19 Nov Create original poetry or original rap lyrics about characters, events, and themes from the readings. TITLE: Black Power, Poverty & Progress. THEMES: Black Panther, The Promise Land, Dr. Ma
*Create original poetry or original rap lyrics about characters, events, and themes from the readings.
TITLE: Black Power, Poverty & Progress.
THEMES: Black Panther, The Promise Land, Dr. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Is Black Power the opposite of White Power?
*Themes can be changed
*PLEASE look at power points and poetry example uploads
*No specific word count
EYES ON THE PRIZE: BLACK POWER, PROGRESS & POVERTY
AFAM B201 – Intro to African American Studies
Najmah Thomas, Ph.D.
Admin / Module To-Do List
- Updated Schedule
- Reading – Eyes on The Prize Study Guide:
- Week 1a Reading – Episode 7-8
- Week 1b Reading – Episode 9-10
- Reading Response Assignments
- Quiz due EOD 11/20
- Reading Response due EOD 11/27
Black Power, Progress & Poverty – Lecture Topics
- RECAP: EOTP Episode 6
- Timeline of events
- Antecedents of the Black Power Movement
- EOTP Episode 7:
- Black Power
- Malcolm X
- EOTP Episode 8: A Tale of Two Societies:
- Watts, Chicago & Detroit Riots
- The Kerner Commission Report
RECAP: EOTP Episode 6
- Shall Overcome – The Voting Rights Act of 1965:
- Literacy tests banned
- Federal oversight of voter registration in certain areas
- attorney general authorized to investigate poll taxes in state/local elections
- Section 4* – Identifies states & localities with history of racial discrimination (AL, AK, AZ, GA, LA, MS, SC, TX, VA & counties in CA, FL, NY, NC, SD, MI, others)…*Shelby v Holder
- Section 5 – ‘preclearance’ process requires states & localities with history of racial discrimination to get federal permission to change voting laws
- Selma to Montgomery
- Marches I, II & III
- King’s 4 point plan:
- Nonviolent demonstrators confront injustice…
- Racists react with violence
- Americans of conscience demand federal legislation
- Under pressure, the administration intervenes
- Timeline of events:
- Feb. 21, 1965, NY – Malcom X is assassinated
- Aug. 6, 1965, DC – President Johnson signs the landmark Voting Rights Act
- Aug. 11, 1965, CA – Black neighborhood of Watts (Los Angeles) experiences widespread riots, 34 residents killed during the rioting
- January 1966 – King and SCLC begin shift to northern urban city centers, join Chicago Freedom Movement
- May 1966 – Stokely Carmichael elected SNCC national chairman
- June 1966 – James Meredith shot during ‘Walk Against Fear’ from Nashville, TN to Jackson, MS
- August 1966 – Escalation of Vietnam War
- November 1966 (St. Helena Is., SC) – Dr. King & SCLC meet at Penn Center
- April 28, 1967 – Muhammad Ali refuses to be inducted into the U.S. Army, is immediately stripped of his heavyweight title
- July 1967, Detroit, MI – Rioting, 43 residents killed, Kerner Commission established
- February 1968, Washington, DC – Kerner Commission report on economic disparities and racial discrimination, ‘separate & unequal societies’
- February 8, 1968, Orangeburg, SC – 3 students killed, 27 wounded by police on SCSU campus
- February 12, 1968, Memphis, TN – Union of Black sanitation workers strike begins
- April 4, 1968, Memphis, TN – Dr. King is assassinated
- May 14, 1968, Washington, DC – The Poor People’s Campaign begins
- June 5, 1968, Los Angeles, CA – Senator Robert Kennedy is assassinated
- March 1969, Charleston, SC – hospital workers strike begins
- Demanding cultural, political and economic self-determination
- Stokely Carmichael / Kwame Ture – coined term Black Power – self-worth, self-love, self-respect
- Symbols , salutations, celebrations, education, hair/clothing, media
- Revolutionary/Cultural Nationalism
- Black Panther Party, Nation of Islam (NOI), US
- Black Studies/African American Studies at HBCUs & PWIs
- Black nationalism:
- Martin R. Delaney, 1843 The Mystery, black-controlled newspaper, emigration commission
- Black-controlled educational and religious institutions (A.M.E. Church, etc.)
