The Black Power Movement: Origins, Impact, and Legacy

This essay provides a comprehensive overview of the Black Power Movement, examining its origins, key figures like Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael, and its relationship to the Civil Rights Movement. It explores the movement's emphasis on racial pride, self-sufficiency, and the development of Black political and cultural institutions. The essay discusses the movement's challenges, including inequalities and discrimination, and its contributions to African American identity, culture, and politics. It also highlights the impact of the Black Power Movement on education, the economy, and the formation of cultural tolerance. The essay concludes by emphasizing the lasting legacy of the movement and its influence on contemporary issues related to racial justice and equality. The author draws on various sources to analyze the Black Power Movement's goals, strategies, and long-term effects.

Social movement essay

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7
Books and Journals......................................................................................................................7
Online..........................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Black power movement was a social movement focusing on the unavailability of safety
and self sufficiency in the African American neighbourhoods. Black power movement was
started in late 1960s and early 1970s. It emphasised on racial pride and development of black
political and cultural institutions to promote and take care of the less seen parts of the movement
as being a collective from of interest and values of Black Americans. Malcolm X was the
influence behind black power movement (Selvanathan, & Jetten, (2020)). It inspired Stokely
Carmichael and Willie Ricks of the student non violent coordinating committee to become the
organisers and used the term black power and give racial slogan. Black power is a revolutionary
movement which highlighted pride, empowerment of the economy and the formation of political
and cultural institutions. It was started in United States during the time of civil rights movement
between 1960 and 1980s.
Black power movement was a political and social movement which was to gain racial
pride, self sufficiency and mainly, equality for the black people and African descent. The June
1966 was a big day for the African American history, as Black power became popular. The
slogan related to this movement was used by Carmichael on this day in the march for Civil rights
happened in Mississippi. The black power is a symbol of representing nationalism, black pride,
solidarity and socialism (Van Dyke, & Amos, (2017)). Black power movement addressed the
social issue of putting more focus on black racial identity, their pride and determination. This
movement has influenced the super hit culture, education and politics. The challenge of this
movement was the inequalities from other groups of people to follow their goals and triumph
over the discrimination to attain equal rights. The failure happened during civil rights movement
lead to the black power movement. Members of this movement were resistive against the
unrealistic and hopping for the real change to occur. Black power movement promoted black
beauty while unifying African Americans.
MAIN BODY
Social movement is an effort from a large number of group of people to attain a particular
goals related to the social and political concerns. Movements is mainly started to undo a social
change and show their resistance to one. Social movements come up with the strategies to
empower the subjugated section of the society and put on effective challenges to resist the more

powerful elites of the society (Lee, Ramus, & Vaccaro, (2018)). The form and represent the
method of some social change happening from beneath within the nations. Social movements are
the organisations which are sustained campaigns supporting social goal and implementing a
change in the society and their values. They can be different in size but overall they are
collective. Social movements not only provides a platform to achieve something or change some
laws but also help communities to come forward to speak their mind and make people aware of
the problems they are facing and or are close to their heart. The sole purpose of social
movements is to work on attain goal which is related towards a change and giving a political
voice to those concerns by gathering some common people facing and standing against that
issue. Social movements interact with changes in environment and many other external elements
to bring a social change.
Civil rights movement helped in achieving many great things and the protest were
powerful enough to develop a large range of awareness for the not getting the liberty to black
people in America (Taylor, (2021)). It helped in out law about the discrimination based on race,
ethic, nationality, religion, gender and an individual identity in all that. Even after all this, most
of the people were still unemployed and were paid less when compared to other sections of the
society, there was a lack of opportunities and this lead to increase in poverty and crime. African
Americans followed the way of being passive resistance to disapprove the authority. Black
power movement promoted the interest of black people as appealed by many frustrated African
Americans. The dissatisfaction from Civil rights movements leads to Black power movement of
Black power. At the time of this era there was a increase in demand for black history courses and
more focus placed on African American culture. It displayed the realities of lives of African
Americans.
Malcolm X was an African American Muslim minister. He was a human rights activist
and joined the Nation of Islam which believed in black self reliance. He was a speaker and the
thinker behind Black power movement. He believed that black people have the right to defend
themselves in a violent way if necessary in order to achieve freedom and equality. Black power
movements had to go through many challenges because of their beliefs and a common goal of
Black Nationalism. This movement promoted interests related to black people, their self
sufficient black economy and pride and self esteem (Ogbar, (2019)). The movement was started
to show that there is no need to distinguish between black people and white people. They

