3. Legacies of Malcolm X
• Developed framework of human rights as opposed to more narrowly defined
civil rights.
• Emphasized Pan-Africanism and anticolonial/anti-imperialist solidarity, fueled
by his own travels to Africa.
• Toward the end of his life, began to consider the possibilities of working with
white people to combat racism, while still emphasizing the importance of
Black political separation. (He ultimately rejected Muhammad’s teaching that
all white people are evil, a result of his experiences in performing the Hajj.)
• Advocated changing terminology of Black identity from “Negro” (a term
widely used by leaders like Dr. King) to “Black” and, ultimately, “Afro-
American.”
• Was beginning to recognize socialism’s potential to liberate oppressed peoples.
• Emboldened a new generation of activists who rejected the logic of tactical
nonviolence and the desirability of integration, fueling the rise of an ideology
of “Black Power” that would be articulated a year after his death.
5. In March 1965, protesters carried out the famous march from Selma to the state capital of
Montgomery to demand protection for voting rights and to call attention to the violence
routinely utilized to disfranchise blacks Alabamians in places like Selma. The majority of the
march was through Lowndes County, so notorious as the site of racial violence that it was
known as “Bloody Lowndes.”
6. Stokely Carmichael and the LCFO
One of the original Freedom Riders, Carmichael worked in
1962 and 1963 canvassing voters in Greenwood, Mississippi,
and participated in the Mississippi Challenge in 1964, an
experience that convinced him that Black political power was
the key to Black liberation. During the summer of 1965, he
worked on a voter registration campaign in notoriously violent
Lowndes County, Alabama, situated between Selma and
Montgomery. The Lowndes County Freedom Organization
(LCFO) was formed as part of SNCC’s joint efforts with local
organizers, representing a third-party alternative to the
Alabama Democratic party, headed by George Wallace.
When SNCC arrived in Lowndes County in 1965, there was
one registered Black voter, LCFO co-founder John Hulett,
though the county’s population was 80 percent Black. The
following year, as a result of LCFO efforts, the majority of the
county’s registered voters were Black. In 1970, this shift
resulted in the election of Hulett as sheriff.
Source: SNCC Digital Gateway
Carmichael canvassing in Alabama (1965)
7. (1966)
LCFO and the Black Panther
Though most closely associated with the Black
Panther Party for Self-Defense, established in
1966 in Oakland, California, the image of a
black panther as a symbol of Black political
power was first used by the LCFO during
1965, illustrating the southern, rural roots of
Black Power, a phenomenon more commonly
associated with northern cities. Due to high
rates of illiteracy statewide, Alabama required
that all political parties be represented by a
visual symbol. John Hulett, a founder of the
LCFO, explained, “The black panther is a
vicious animal….He never bothers anything,
but when you start pushing him, he moves
backward, backward, and backward, and then
he comes out and destroys everything that’s in
front of him.”
11. A year after passage of the Voting Rights Act, James Meredith, whose efforts to become the first
Black student to enroll at the University of Mississippi were met with rioting by white students in
1962, undertook a one-man march through Mississippi, a demonstration against the “all-pervasive
overriding fear” he believed still prevented Black Mississippians from registering to vote. He was
shot by a white sniper on the second day of the planned 220-mile march from Memphis to Jackson
down Highway 51. Above, Meredith lay wounded on the road (6 Jun 1966).
James Meredith’s March Against Fear
12. A cross-section of civil rights organizations, including
the SCLC, CORE, and SNCC, responded to Meredith’s
shooting, vowing to continue the march in his place.
Once SNCC organizers joined, they decided to detour
through the Delta region in the northwestern part of the
state, as they had deep ties there after several years of
organizing. They hoped to use the march to register more
Black voters and empower those who were registered but
whose fear of white violence continued to prevent them
from casting ballots.
13. When the marchers reached Greenwood, the center of SNCC’s organizing efforts during
campaigns like Freedom Summer, newly-elected SNCC Chairman Stokely Carmichael
was arrested for trespassing on public school grounds. Upon his release, he made a
powerful, carefully planned speech calling for “Black Power,” a moment that dominated
news coverage of the march (16 Jun 1966). Conveniently for SNCC, King was out of
town at a press event that evening.
