We make peace with history by forgetting its most uncomfortable parts, basking instead in moments of retrospective national unity. The Black Power Movement radicalized domestic civil rights struggles in ways that continue to transcend racial, political, cultural, and generational boundaries.įrom Black Power to Black Lives Matter, the struggle for black political self-determination - that is, the power for black people globally to define their wants, needs, friends, enemies, aspirations, and ambitions for themselves - remains as relevant in our own time as it was then.Īs heavyweight champion boxer Muhammad Ali’s recent death reminds us, selective memory haunts our national soul. Stokely Carmichael’s call for “Black Power!” in Mississippi 50 years ago today indelibly transformed America’s civil rights struggle and national race relations.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |