3.2: Key Theorists, Movements, and Principles

Key Theorists, Movements, and Principles

 Although Africana Studies as a discipline emerged in the late 1960s, concerns over Afrikan education have been in place since Afrikan people inhabited the earth. A Pan-Afrikan assessment of the genealogy of Afrikan education, can trace the first universities to the continent of Afrika. It is well documented that the  historical significance of the University of Sankore, the intellectual prowess of Timbuktu, and the role the Temple of Karnak in Kemet (the original name for Egypt) played a role in educating the fathers of western philosophy  (see the work of George G.M. James Stolen Legacy). Given the aforementioned historical presence of Afrikan intellectual thought and organization, it would be short sided and intellectually inept to trace the radix point of Afrikan intellectual production to the birth of Africana studies in the 1960s.

The genealogy of Afrikan education rooted in the history within Afrika is  imperative as it details the importance of a critical engagement with history and the transdisciplinary nature of the discipline. To comprehensively and concisely provide an overview of all the key theorists within the discipline is a formidable task and could be an entire  text unto itself. The purpose of this section is to provide the groundwork or a scaffolding to engage the foundational Africana Studies practitioners. To highlight the discipline’s transdisciplinary nature, this section will engage theorists from a multiplicity of disciplines and highlight how their theories informed the discipline of Africana Studies. For the sake of time and space this section will outline and l engage with four key theorists: W.E.B DuBois, Ana J. Cooper, Carter G. Woodson, and Zora Neale Hurston. These four theorists are essential not only for their intellectual productions and contributions to the discipline of Africana Studies, but each of these theorists are temporal contemporaries, covering the time span of reconstruction up until the 1960s and the founding of the discipline.           

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): W.E.B DuBois.(CCO 1.0 Dedication; New York Public Library via Picryl)

 

W.E.B DuBois    

The life and intellectual production of William Edward Burghardt DuBois can be viewed as exemplary to the goals and mission of Africana Studies. DuBois was the embodiment of the activist intellectual or what the ancient Kemetics (Kemet indicates the original name for Egypt, denoting the ancient Afrikan origins where Afrikan people ruled and cultivated the Nile Valley civilization. The etymology of Kemet translates to Black-Lands or Land of the Blacks) referred to as the Sesh, an individual that understands themselves “in both moral and social terms and constantly expressed a commitment to using their knowledge and skill in service of the people.”^[21] DuBois earned his Bachelors from Fisk University in 1888 and received his second Bachelor's degree from Harvard College in 1890. Anti-Black sentiments forced DuBois to earn a second Bachelors. Harvard College refused to accept DuBois’ credits from Fisk, a historically Black institution, preventing him from entering their graduate programs. Hence, DuBois was forced to earn a second Bachelor’s. DuBois would pursue his graduate studies at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin, Germany. DuBois earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1895, making him the first individual of Afrikan descent to earn their PhD from Harvard. Legend has it, upon accepting his Doctoral degree he assured those at Harvard ``the pleasure was all Harvards.” DuBois literary canon is almost impossible to rival, not only the breadth of the work but the theoretical contributions found within DuBois’ literary dossier which includes: The Philadelphia Negro, Black Reconstruction, and The Souls of Black Folks.  

DuBois’ The Philadelphia Negro is widely recognized and unequivocally understood to be the first American sociological text. In Molefi K. Asante’s and Ama Mazama’s text Encyclopedia of Black Studies,  they posit, ”Indeed, when DuBois’s The Philadelphia Negro was published it became the first book of modern sociology. As members of a fledgling academic discipline, sociologists traditionally read books, reflecting on the information presented, and offered ideas without conducting investigative research.”^[22]  Asante and Mazama continue, "Therefore, the interviews DuBois conducted with Seventh Ward residents broke new ground in scientific inquiry. A second novel contribution inherent in DuBios’s work pertained to the original analysis that evolved from the format and methodology of his work. After conducting house-to-house interviews with all the black families in the Seventh Ward DuBois acquired candid information from 9,675 subjects. Through these investigations, DuBois gained insight on the conditions, aspirations, trials, and tribulations of the black community."^[23]         

DuBois’s Black Reconstruction: An Essay Toward a History of the Part Which Black Folks Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860-1880, is the ideal counter narrative of American reconstruction. In it DuBois details how life experiences of Afrikans in America were impacted during the reconstruction era. A truly transdisciplinary text, DuBois infuses it with historical and sociological methods to articulate the narrative of reconstruction from the vantage point of Black folks residing within America. Within DuBois’ address to the reader in Black Reconstruction he states, “This book seeks to tell and interpret these twenty years of fateful history with especial reference to the efforts and experiences of the Negroes themselves.”^[24] DuBois is often critiqued for his race/class analysis in Black Reconstruction. Reiland Rabaka highlights the indolent intellectual work of those who assumed DuBois capitulated to an uncritical communism arguing, "Scant attention has been given to DuBois’ writings on race and racism The Souls of Black Folks, and, when on rare occasion they are engaged, more is made of his infamously alleged and highly controversial collapsing of race into class in his 1935 classic, Black Reconstruction of Democracy in America.” ^[25]         

