1. Factors Influencing the Civil Rights
Movement
2. Civil Rights Movement: Progressive
Narrative
3.
Civil Rights Movement: Tragic
Redemptive Narrative
The Civil Rights Movement and
Black Power
Progressive Narrative
Tragic Redemptive Narrative
DU BOIS
MARTIN LUTHER KING JR
BARACK OBAMA
SOUTH
GARVEY
MALCOM X
BLACK PANTHERS
NORTH
WALTER RODNEY
Protest as a Historical Continuum
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Increased number of blacks in north;
Impact of World War II;
Increased access to education;
Widespread access to television;
Growth of a black culture industry;
Anti-colonialist movements in Africa &
Caribbean; and
7. Changes in US and global politics.
Factors Influencing the Civil
Rights Movement
Christian
Non-violent
Multiracial and
Integrationist
Media centered
Student organized
NAACP as legal
representative
King’s Progressive Narrative
Northern
Separatist
Africa as source of
inspiration
Slavery as ongoing
Community based
Confrontational
X and a Tragic Redemptive
Narrative
“It is about taking care of business—the
business of and for black people . . . If we
succeed we will exercise control over our
lives, politically, economically and
psychically. We will also contribute to the
development of a viable larger society; in
terms of ultimate social benefit there is
nothing unilateral about the movement to
free black people” (Toure and Hamilton, Black
Power 1967)
Definition of Black Power
The Watts Riot
A large-scale race riot lasted
for six days in Los Angeles,
California in August 1965. 34
people were killed, 1,032
injured, and 3,952 arrested.
Protection from
police brutality
Ten-point program
of community
empowerment
Black nationalist
Black Panther Party for SelfDefence
US divided, along racial and socio-economic lines, into
two societies: 40% of non-whites lived below the
federal government's poverty line;
Black men were twice as likely to be un-employed as
whites and three times as likely to be in low-skill jobs;
The commission viewed this poverty as the cause of
crime and civil unrest.
Kerner Commission (1968)
Historical continuity with
Garvey
Challenged white cultural
Referents and valorized
blackness
Drew language and metaphors
from Rastafarianism
Critical of educational system
and middle class
Unable to address issues of
Indian ethnicity
Walter Rodney and Black Power in
a Caribbean Context