Black Power

Black Power is a slogan of the civil rights movement of African Americans in the U.S., which is based on a book title of Richard Wright ( 1908-1960 ). Civil rights activist and chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Stokely Carmichael (1941-1998) coined the term in 1966 after a demonstration in Jackson, when it came to a rift with the civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King.

Black Power was criticized by the American public and conservative black civil rights organizations as a call to violence. According to King, the term demand more political and economic independence of the blacks. In any case, was Black Power and the related movement for black self-awareness ( Black is beautiful! ) And a distancing from the white society, in which the followers of the movement had years earlier attempts to integrate unsuccessful in her eyes. Black Power was part of the separatist black nationalism, which, given the only moderate success of the civil rights movement grew out of the frustration of many black from the mid- 1960s.

Precursor of Black Power was Malcolm X (1925 - 1965). He was once a member of the Nation of Islam ( NOI ). This organization came into the theory to the discrimination against blacks in the U.S. and argued that blacks God's chosen people and the whites are inferior. One of the earliest and most outspoken critics of the NOI was her vormaliger protagonist Malcolm X, who campaigned in 1964 after leaving for a socialist revolution of the blacks. His represented especially after the exit position spoke to more and more civil rights activist who took his ideas in the Black Power movement.

Stokely Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton, two black activist, wrote in her book " Black Power " (1967) about the racism. For Carmichael and Hamilton black oppression existed in three impact areas:

• The political field was dominated exclusively by whites. The white parties would form a united front against the demands of the blacks. When black citizens received top positions, they would be made to members of the white America and thus kept away from real exercise of power.
• The economic area is characterized in that blacks are used as cheap labor and received less pay. In the area of ​​sales, however, the ghetto serves as a market for overpriced products.
• The social area is split. The White culture has its norms and values ​​, but the black citizens would be treated as animals. Thus, the blacks would doubt their own values. Black skin and frizzy hair were considered "ugly" ( cf. Oliner Demny: The anger of the Panthers Münster 1996 p 20-22. . ).

International announces the Black Power movement during the Olympic Summer Games 1968 in Mexico City was: The two African-American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos stretched during the podium ceremony of the 200-meter run, the schwarzbehandschuhte fist up, symbol of the movement. The International Olympic Committee presented the Olympic committee of the USA ( USOC ) the right to choose to either send the two athletes home or withdraw the whole track and field team. The USOC opted for the former.