Vol. 4, No. 23 mi July 15.,..1966
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raiser for a new development of enormous importance in the American political scene.
All the organizations primarily involved in the Negro struggle for civil rights and equality had rushed contingents, including some of their most prominent leaders, to resume the march begun by Meredith. During the long days walking in the sun, they discussed the major issues facing their movement, particularly the acute problem of ways and means to achieve their goals. The constant harrassment of the marchers by local police and white racists lent special point and urgency to the discussion. Daily television coverage brought the debate into the homes of Americans from coast to coast.
The end result was the explosive spread of a new slogan -black power.
The concept is relatively simple. It involves (1) the right to self-defense against the physical assaults of the racists; (2) the necessity for the Negro people to assert their potential political strength under their own leadership; (3) the necessity to exercise this strength independently of the two-party system and, if need by, against it. -
The concept involves a rupture with the "nonviolent" Gandhist prescription (although it does not mean advocacy of violence). It Signifies breaking the political strings held by white liberals who have been a major source of financial support for the traditional organizations (it does not mean rejection of white participation in. the struggle or "racism in reverse"). It offers a sharp challenge to the Democratic party (while still far from organization of an independent political formation on a nationwide scale). It places a huge question mark over trying to legislate meaningful reforms into the © present system (without as yet posing the need to turn to revolutionary methods and a revolutionary program).
One of its most significant aspects is its opposition to. the war in Vietnam. It notes the hypocrisy of purportedly exporting democracy to Vietnam while democracy is still nonexistent, in the South; and of sending troops across the Pacific under pretense of defending the democratic rights of the south Vietnamese when the Johnson administration does not even offer federal protection for Negroes inside the United States. It stresses in particular the crime of sending Negroes to fight against the colored peoples of sia.
The spread of the slogan of black power is occurring at breathtaking speed even by American standards. It had already come to the fore in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in May with the defeat of John Lewis as chairman and the election of Stokely Carmichael. It was the key issue at the twenty-third annual convention of the Congress of Racial Equality which opened July 1 in Baltimore. And it was the key issue at the fifty-seventh annual convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People which opened July 5 in Los Angeles. The CORE adopted
the slogan amid very militant speeches. The conservative middleclass leadership of the NAACP rejected it amid dire forecasts that.:.” it meant "black death." (The decline in membership of the NAACP, however, would seem to indicate that the Roy Wilkins leadership. may. wither on the vine if it continues to stay out of touch with the current mood among the Negro masses. )
: The high command of the Democratic party has mobilized as if it were: facing a fresh focal center of colonial revolt. Senator ~ Robert: F. Kennedy opened the: attack June 30 with a statement. that the slogan: of black power; "could be Gamaging not only to the civil .rights. movement: but to the country."
Kennedy went further: "But it also indicates a split’ within: the Negro leadership and I think it also demonstrates that there is a militant group of Negroes who are: not:anxious to work with the white community to try to find answers to these problems."
The Democratic party leaders are mounting their attack along the lines indicated by Kennedy. They are charging that black power is racism in reverse: and:that it signifies a "go it alone" philosophy and rejection of help from: whites concerned about civil liberties and Negro equality. : .
Johnson sent no one less than Vice-President Hubert Humphrey to press this line at the NAACP convention. In a speech July 6 this liberal Democrat who’ has made a spectacle of himself belly-crawling before Johnson in hope of: again being named vicespresident in 1968, | said: "And we must reject: calls for racism, whether they come from a throat that is white or: one that is black." a a
With such demagogic arguments (and also the use of financial contributions), the Democrats are trying to bolster the most conservative wing of the civil-rights movement, split it down the middle and isolate such militant leaders as Stokely Carmichael, Floyd B. McKissick and Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer who have shot overnight into national prominence and who are threatening to displace the old, well-housebroken leadership who enjoy beang patted on the head. by the liberal Democrats. ;
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is writhing in ‘the middle. He is doing some mighty powerful preaching in behalf of "nonvio-,,... lence." At the same time he realizes that this no longer goes over. Qn July 8 he announced that he is considering organizing a wave of civil disobedience demonstrations. "We'll use something that avoids. violence, but becomes militant and extreme enough to disrupt the .. flow of a city.’
He seemed to have in mind such things as masses of people lying down-on a highway to stop traffic, or sit-down demonstrations by unemployed workers at city halls., He admitted that only a few =: months ago he felt. that such actions should be used sparingly, if at all. oo .
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“His remarks clearly revealed the pressures he is feeling. “When they {public officials] -drain the steam out of the nonviolent movement and give no-concessions, they are planting the seeds for a -Watts-like situation....They have mastered that art in.the North. They'll let you march all summer and not give you one thing." >
. _ King cited the case of Chicago's Mayor Richard J. Daley, who promises to end the slums. but who does nothing concrete. "He's just trying to stay ahead of us just enough to take the steam out of the movement. But he fails to understand that if gains are not made-:and made in a hurry through responsible civil rights organizations, it will open the door to militant groups to gain a foothold =~ and. those that have tried to be responsible will be driven to more irresponsible deeds and words." a
. He complained’ that “Industry is playing games with us. Even a long-standing ally like labor tolerates building trades unions that won't allow Negroes in them."
If Negroes had made: genuine rather than "superficial" progress, he said, there would not be a black power movement or a danger of violence by Negroes. "But now people have to understand that the choice is no longer between nice little meetings or nonviolence. It is between militant nonviolence and riots. : King's dilemma is a measure of the shift that has occurred _-in the thinking of the Negro people. He is already being left behind . and the movement begun by the martyred Malcolm X has suddenly taken a giant step forward. This can now greatly alter the American political scene, opening up new perspectives that will have inevitable international repercussions, particularly in connection with such imperialist operations as the war in Vietnan.
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