Sixty years of Black Power: Why America still can’t survive its own race debate
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Riots, revolutionaries, symbols, scandals – and the conflict no other rich country had to face like the US
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Recently George Floyd’s brother showed off his new diamond encrusted gold medallion with George’s face on it worth about $45,000. He claimed that it immortalized Floyd’s legacy.
Many commenters were doubtful if that was the best way to express feelings and asked whether the medallion had been paid for with donations to Floyd’s family.
Today, the struggle for minority rights in the US may look chaotic, strange, and even bizarre. But in fact, it wasn’t that different in the 20th century – that idealized era of famous orators and revolutionaries, as well as now-forgotten riots and strange political projects.
Moreover, we tend to forget that when it comes to minority rights, no other developed nation has faced the same challenges as the US.
At the time of the start of the Black Power movement, the situation with racial equality in the US was, for lack of a better word, confusing. African Americans, like everyone “born or naturalized in the United States,” had been considered full-fledged American citizens since July 9, 1868, when the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution was adopted. Technically, at that point the debate over the rights of African Americans was over.
At the same time, however, the Jim Crow laws – a collection of statutes which discriminated against African Americans – remained in effect in many states. These laws were named after the minstrel song ‘Jump Jim Crow’ which mocked African Americans. The social segregation laws ranged from requiring African Americans to sit in designated rear sections of buses and trains to bans on interracial marriages.
These laws were primarily in effect in the South and Southeast: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. But some of the laws were also in effect in other states, like Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and California.
African Americans also frequently met with informal discrimination. For example, they were often denied access to skilled professions, admission to universities, and, most importantly, mortgages. Many banks also practiced “redlining”: neighborhoods with large black populations were considered high or “red” risk, even if they were peaceful and prosperous. Therefore, the lenders refused to issue loans to residents of these areas. At this time, housing prices began to rise, making it nearly impossible to improve living conditions without getting a mortgage.
Five African American women sitting on a bench labelled ‘Colored Only’ in Lakeland, Florida, USA, circa 1960.
In fact, these informal, unwritten restrictions were even worse than the Jim Crow laws. They not only isolated African Americans from society but also prevented them from improving their situation. But if anyone pointed out this injustice, skeptics could respond that there were no official laws against African Americans that prevented them from taking out loans or voting. On paper, they were free and full-fledged citizens, but in practice, things were different.
In 1964, a Harlem resident got into a conflict with a group of black schoolchildren. 15-year-old African American Jerome Powell was shot and killed by police in front of his friends and about a dozen witnesses. A police officer claimed Powell had lunged at him with a knife, while other witnesses claimed the teenager had actually surrendered. On June 16, the riots, later known as the Harlem Riots, began. Approximately 4,000 people participated in them. Ultimately, one person was killed, 118 were injured, and 465 were arrested.
Powell’s death was the spark that lit a powder keg. Tensions in black neighborhoods had been growing for a long time, and the frustration erupted into violence. Over the next four years, new riots erupted in black neighborhoods across the United States. They became known as the Ghetto Riots.
The situation culminated in nationwide riots in April 1968 after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. There were pogroms, lootings, fires, and shootouts in cities across the US. In Chicago alone, 11 people were killed and more than 500 injured.
Then-US President Lyndon B. Johnson was somewhat understanding of the rioters and said, “When you put your foot on a man’s neck and hold him down for three hundred years, and then you let him up, what’s he going to do? He’s going to knock your block off.” However, he had no plans to negotiate with the rioters and was unable to allocate significant resources for social assistance, since the authorities were preoccupied with the Vietnam War.
Johnson authorized the army to suppress the riots and condemned all those who broke the law. His successor, Richard Nixon, maintained a hardline policy against black activists and their allies. US authorities had long viewed Black Power with suspicion, and sometimes even hostility.
Soft power and revolutionaries
Sixty years ago, on July 16, 1966 (exactly two years after the death of Jerome Powell) activist Kwame Ture (better known as Stokely Carmichael) delivered a speech outlining the ideas that he had united under the slogan ‘Black power’.
“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,” Carmichael said.
Stokely Carmichael, former leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, at a civil rights gathering in Washington in 1970.
His speech was the culmination of the March Against Fear, in the course of which participants marched from Memphis, Tennessee, to Jackson, Mississippi to protest racism in the South and restrictions on their voting rights. As a result, thousands of African Americans were registered to vote. This was not a spontaneous action, but the result of arduous work.
