Black Power

a call for Black people in this country to unite and to recognize their heritage as well as build a sense of community

“BLACK POWER” is defined by Stokley Carmicheal, in his 1968 book, Black Power as “It is a call for Black people in this country to unite and to recognize their heritage as well as build a sense of community.” The term “Black Power” became popular in the late 1960s. The slogan was first used by Stokley Carmichael in June 1966 during a civil rights march in Mississippi. On 16 June 1966, while completing the march begun by James Meredith, Stokely Carmichael of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) rallied a crowd in Greenwood, Mississippi, with the cry, “We need some Black Power!”

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1966: In 1966, he used the phrase "Black Power"at a rally in Mississippi for the Civil Rights movement.”It is a call for Black people in this country to unite, to recognize their heritage, to build a sense of community. It is a call for Black people to define their own goals, to lead their own organizations.”which would lead to the self preservation of people of blacks and other people of color.

1968: American athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, widely deemed a “Black Power salute,” each raised a black-gloved fist during the playing of the US national anthem to protest the unequal treatment of people of color.

1968: “Black Power” apperared in music with artists having new self-confidence and assertiveness among the black community in 1968 America. This one powerful hook conveys the central message of the song and became the rallying cry while pushing the message forward in many rallies in “Black Power Movement.”

1969: In 1969 the Black Panther Party of Self Defense started the Free Breakfast Program across the nation, because hunger and poverty made it difficult for many poor children of color to learn in school and most poor children of color in Oakland,Ca and across America went to school hungry.

1975: Six years after the Black Panther Party of Self Defense launched their breakfast and food program in the basement of Oakland’s St. Augustine Church, in January 1969.The government School Breakfast Program became a "permanent entitlement program by Congress"

1977: African Americans were constantly being told that they were inferior, constantly being held back, constantly thrown under the bus. They, however, did not give up. They continued to protest, to participate in freedom rides, to engage in sit-ins, and to march the streets for their rights. This song is a correlation between Bob Marley and the Black Power Movement and was the theme song used in rallys the fight for “Black Power”

1977: The Food Stamp Act - Repeals the Food Stamp Act of 1964 and replaced the existing program with a new program substantially similar and it intended to change the purpose of the program from the provision of an opportunity to obtain a "nutritionally adequate diet" to provision of an opportunity to obtain a "more nutritious diet containing the 4 basic food groups and try and help to combat the mal-nourished and starving people in the inner cities where most people of color reside.

1989: In 1989 the movie “ Do The Right Thing” which was inspired by the racially-motivated killings of a black man named Michael Griffith and an elderly black woman named Eleanor Bumpurs who was fatally shot by the New York Police Department, “Do the Right Thing” served and still serves as a window into a country that has historically devalued the lives of African Americans which prompted the rap group “Public Enemy” to write the song “Fight the Power” to show “Black Power.”

2013: In another show of “Black Power” in July 2013, with the use of the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter on social media after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of African-American teen Trayvon Martin 17 months earlier in February 2012. BLM shows the strength of BlackPower” by uniting today to protest the killing of people of color.

C-DuBB is a student @SCC who was born in the 60’s and lived through all of the “Black Power” movement. In the 60 and 70’s Black Power took off and in the 80’s and 90’s it sustained and grew and somehow devalued with all of the new narratives in today’s society and it’s sad to say here we are fighting to restore, maintain, and sustain and continue to promote “Black Power” to our youth here in the turn of the century and into the millennium. But until we get equal and fair opportunities in the country that was built off of our blood, sweat and tears and the free labor that our former ancestors who didn’t have “Black Power” and suffered from knowing their true worth and that’s exactly what “Black Power” is and stands for as well as build a sense of community and pride of excellence within our Black culture.

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