- Pan-Africanism:
- Marcus Garvey & the UNIA, 1920s
- Principles of self-determination and self-reliance
- Labor civil-rights:
- March on Washington proposed by A. Phillip Randolph
- Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
- Black-led, independent protest for wartime jobs and desegregation of the armed forces
- Examples of self-defense in the nonviolent Civil Rights Movement:
- Deacons for Defense and Justice, 65+ chapters by 1964
- Gloria Richardson, Cambridge (MD) Nonviolent Action Committee
- Growing frustration with the slow pace of change
- Leaders and organizations respond
- Malcolm X (Malcolm Little):
- Born 5.19.1925, Omaha, Nebraska; mother was national recording secretary for UNIA; father was a Baptist minister and UNIA chapter president; Littles were terrorized for activism, home burned in Lansing, MI; 1931, father murdered; mother institutionalized, children split up among foster homes and orphanages; Malcolm follows path of many at-risk youth.
- Nation of Islam (NOI) leader, then defector
- About hating Africa; “ The hate that hate produced” 1959 broadcast
- Mecca and assassination (39 years old)
- Black power & intersectionality:
- Black Power = male-centered response to emasculation
- Black women provided support AND leadership
- few key figures:
- Racial Inequality in the City:
- Watts – riot in response to ‘routine’ police brutality, 600 buildings destroyed over 6 days of rioting;
- Chicago – de facto discrimination, high unemployment, ghettos, poverty, crime
- Detroit – de facto housing discrimination, police brutality (‘tac squads’); tac squad response to reception for Black Vietnam Vets resulted in rioting; 43 dead, 600 injured, 682 buildings damaged
- “Why don’t all the Negroes in the South just move North? They do not escape Jim Crow: they merely encounter another, not-less-deadly variety. They do not move to Chicago, they move to the Southside; they do not move to New York, they move to Harlem.” –James Baldwin
- The Kerner Report:
- Commission headed by Illinois Gov. Otto Kerner – researchers, social scientists, and commissioners
- Purpose: investigate the Detroit Riots – what happened, why did it happen, what can be done to prevent it from happening again?
- Findings:
- One common denominator among those most likely to riot: they had experienced or witnessed an act of police brutality.
- “Discrimination and segregation have long permeated much of American life; they now threaten the future of every American.”
- Without drastic and costly remedies, there will be “continuing polarization of the American community and, ultimately, the destruction of basic democratic values.”
- Report urged the nation to remove racial barriers in education, employment, housing, policing and all other areas of public services
- Initial report ( Harvest of American Racism ) destroyed, all but1social scientist dismissed; watered down report still rejected by LBJ
- To mount programs on a scale equal to the dimensions of the problems
- To aim these programs for high impact in the immediate future to close the gap between promise and performance
- To undertake new initiatives and experiments that can change the system of failure and frustration that now dominates the ghetto and weakens our society.
- Read Eyes on the Prize – Episode 9-10 before next session
- Watch Eyes on the Prize – Episodes 9-10 before next session
- How did Malcolm X’s vision challenge practitioners of nonviolent direct action? Why do you think his ideas resonated with Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture) and so many of the SNCC activists?
- According to Coretta Scott King, how did Malcom X’s view of the struggle against discrimination and exploitation differ from that of her husband? What did the two have in common?
- What were some characteristics of discrimination in Northern cities?
- What is the distinction between a protest and a riot? Why did the conflicts in Los Angeles and Detroit escalate into riots?
- What actions did the Kerner Commission recommend in order for America to address the “unfinished business of this nation”?
