and in constant pain. She committed suicide in Hong Kong shortly after she testified against Brooks. Brooks was sentenced to 17 years' imprisonment for Stender's attempted murder in 1980. On August 22, 1989, co-founder and leader of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense , Huey P. Newton

10488-507: The projects were frustrated, even resentful, at having to deal "with a lot of young white people who were intellectual and moneyed," "ignorant" of realities on the ground, and who, with their greater visibility, brought additional risks. But most of all SNCC activists were "staggered" by the debacle in Atlantic City. Being confronted by the Democratic Party "in the role of racist lunch counter owner" had thrown "the core of SNCC's work", voter registration, into question. Notwithstanding passage of

10602-512: The protection and support of a church hierarchy," were not long indifferent. In August 1960, the 172nd General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church wrote to SNCC: "Laws and customs requiring racial discrimination are, in our judgement, such serious violations of the law of God as to justify peaceful and orderly disobedience or disregard of these laws." Organized by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) to dramatize

10716-636: The registration and mobilization of black voters in the Deep South . Affiliates such as the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and the Lowndes County Freedom Organization in Alabama also worked to increase the pressure on federal and state government to enforce constitutional protections. By the mid-1960s the measured nature of the gains made, and the violence with which they were resisted, were generating dissent from

10830-475: The rural South. This included get-out-the-vote campaigns and political literacy. Bobby Seale and Huey Newton used education to address the lack of identity in the black community. Seale had worked with youth in an after-school program before starting the Panthers. Through this new education and identity building, they believed they could empower black Americans to claim their freedom. Just as black power activists focused on community control of schools and politics,

10944-545: The same year former Black Panthers formed the Black Liberation Army to continue a violent revolution rather than the party's new reform movements. On October 22, 1970, the Black Liberation Army is believed to have planted a bomb in St. Brendan's Church in San Francisco while it was full of mourners attending the funeral of San Francisco police officer Harold Hamilton, who had been killed in the line of duty while responding to

11058-686: The shooting took place. After the Watts riots in Los Angeles in 1965, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee decided to cut ties with the mainstream civil rights movement. They argued that blacks needed to build power of their own, rather than seek accommodations from the power structure in place. SNCC migrated from a philosophy of nonviolence to one of greater militancy after the mid-1960s. The organization established ties with radical groups such as

11172-446: The shootings include Anthony Bottom (also known as Jalil Muntaqim) , Albert Washington, Francisco Torres, Gabriel Torres, and Herman Bell. During the jail sentence of White Panther John Sinclair a "Free John" concert took place, including John Lennon and Stevie Wonder . Sinclair was released two days later. On August 29, three BLA members murdered San Francisco police sergeant John Victor Young at his police station. Two days later,

11286-629: The southern states' disregard of the Supreme Court rulings ( Morgan v. Virginia , 1946 and Boynton v. Virginia , 1960 ) outlawing segregation in interstate transportation, in May 1961, the first Freedom Riders (seven black, six white, led by CORE director James Farmer ) travelled together on interstate buses. In Anniston , Alabama , they were brutally attacked by mobs of Ku Klux Klansmen . Local police stood by. After they were assaulted again in Birmingham, Alabama , and under pressure from

11400-420: The spring, but with questions of structure and direction for the organization unresolved. In May 1966 Forman was replaced by Ruby Doris Smith-Robinson , who was determined "to keep the SNCC together." But Forman recalls male leaders fighting "her attempts as executive secretary to impose a sense of organizational responsibility and self-discipline," and "trying to justify themselves by the fact that their critic

11514-583: The structure of decision making. Given the "external pressures" the requirement now was for "unity". Bob Moses opposed. The role of SNCC was to stimulate social struggles, not to provide an institutionalized leadership. "Leadership," Moses believed, "will emerge from the movement that emerges." Leadership is there in the people. You don't have to worry about where your leaders are, how are you going to get some leaders. ... If you go out and work with your people leadership will emerge. ... We don't know who they are now: and we don't need to know. "To get us through

11628-590: The term "black power" as a social and racial slogan was by Stokely Carmichael (later known as Kwame Ture) and Willie Ricks (later known as Mukasa Dada), both organizers and spokespeople for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee . On June 16, 1966, in a speech in Greenwood, Mississippi , during the March Against Fear , Carmichael led the marchers in a chant for black power that was televised nationally. The organization Nation of Islam began as

