Origin The first popular use of the term "Black power" as a social and racial slogan was by
Stokely Carmichael (later known as Kwame Ture) and Willie Ricks (later known as Mukasa Dada), both organizers and spokespeople for the
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. On June 16, 1966, in a speech in
Greenwood, Mississippi, during the
March Against Fear, Carmichael led the marchers in a chant for Black power that was televised nationally. The organization
Nation of Islam began as a
Black nationalist movement in the 1930s, inspiring later groups. It was strongly influenced by
Pan-Asianism, especially with respect to Japan, believing in a unity between non-White peoples. Kevin Gaines has argued that in the 1950s, an early version of the Black Power movement was restrained due to Cold War tensions. This was done through methods like the restriction of passports. Figures such as
W. E. B. Du Bois,
Paul Robeson and
Julian Mayfield were part of this and some, including Mayfield, felt forced to emigrate the United States and continue their activism elsewhere, with Mayfield going to Ghana.
Malcolm X is largely credited with the group's dramatic increase in membership between the early 1950s and early 1960s (from 500 to 25,000 by one estimate; from 1,200 to 50,000 or 75,000 by another). In March 1964, Malcolm X left the Nation due to disagreements with
Elijah Muhammad; among other things, he cited his interest in working with civil rights leaders, saying that Muhammad had prevented him from doing so. Later, Malcolm X also said Muhammad had engaged in extramarital affairs with young Nation secretariesa serious violation of the group's teachings. On February 21, 1965, Malcolm X was shot and killed while speaking at the
Audubon Ballroom in
Washington Heights, New York City. Three Nation members were convicted of assassinating him. Despite this, there has long been speculation and suspicion of government involvement. The forty police officers at the scene were instructed to "stand down" by their commanding officers while the shooting took place. After the
Watts riots in
Los Angeles in 1965, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee decided to cut ties with the mainstream civil rights movement. They argued that Blacks needed to build power of their own, rather than seek accommodations from the power structure in place. SNCC migrated from a philosophy of nonviolence to one of greater militancy after the mid-1960s. The organization established ties with radical groups such as the
Students for a Democratic Society. In late October 1966,
Huey P. Newton and
Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party. In formulating a new politics, they drew on their experiences working with a variety of Black power organizations.
Escalation in the late 1960s and
John Carlos raise their fists in a Black power salute at the
1968 Summer Olympics. The Black Panther Party initially utilized
open-carry gun laws to protect party members and local Black communities from law enforcement. Party members also recorded incidents of police brutality by distantly following police cars around neighborhoods. Numbers grew slightly starting in February 1967, when the party provided an armed escort at the
San Francisco airport for
Betty Shabazz, Malcolm X's widow and keynote speaker at a conference held in his honor. By 1967, the SNCC began to fall apart due to policy disputes in its leadership, and many members left for the Black Panthers. Throughout 1967, the Panthers staged rallies and disrupted the
California State Assembly with armed marchers. In 1956 the
FBI developed
COINTELPRO to investigate Black nationalist groups and others. By 1969, the Black Panthers and their allies had become primary COINTELPRO targets, singled out in 233 of the 295 authorized "Black nationalist" COINTELPRO actions. In 1968, the
Republic of New Afrika was founded, a separatist group seeking a Black country in the southern United States, only to dissolve by the early 1970s. At the
1968 Summer Olympics in
Mexico City,
Tommie Smith and
John Carlos, the gold and bronze medalists, respectively, in the
200 meters event, each
raised a black-gloved hand as the
American national anthem was played during their medal ceremony. Afterwards, Smith stated that: "We are Black and we are proud of being Black. Black America will understand what we did." By 1968, many Black Panther leaders had been arrested, including founder Huey Newton for the murder of a police officer (Newton's prosecution was eventually dismissed), yet membership surged. Black Panthers later engaged the police in a firefight in a Los Angeles gas station. In the same year, Martin Luther King Jr.
was assassinated, creating
nationwide riots, the widest wave of social unrest since the
American Civil War. In
Cleveland, Ohio, the "Republic of New Libya" engaged the police in the
Glenville shootout, which was followed by rioting. The year also marked the start of the
White Panther Party, a group of Whites dedicated to the cause of the Black Panthers. Founders
Pun Plamondon and
John Sinclair were arrested, but eventually freed, in connection to the bombing of a
Central Intelligence Agency office in
Ann Arbor, Michigan, that September. By 1969, the Black Panthers began purging members due to fear of law enforcement infiltration, engaged in multiple gunfights with police and one with a Black nationalist organization. The Panthers continued their "Free Huey" campaign internationally. In the spirit of rising militancy, the
League of Revolutionary Black Workers was formed in Detroit, which supported
labor rights and Black liberation.
