Civil Rights vs. Black Power.

An Excerpt from The Magic Of Juju
by Kalamu ya Salaam

            Civil Rights vs. Black Power. Encouraged by the 1954 “Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka” Supreme Court school desegregation ruling, the Civil Rights Movement organized and focused African American discontent with the status quo. Moreover, once this discontent was put into motion the genie could not be put back into the bottle. There was no going back to the way things “used to be,” back to the early fifties when the status quo was secure. The real question became, what next? After the desegregation of public accommodations, education, and, to a lesser extent, the desegregation of employment opportunities, the movement found itself at a crossroads as leader after leader attempted to provide a vision of the way ahead for the Black community.

         With the signing of the Civil Rights legislation in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act in 1965, the Civil Rights movement reached its zenith. After Civil Rights was enacted as the “law of the land,” politically active Black people realized we needed more than legal equality. We wanted freedom: freedom from White racism and freedom to determine our own destiny; enter the Black Power era, 1966 to 1976.

         Within the cultural sphere, BAM grew directly out of and voiced the widespread sentiment that independence rather than inclusion was the goal of the Black Power struggle. There were significant differences between the Civil Rights and the Black Power movements, differences which were directly reflected in BAM artistic expressions.

(1.)

The Civil Rights Movement was Christian based and the Black Power movement was non-Christian oriented. This non-Christian orientation should not be construed to ignore the significant contributions of what was popularly called “liberation theology” by Christian people and organizations such as historian and theologian Vincent Harding, founding director of the Institute of The Black World and author of the insightful history There Is A River (1981). There is also the aforementioned Rev. Albert Cleage, founder of Black Christian Nationalism and The Shrine of the Black Madonna. A third significant force was theologist James Cone, author of Black Theology & Black Power (1969). Nevertheless, the important contributions of Christian leaders such as those cited above notwithstanding, once the Black movement moved north and west and became Black Power-oriented rather than Civil Rights-oriented, Christianity was no longer at the cultural center.

Whereas gospel had been a major source for the “Freedom songs” of the Civil Rights movement, jazz and R&B were the main musical forces of BAM. Also, there was an ever increasing search for alternatives to Christianity which was widely perceived within BAM as being “the White man’s religion.” The two major influences in terms of non-Christian spirituality were traditional African religions (particularly Yoruba) and Islam.

Baba Oserjiman Adefumi of the Harlem Yoruba Temple directly influenced a number of the early BAM spiritual developments. For a brief time Amiri Baraka adhered to the Yoruba faith. In Baraka’s autobiography he specifically points to the Yoruba influence which lasted with Baraka from 1965 to approximately 1967 when he went to California and became directly influenced by Maulana Karenga.

Some of us were very much influenced by the Yorubas. When we first arrived in Harlem, Oserjeman’s group was very political. They dressed as traditional West Africans from Nigeria, but upheld the right of black self-determination, declaring that Africans in Harlem must control it. We gave many rallies at which Oserjeman or some other speaker from the Yoruba Temple spoke. [Baraka / The Autobiography, page 215]

Additionally, under the general influence of Malcolm X, as well as the specific broad influence of Elijah Muhammad’s leadership of the Nation of Islam, Islam made significant inroads into the general Black consciousness of the sixties. After Malcolm’s expulsion, a number of people turned to various denominations of orthodox Islam, chief among them the “Sunni” denomination.

(2.)

There was a concurrent rejection of “non-violence,” which was inextricably linked to the Civil Rights Movement and Christianity. Within the Black Power movement, armed self-defense at home and active support for Third World liberation movements became guiding principles. Expressions of militant outrage rather than the dignity of stoic suffering guided BAM aesthetics. This was the moment when Islam really took off within the Black community. It is interesting to note that with its “jihad,” or “holy war” tradition, Islamic militancy in terms of fighting for one’s beliefs was emotionally closer to Black Power than was Black Christianity’s spirit of non-violence.

(3.)

Black Power rejected interracial relationships. During the Civil Rights Movement, “Black and White together” represented a direct threat to the status quo. A number of interracial relationships were consummated on both organizational and personal levels. Beginning with the RAM-influenced expelling of Whites from SNCC in the mid-sixties, on through LeRoi Jones’ symbolic move to Harlem in 1965 and Jones’ subsequent divorce (both literally and figuratively) from his interracial past, what was called “Black separatism” became a major force in BAM. LeRoi Jones made his first national reputation as a beat writer in New York’s Greenwich Village where he was married to Hattie Cohen, a Jewish writer. In hindsight, it is clear that much of the emotionalism surrounding “putting down Whitey” had its roots in the fact that some of the initial BAM stalwarts had previously lived integrated lifestyles. But regardless of its cause, Black separatism became one of the chief characteristics of BAM.

(4.)

The Civil Rights Movement had emphasized “socially correct behavior” to prove that Blacks were ready for and deserving of assimilation into the mainstream. This emphasis necessarily validated White modes of cultural expression. BAM vehemently rejected this approach and instead focused on Black American and, eventually, African and African-heritage modes and manners of cultural expressions. “Black English” was validated and used extensively, especially in oratory and literature. All of this shaped and was in turn expressed by BAM, especially in BAM poetry which became known as the “New Black Poetry.” The New Black Poetry was self-consciously anti-establishment in many of its techniques, themes and modes of delivery. The majority of BAM poetry actively “Messed with” standard English through the use of alternative spellings, non-conventional grammar, and inventive and/or ambiguous use of word meanings.

(5.)

The Civil Rights movement had been primarily a domestic movement with a regional focus. Black Power saw itself as both a national and an international movement with Africa at the center of its consciousness. Such a centering of Africa in the consciousness and expression of Black people had not happened in America since the Garvey era in the early twenties. African dance became instantly popular and dance troupes were started everywhere. African languages and religions were investigated and, in some cases, adopted. Indeed, the intellectual current of eighties Afro-centrism is an outgrowth of BAM’s cultural centering of Africa. Many of the leading Afro-centrists were either students during BAM’s heyday or were, in fact, BAM participants.

(6.)

Technological developments, particularly the expansion and maturing of the “newly integrated” (in the sense of Blacks on camera as well as behind the camera) communications technology of television, broadly disseminated the “news” that Black America was on the move. The sixties marked the first mass appearance of Blacks on television. Nationally broadcast programs such as “Black Journal” and “Soul” plus numerous regional and local programs helped to rapidly spread BAM’s example and message.

         These were the major differences between a civil rights orientation and a Black power orientation. All of these differences were directly reflected in BAM. Hoyt Fuller opens his important essay, “The New Black Literature: Protest or Affirmation” with a paragraph that perfectly sums up BAM literary endeavors.

There is a revolution in  black literature in America. It is nationalist in direction, and it is pro-black. That means, in effect, that it is deliberately moving outside the sphere of traditional Western forms, limitations, and presumptions. It is seeking new forms, new limits, new shapes, and much of it now admittedly is crude, reflecting the uncertainty, the searching quality of its movement. But, though troubled and seeking, it is very, very vital. [Fuller/”The New Black Literature” page 327]

—Kalamu ya Salaam