“What do we want?”
Black power!”
14. “This is the twenty-seventh time I have been
arrested and I ain’t going to jail no more.
The only way we gonna stop them white men
from whuppin’ us is to take over.
What we gonna start sayin’ now is Black Power!”
--Stokely Carmichael
(16 Jun 1966)
15. Always committed to the philosophy of nonviolence,
King lamented the shift by his friend Stokely
Carmichael and SNCC more broadly away from
tactical nonviolence. King nonetheless acknowledged
that if “Carmichael now says that nonviolence is
irrelevant, it is because he, as a dedicated veteran of
many battles, has seen with his own eyes the most
brutal white violence against Negroes and white civil
rights workers, and he has seen it go unpunished.”
Despite his shifting views, Carmichael acknowledged
the crucial role of nonviolent activism in bringing
young people into the movement: “It gave our
generation–particularly in the South–the means by
which to confront…entrenched and violent racism. It
offered a way for a large number of [Black Americans]
to join the struggle. Nothing passive in that.”
King, Carmichael, and a Generational Shift
16. South meets West: Carmichael promoted Black Power at a
University of Carolina Berkeley SDS conference (29 Oct 1966).
17. Black Panther Party
for Self-Defense
est. in Oakland, CA
(15 Oct 1966)
Newton and Seale arrived in Oakland as
children during the Second Great
Migration. Newton’s family came from
Louisiana, while Seale’s family was from
Texas. Both grew up in poverty. They
met while taking classes at Merritt
Community College.
Co-founders Bobby Seale and Huey Newton
18.
19. A desire to escape the segregated schools of the South drove the
aspirations of many Southern migrants, particularly those who
were attracted to California and its strong public education
system. However, in his book Revolutionary Suicide (1973),
Newton recalled, “During those long years in Oakland public
schools, I did not have one teacher who taught me anything
relevant to my own life or experience. Not one instructor ever
awoke in me a desire to learn more or to question or to explore
the worlds of literature, science, and history. All they did was try
to rob me of the sense of my own uniqueness and worth, and in
the process nearly killed my urge to inquire.” Experiences like
this gave rise to a movement to form Black Studies programs in
American college and universities, the first of which was
established at San Francisco State College in 1968. To promote
vibrant, politically-relevant education in the communities they
served, the BPP established “liberation schools” like the Oakland
Community School and the Intercommunal Youth Institute in the
early 1970s.
Having graduated high school in 1959 though barely literate,
Newton became his own teacher. He ultimately attended law
school and earned a doctorate in social philosophy in 1980. His
dissertation documented government repression of the Black
Panther Party (BPP).
Black Panther children in a classroom
at the Intercommunal Youth Institute,
the Black Panther school, in Oakland
in 1971.
20. • What demands did the Black
Panther Party make?
• Which of these seem the
most realistic? Which seem
the most radical?
• Did Newton and Seale really
think these goals were
feasible? If not, what
rhetorical points might they
have been working to make?
21. Huey P. Newton, BPP Minister of Defense (1968)
The Panthers’ early tactic of “policing the
police” generated an image of militancy,
which was heightened by the Party’s uniform:
a blue shirt, black pants, a black leather
jacket, and a black beret. Even after switching
from police patrols to “survival programs” as
their primary tactic in 1969, the Panthers were
still characterized by the media primarily as
armed militants patrolling the streets.
24. At the state capital in Sacramento, armed Panthers protested the proposed Mulford
Act, aimed at neutralizing the tactic of “policing the police” with loaded weapons
(May 1967).
25. In Oct 1967, Newton was involved in a shootout with police in which Officer John Frey was
killed. Newton was charged with murder. After two appeals, the charges were overturned in 1970.
While Newton was in jail awaiting trial, the “Free Huey” movement emerged as a multi-racial
political movement joined by other radicals in the San Francisco Bay area demanding Newton’s
release. Among other charges, Newton’s allies alleged that it was impossible for him to receive a
fair trial. These efforts made international headlines, significantly raising the profile of the Party.
“Free Huey”
Movement
