What We Want

One of the tragedies of the struggle against racism is that up to now there has been no national organization which could speak to the growing militancy of young black people in the urban ghetto. There has been only a civil rights movement, whose tone of voice was adapted to an audience of liberal whites. For too many years, black Americans marched and had their heads broken and got shot. An organization which claims to speak for the needs of a community must speak in the tone of that community, not as somebody else's buffer zone. Black power can be clearly defined for those who do not attach the fears of white America to their questions about it. Disenfranchisement, maintained by racist terror, makes it impossible to talk about organizing for political power in 1960. All of the efforts were attempts to win black power.

American Political and Social Dynamics · Caribbean history, culture, and politics · Computer Science · Race, History, and American Society