Black Power

Historical Context Essay

Rafael Torrubia (University of St Andrews)

Ed. by Christopher Hugh Gair, University of Glasgow
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.5: African American Writing and Culture of the United States.
Vol. editors: Sofia Ahlberg (Uppsala University), Philathia Bolton (University of Akron), Patrick Chura (University of Akron), J. Michael Duvall (College of Charleston), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), A Yemisi Jimoh (University of Massachusetts Amherst), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Tony Papanikolas (San Jose State University)

Domains

Civil Rights
Protest movements and actions
Race

Dates

Date of occurrence 1966-1980

Places

United States (Location)

Cultural Identities

African American

Resources

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The term “Black Power”, although commonly used to denote the militant political ethos which emerged from the African-American civil rights movement during the latter half of the 1960s, was a mercurial, malleable concept in reality, which came to encapsulate an array of political groups, ideological standpoints and cultural movements. The phrase engendered consternation amongst white and black sections of society alike from its first “official” utterance on the Meredith March in 1966 by Willie Ricks [Mukasa Dada] and Stokely Carmichael [Kwame Ture], then chairman of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Standing at the intersection of Freedom and Love Street in Itta Bena, Mississippi, Carmichael declared, “We been saying freedom for six years and we aint got…

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2420 words

Citation: Torrubia, Rafael. "Black Power". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 07 July 2011 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=17634, accessed 21 November 2024.]