Opening Discussion
Black Power, Black Progress, Black Poverty
6
Black Power
Black Power’s Antecedents
“A first-class citizen does not beg for freedom. A first-class citizen does not plead to the white power-structure to give him something that the whites have no power to give or take away. Human rights are human rights, not white rights.”
EOTP: Episode 7 – The Time Has Come
Black Power & Womanism
EOTP Episode 8: Two Societies
EOTP Episode 8: Two societies
Our recommendations embrace three basic principles:
EOTP Episodes 9-10 – POWER! & PROMISED LAND:
Next Session: Thursday, November 17th @4:30pm
Discussion Questions
Discussion Questions
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EYES ON THE PRIZE:BLACK POWER,PROGRESS & POVERTY
AFAM B201–Intro to African American Studies
Najmah Thomas, Ph.D.
Admin / Module To-Do List
- Updated Schedule
- Reading-Eyes on The PrizeStudyGuide:
- Week1b Reading–Episode 9-10
- Module Assignments
- QuizdueEOD11/20
- Reading Response due EOD11/27
Black Power,Progress& Poverty–Lecture Topics
- RECAP: EOTP Episodes 7 & 8
- EOTP Episode 9: Power!
- BlackPower-translatingwords into capital:
- Casestudy of Black Powerstrategies:
- EOTPEpisode 10: ThePromised Land
- Time to break the silence
- The costs of war and poverty
- Memphis and themountaintop…
RECAP: EOTP Episode7
- Defining Black Power:
- Demandfor cultural, political and economic self-determination
- Self-worth, self-love,self-respect
- Pan-Africanism / Afro-centric
- Some Key Organizations:
- NOI (Nation of Islam)
- Black Panther Party
- Becoming Malcom X:
- Parents, Earl & Louise Little, terrorized, murderedand institutionalized for leadership roles in UNIA
- From at-risk youth, to inmate, to NOI lieutenant
- Shifts views after hajj to Mecca, breaks withNOI, assassinated at age 39 (3 NOI membersconvicted)
- Antecedents to the Black PowerMovement:
- Black nationalism
- Pan-Africanism
- Labor civil-rights
- Examplesof self-defense inthe nonviolent Civil RightsMovement
RECAP: EOTP Episode8
- 3 key findings of theKernerCommission’s 2ndreport (also rejectedby LBJ):
- 1 commondenominator among those mostlikely to riot:they had experienced orwitnessed____________________
- “Discrimination and segregation havelongpermeated much of American life; they nowthreaten the future of every American.”
- Withoutdrastic and costly remedies, therewill be“continuing polarization of theAmerican community and, ultimately, thedestruction of basic democratic values”
- Who said it & why?“Theydonot move to Chicago, they moveto the Southside; they do not moveto New York, they move toHarlem.”
- Racial inequalityin thecity:
- Riots in multiple cities,1967
- Watts (LA), Detroit, & Chicago(Southside) among the mostdeadly
Opening Discussion
Eyes on the Prize–Power (Episode 9)
- ‘Black Power’-translatingwords into capital:
- Power in coalitions andpoliticians
- Power in community controlover local programs
- Case studies of BlackPower strategies:
- TheBlack Panther Party
- Ocean Hill-Brownsville(Brooklyn, NY)
- Cleveland,OH
Black Power–BPP Translating WordsInto Capital
- The Black Panther Party (BPP) forSelf-Defense (Oakland, CA,1966):
- Founders, Huey Newton & BobbySeale
- Inspired byStokelyCarmichael’sLowndes County FreedomOrganization
- Called for community control andarmed defense against policebrutality
- Some BPP projects:
- Health clinics
- Educational programs
- Free breakfast for children
- BPP 10-point platform:(1)freedom, (2)fullemployment, (3)restitution(40 acres+), (4)decenthousing, (5)education,(6)military exemption, (7)endpolice brutality, (8)prisonrelease, (9)trial bypeers,(10)justice andpeace
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Image credit:Ruth-MarionBaruch