BLACK POWER

The Student Nonviolent Campaign Committee, one of the leading organizations that fought segregation harbored a strictly nonviolent approach, with peaceful protests. Not all members agreed with this policy and some even viewed desegregation as a wrong objective to be achieved. Increasing numbers of black youth, particularly, had come to reject the moderate path of cooperation, integration and assimilation of their elders.

During the March against Fear in Mississippi, organized by SNCC and other groups, including Martin Luther King’s SCLC, Stokey Carmichael, a member of the SNCC, enraged at being arrested once again, coined the phrase “Black power!” when he said:

"This is the twenty-seventh time I have been arrested and I ain't going to jail no more! The only way we gonna stop them white men from whuppin' us is to take over. What we gonna start sayin' now is Black Power!"

Over the remainder of the march, there was a division between those aligned with Martin Luther King, Jr. and those aligned with Carmichael, marked by their respective slogans, "Freedom Now" and "Black Power".

Black power thus became a political movement that emphasized racial pride and the creation of black political and cultural institutions to nurture and promote black collective interests, advance black values and secure black autonomy. Some members of the Black Power movement also believed in racial separation, black nationalism and even the use of violence as a means of achieving their aims.

Two groups that embraced the Black Power philosophy were the Nation of Islam and the Black Panthers.

The Black Panther Party was founded to promote civil rights and self-defense of African Americans. It was founded in 1966 in Oakland, California.

Although the party leadership promoted socialist doctrine, the party’s black nationalist attitude and reputation attracted an ideologically diverse membership, to the extent of some members openly disagreeing with the leadership. The group was founded on the principles of its Ten-Point Program, a document that called for "Land, Bread, Housing, Education, Clothing, Justice And Peace," as well as exemption from military service that would utilize African Americans to "fight and kill other people of color in the world who, like Black people, are being victimized by the White racist government of America.