11742-616: The view of the then SNCC executive secretary, James Forman , those who had pushed the change were selling out to the cautious liberal politics of labor-movement leadership and the Catholic and Protestant church hierarchy. "If people had known they had come to Washington to aid the Kennedy administration, they would not have come in the numbers they did." A feature of the march itself, was that men and women were directed to proceed separately and that only male speakers were scheduled to address

11856-408: The waiting crowd "What do you want?." They roared back "Black Power! Black Power!" For Carmichael Black Power was a "call for black people to define their own goals, to lead their own organizations." We have to organize ourselves to speak from a position of strength and stop begging people to look kindly upon us. We are going to build a movement in this country based on the color of our skins that

11970-567: The warehouse. The M19CO alliance's last bombing was on February 23, 1985, at the Policemen's Benevolent Association in New York City. MOVE had relocated to West Philadelphia after the earlier shootout. On May 13, 1985, the police, along with city manager Leo Brooks , arrived with arrest warrants and attempted to clear the MOVE building and arrest the indicted MOVE members. This led to an armed standoff with police, who lobbed tear gas canisters at

12084-425: The word Black replaced negro as the preferred usage in the country. Other leaders of the movement included Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale , founders of the Black Panther Party. Radical groups were formed, such as the separatist Republic of New Afrika organization and the League of Revolutionary Black Workers , a Marxist–Leninist party. Some organizations prioritized social programs, while others adopted

12198-434: The youth wing of SCLC. It steered an independent course that sought to channel the students' program through the organizers out in the field rather than through its national office in Atlanta ("small and rather dingy," located above a beauty parlor near the city's five Black colleges). Under the constitution adopted, the SNCC comprised representatives from each of the affiliated "local protest groups," and these groups (and not

12312-461: Was a woman" In October 1967 Smith-Robinson died, aged just 25, "of exhaustion" according to one of her co-workers, "destroyed by the movement." Replacing John Lewis as chairman in May 1966 was the 24-year old Stokely Carmichael . When on the night of June 16, 1966, following protests at the shooting of solo freedom marcher James Meredith , Carmichael walked out of jail (his 27th arrest) and into Broad Street Park in Greenwood, Mississippi , he asked

12426-411: Was conflict with SNCC. The New York Times noted that King's SCLC had taken steps "that seemed to indicate they were assuming control" of the movement in Albany, and that the student group had "moved immediately to recapture its dominant position on the scene." If the differences between the organizations were not resolved, the paper predicted "tragic consequences". As a result of meetings brokered by

12540-663: Was determined to deflect the MDFP effort. With the presidential election approaching the priority was to protect the Democrats' "Solid South" against inroads being made by Republican Barry Goldwater 's campaign and to minimise support for George Wallace 's third-party challenge. The MFDP nonetheless got to the National Democratic Convention in Atlantic City at the end of August. The proceedings of

12654-551: Was fatally shot outside 1456 9th St. in West Oakland by 25-year-old Black Guerrilla Family member Tyrone Robinson. Relations between Newton and factions within the Black Guerrilla Family had been strained for nearly two decades. Many former Black Panthers who became BGF members in jail were disenchanted with Newton for his perceived abandonment of imprisoned Black Panther Party members. In his book, Shadow of

12768-516: Was poor and getting worse. To field staff, the Atlanta office was out of touch and becoming more and more irrelevant. Meanwhile, there were no central strategies. Resources were dwindling and tensions over the allocation of resources were mounting As an opportunity to take stock, to critique and reevaluate the movement, a retreat in Waveland, Mississippi , was organized for November 1964. Like Ella Baker, in criticizing King's "messianic" leadership of

12882-571: Was recovering after a bomb he was building exploded in his hands. Over the 1980s the black power movement continued despite a decline in its popularity and organization memberships. The Black Liberation Army was active in the US until at least 1981 when a Brinks truck robbery , conducted with support from former Weather Underground members Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert , left a guard and two police officers dead. Boudin and Gilbert, along with several BLA members, were subsequently arrested. M19CO engaged in

12996-537: Was to adopt a new tactic that helped galvanize the movement nationally. In February 1961, Diane Nash, Ruby Doris Smith , Charles Sherrod, and J. Charles Jones joined the Rock Hill, South Carolina sit-in protests and followed the example of the Friendship Nine in enduring an extended jail time rather than post bail. The "Jail-no-Bail" stand was seen as a moral refusal to accept, and to effectively subsidize,

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