Peak in the early 1970s In 1970 the Honorary Prime Minister of the Black Panther Party, Stokely Carmichael, traveled to various countries to discuss methods to resist "
American imperialism". In Trinidad, the Black power Movement had escalated into the
Black Power Revolution in which many Afro-Trinidadians forced the government of Trinidad to give into reforms. Later many Panthers visited Algeria to discuss
Pan-Africanism and anti-imperialism. In the same year former Black Panthers formed the
Black Liberation Army to continue a violent revolution rather than the party's new reform movements. On October 22, 1970, the Black Liberation Army is believed to have planted a bomb in St. Brendan's Church in San Francisco while it was full of mourners attending the funeral of San Francisco police officer Harold Hamilton, who had been killed in the line of duty while responding to a
bank robbery. The bomb was detonated, but no one in the church suffered serious injuries. In 1971, several Panther officials fled the U.S. due to police concerns. This was the only active year of the
Black Revolutionary Assault Team, a group that bombed the New York South African
consular office in protest of
apartheid. On September 20 it placed bombs at the
UN Missions of
Republic of the Congo (Kinshasa) and the
Republic of Malawi. In February 1971, ideological splits within the Black Panther Party between leaders Newton and
Eldridge Cleaver led to two factions within the party; the conflict turned violent and four people were killed in a series of assassinations. On May 21, 1971, five Black Liberation Army members participated in the shootings of two New York City police officers, Joseph Piagentini and Waverly Jones. Those brought to trial for the shootings include
Anthony Bottom (also known as Jalil Muntaqim), Albert Washington, Francisco Torres, Gabriel Torres, and Herman Bell. During the jail sentence of White Panther
John Sinclair a "Free John" concert took place, including
John Lennon and
Stevie Wonder. Sinclair was released two days later. On August 29, three BLA members murdered San Francisco police sergeant John Victor Young at his police station. Two days later, the
San Francisco Chronicle received a letter signed by the BLA claiming responsibility for the attack. Late in the year Huey Newton visited China for meetings on
Maoist theory and anti-imperialism. Black power icon
George Jackson attempted to escape from prison in August, killing seven hostages only to be killed himself. Jackson's death triggered the
Attica Prison uprising which was later ended in a bloody siege. On November 3, Officer James R. Greene of the
Atlanta Police Department was shot and killed in his patrol van at a gas station by
Black Liberation Army members. 1972 was the year Newton shut down many Black Panther chapters and held a party meeting in
Oakland, California. On January 27, the Black Liberation Army assassinated police officers Gregory Foster and Rocco Laurie in New York City. After the killings, a note sent to authorities portrayed the murders as a retaliation for the prisoner deaths during 1971 Attica prison riot. To date no arrests have been made. On July 31, five armed BLA members
hijacked Delta Air Lines Flight 841, eventually collecting a ransom of $1 million and diverting the plane, after passengers were released, to Algeria. The authorities there seized the ransom but allowed the group to flee. Four were eventually caught by French authorities in Paris, where they were convicted of various crimes, but one—George Wright—remained a fugitive until September 26, 2011, when he was captured in Portugal. After being accused of murdering a prostitute in 1974, Huey Newton fled to Cuba.
Elaine Brown became party leader and embarked on an election campaign.
De-escalation in the late 1970s in Washington, June 1970 In the late 1970s a rebel group named after the killed prisoner formed the
George Jackson Brigade. From March 1975 to December 1977, the Brigade robbed at least seven banks and detonated about 20 pipe bombs—mainly targeting government buildings, electric power facilities, Safeway stores, and companies accused of racism. In 1977, Newton returned from exile in Cuba. Shortly afterward, Elaine Brown resigned from the party and fled to Los Angeles. The Party fell apart, leaving only a few members.
MOVE developed in Philadelphia in 1972 as the "Christian Movement for Life", a communal living group based on Black Liberation principles. When police raided their house in 1978, a firefight broke out; during the shootout, one officer was killed, seven other police officers, five firefighters, three MOVE members, and three bystanders were also injured. In 1979 three M19CO members walked into the visitor center at the
Clinton Correctional Facility for Women near
Clinton, New Jersey. They took two guards hostage and freed Shakur. Several months later M19CO arranged for the escape of
William Morales, a member of Puerto Rican separatist group
Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional Puertorriqueña from
Bellevue Hospital in New York City, where he was recovering after a bomb he was building exploded in his hands. M19CO engaged in a bombing campaign in the 1980s. They targeted a series of government and commercial buildings,
including the U.S. Senate. On November 3, 1984, two members of the M19CO,
Susan Rosenberg and Timothy Blunk, were arrested at a mini-warehouse they had rented in
Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Police recovered more than 100 blasting caps, nearly 200 sticks of dynamite, more than 100 cartridges of gel explosive, and 24 bags of blasting agent from the warehouse. The M19CO alliance's last bombing was on February 23, 1985, at the Policemen's Benevolent Association in New York City. MOVE had relocated to West Philadelphia after the earlier shootout. On May 13, 1985, the police, along with city manager
Leo Brooks, arrived with arrest warrants and attempted to clear the MOVE building and arrest the indicted MOVE members. This led to an armed standoff with police, who lobbed
tear gas canisters at the building. MOVE members shot at the police, who returned fire with automatic weapons. The police then bombed the house, killing several adults and children, and causing a large fire that destroyed the better part of a city block. In 1989, well into the waning years of the movement, the
New Black Panther Party formed. In the same year on August 22, Huey P. Newton was fatally shot outside by 24-year-old
Black Guerilla Family member Tyrone Robinson. ==Characteristics==