promoted the distinctive black culture. The movement believed in black control of their
communities and not in having non violent protests. They believed that direct action is more
effective approach in to bringing a social change. People show their support towards black power
movement by adapting different ways of dressing. They started with the phrase that black is
beautiful which become a mantra and men and women proudly expressed their black
characteristics and became confident in being black. They believed in educating black
community and building institutions while providing protection to the black citizens.
Stockely Carmichael was the first person to use the political slogan for black power
movement in public. Black power movement made a positive and long lasting contribution to the
living conditions of African American people. The movement resulted in having a great pride
among the black people living in America. They started to accept their American heritage while
taking pride in the African culture. By doing this black people came out to be more stronger and
eventually the crime rate and poverty decreased (Collier-Thomas, & Franklin, (Eds.). (2020)).
Black voter were bestowed to support their black candidate. Black power movement designed a
way because of which black students are getting complete opportunity to apply for colleges they
like without going through any racial discrimination or oppression. This movement created a
strong black culture for the African American population (How the black power movement
influenced the civil rights movement, 2020). This was the way to relate to their cultures which
includes music, fashion and even literature. Black power movement also formed a separate base
for cultural tolerance in America as this culture was equally welcomed in the country.
The methods used by black power movements included the formation of Black Panther
party. They started a ten point program which was aimed to educate their people and expose the
real nature of American society towards black people. The voice of Black power movement,
Stokely Carmichael brought political education in his area of work. It helped in gaining political
literacy. Bobby Seale and Huey Newton used their knowledge in dealing with the lack of identity
among the black people. They believed that by providing education and building identity in their
people will help Blacks living in America to gain their freedom. The black power activists aimed
on controlling school and politics in their community. The black power movement later on
expanded to taking major control and interest in having own media institutions. They started
Black Panther newspaper which became very influential to giving out messages and on boarding
new people into the team (Cummings, S. L. (2018)). The legacy of black power movement is

living in the lives of black people. People does not hesitate in raising their voice against some
injustice and criminal justice reform. Black power will always be used not to integrate black
people from America but to preach black self reliance and defence while the racial pride.
CONCLUSION
Black power movement created a platform for progression of African American people. The
failure in civil rights movement leads to the rise of black power. The methods and approaches
used in civil rights movement were passive resistance which was inadequate and then appeared
the need for some alternative methods in order to attain the goal of equality. Black power
movement along with civil rights movement helped in achieving equality for African Americans.
The spirit of black power movement exits not just in America but around the whole globe. There
are many successful African Americans living in the country on today’s date. The election of a
black president Mr. Barack Obama could not have been possible if not for black power
movement. The strength and power of activists in the ancient years of 1960s era formed an
important part in the history today. The impact of black power movement is very powerful and
can be seen through the success of various black politicians, artist and intellectuals who have
channelled their black identity in diverse and varied ways. Black Power was the foundation of
the accomplishments happened in the African American people and marks the remembrance of
the struggles faced by them.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Collier-Thomas, B., & Franklin, V. P. (Eds.). (2020). Sisters in the struggle: African American
women in the civil rights-black power movement. New York University Press.
Cummings, S. L. (2018). The social movement turn in law. Law & Social Inquiry. 43(2). 360-
416.
Lee, M., Ramus, T., & Vaccaro, A. (2018). From protest to product: Strategic frame brokerage in
a commercial social movement organization. Academy of Management Journal. 61(6).
2130-2158.
Ogbar, J. O. (2019). Black power: Radical politics and African American identity.
Selvanathan, H. P., & Jetten, J. (2020). From marches to movements: Building and sustaining a
social movement following collective action. Current opinion in psychology.
Taylor, J. L. (2021). The Politics of the Black Power Movement. Annual Review of Political
Science. 24. 443-470.
Van Dyke, N., & Amos, B. (2017). Social movement coalitions: Formation, longevity, and
success. Sociology Compass. 11(7). e12489.
Online
How the black power movement influenced the civil rights movement, 2020. [Online]. Accessed
through :< https://www.history.com/news/black-power-movement-civil-rights>