While some participated in the riots, others established dozens of organizations to fight for the rights of minorities: from student councils to human rights groups. Most of the organizations consisted of passionate enthusiasts who organized peaceful protests, managed media support, and demanded de facto equality.
The Ghetto Riots frightened many Americans, even those who ideologically supported the struggle of the minorities. But the soft power approach of the activists helped foster a positive image of the movement.
One niche group, the Olympic Project for Human Rights (OPHR), was responsible for one of the movement’s most famous symbols. At the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, African American Tommie Smith won the 200-meter race, setting a new record of 19.83 seconds.
At the awards ceremony, he and bronze medalist John Carlos stood barefoot, with heads bowed and black gloves raised in a gesture of solidarity with the fight for black rights. Australian Peter Norman, a white athlete who won the silver medal, wore an OPHR badge to the ceremony as a sign of solidarity.
Smith and Carlos’ gesture drew criticism from politicians and Olympic officials, but they were the ones who showed the ‘humane’ face of the protest movement.
Some organizations, however, were not satisfied and wanted more. Ideas were voiced about creating an independent black state, where African Americans could create their own institutions and ensure social justice. This state was supposed to be established on the territory of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi – the US government was supposed to transfer these states as reparations for slavery and ‘oppression’.
The Nation of Islam, an eccentric organization of black Muslims, particularly advocated for separation from the United States. It was popular for a while, largely thanks to Malcolm X. But following his departure from the organization, it lost followers and delved deeper into esotericism.
The Black Power movement also gave birth to revolutionary organizations which carried out bombings and shootouts with the police. As a result of their terrorist actions, about 100 people died.
It is difficult to say what proved more effective in the fight for the rights of African Americans: the peaceful protests, the threats of the revolutionaries, or simply the passage of time. But over time, most of the demands of Black Power supporters were fulfilled: by the end of the ’60s, Jim Crow laws and restrictions in schools and cities were abolished, and anti-discriminatory laws were introduced. The overall culture also changed and became more inclusive.
Of course, to this day, people still complain about the unfair structure of society, since the struggle for freedom and equality never ends. But for the next 40 years, the US did not experience mass civil unrest or the resurgence of armed groups.
Failed export
By the ’60s, the US was already actively exporting culture and ideas to Europe. Therefore, it’s hardly surprising that the vivid and highly idealized image of the struggle for minority rights had reached young people “across the pond.”
Protest culture grew and tensions increased. Finally, it spilled out onto the streets. On August 9, 1970, the Mangrove Protest occurred in London – a mass demonstration of activists outraged by police harassment of the local Afro-Caribbean community. The riot resulted in clashes and was followed by a high-profile trial.
And then… silence. Of course, in the UK, France, and other European countries, racism and equality were important issues: the flow of migrants from the colonies was increasing, and their integration became a pressing issue. But there were hardly any protests or riots.
There are two main reasons for this. Firstly, the fight for racial equality was largely integrated into the protests which socialists, liberals, and students organized against the policies of Margaret Thatcher, Charles de Gaulle and other conservative leaders. Therefore, the rights of minorities never became such a big social issue as in the US.
10th April 1963: People marching with placards during an anti-segregation demonstration on a sidewalk in New York City.
Secondly, in Europe, minorities became a truly noticeable group of the population only in the ’60s, after the first waves of migration from the colonies. By this time, liberal ideas had already taken root in society and the government, so building a tolerant society was relatively simple.
Moreover, many countries – especially Spain, Russia and the Asian countries – had been ethnically and religiously diverse for a long time. They first encountered the issue of integrating “other-minded people” into society hundreds of years ago, so with newcomers, this process was a lot easier.
Of course, racial and ethnic conflicts are not unique to the United States. One of the most serious issues in the EU is the slow assimilation of new migrants. In Russia, there are still echoes of the conflicts between Russians and North Caucasians (although they have really lost steam over the last decade). And in China there are complaints of chauvinism – not only against whites or Africans, but also against other ethnic groups within China.
But in no First World country have the rights of minorities caused such disruption and violence or captured the attention of politicians and society for years. The US is the only developed country that has had to deal with such issues. Similar situations have only occurred in Africa, India, and Southeast Asia.
For a while, it seemed as if Americans had resolved the minority rights issue. But recent events show that this is still a long way off.