DuBois’ The Souls of Black Folks deploys his theorizations on “double consciousness”  arguing, "It is a particular sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others,  measuring one’s soul by the tape of the world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness,— an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder."^[26]DuBois’ offering of double consciousness masterfully articulates the dissonance of the Black experience, be it through the colonial experiences of Afrika and the Caribbean, or within the racialized experience of the United States. Africana studies practitioners like Paul Gilroy’s The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness continued to build on and with DuBois’ concept of double consciousness. It has become a central contribution of the discipline’s core, theorized by one of the discipline’s core contributors.

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Anna J. Cooper. (Public Domain; Public Domain Media via Picryl )

Anna J. Cooper

Anna Julia Cooper’s contribution to the intellectual legacy of Afrikan people rivals none, except maybe the aforementioned DuBois. One of the foremost intersectional and feminist thinkers, Cooper’s seminal text A Voice From the South, deploys a staunch critique of race, class and gender. In it Cooper firmly argues, “Only the BLACK WOMAN can say ‘when and where I enter, in the quiet, undisputed dignity of my womanhood, without violence and without suing or special patronage, then and there the whole Negro race enters with me.'”^[27] Above all, Cooper was an intellectual and educator of the highest regard, receiving her Ph.D. from the Sorbonne, University of Paris in 1925. In fact, Cooper was the fourth woman of Afrikan descent to earn a Ph.D. before earning her Ph.D., Cooper was the principal of M Street High School in Washington D.C. in 1901, where  M Street High School was foundational for the evolution of institutionalized education for Afrikan people within the United States. Truly lifting as she climbed, Cooper would be a conduit to ensure her students at M Street High School had access to higher education. Jarvis Givens’ Fugitive Pedagogy: Carter G. Woodson and the Art of Black Teaching further details Cooper’s ability to lift as she climbed positing, “As principal, she strategically appealed to elite schools in the New England area to secure scholarships and admission for M Street graduates…Cooper refused to to submit to the trend of industrial education that was sweeping the nation as a dominant model for black education. In the 1902-1903 school year, she invited W.E.B DuBois as a guest speaker. ''^[28]

Cooper's invitation to DuBois firmly situated her on the side of classical education, in the discourse surrounding the appropriate direction for Afrikan education within the United States. Cooper was part of a Black educator social milieu that would go on to formulate the core ideas that would shape Africana studies as a discipline.  Stephanie Evans’ text Black Women in the Ivory Tower, 1850-1954: An Intellectual History provides insight into the social milieu of Cooper’s time stating, "Anna Cooper, Mary Bethune, and their contemporaries articulated educational philosophies that had four central themes: demand for applied learning; recognition of the importance of social standpoint and cultural identity in scholarship; a critical epistemology that both supported and resisted mainstream American ideals; and moral existentialism grounded in a sense of communal responsibility.”^[29]

It becomes clear from Evans’ offering, the educational philosophy that guided Cooper and her contemporaries in the early twentieth century drastically shaped the educational philosophy and mission of Africana Studies in the 1960s. Cooper’s activism parallels her intellectual accomplishments as one of the fore founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Colored Women’s League, and she attended the 1900 Pan-African Conference in London. Like DuBios, Cooper was an activist intellectual or Sesh par excellence. Yet, unlike DuBois, Cooper’s staunch intersectional critique allowed her to be critical of Black men’s role in stifling the social uplift of Black women. In the introduction to A Voice From the South, Mary H. Washington states, “She [Cooper] criticizes black men for securing higher education for themselves through the avenue of the ministry and for erecting roadblocks to deny women access to those same opportunities.”^[30] Cooper’s radical activism and intellectual prowess allowed her to stand as a pillar of Africana Studies, her intersectional approach would be the progenitor or theoretical matriarch to the Black womanist discourse that would become well known in the 1980s. Evans highlights further positing, “Fortunately, Cooper’s life and work have gained significant recognition since the 1980s. Her radical brand of feminist analysis has provided fertile ground for exploring the intersections of identity,  epistemology, and ethics.”^[31]

Anna Julia Cooper was an intellectual giant and will always be recognized and celebrated as a great activist and advocate for the advancement of Afrikan people throughout the world. Cooper embodies everything the discipline strives for: the type of intellectual work, the type of activist work, and the type of moral critique and social corrective that prevents Black men from marginalizing Black women or dragging them to the periphery. Despite her stance, Cooper’s critiques of Black men do not put her at odds with Black men, as she so eloquently states, “the whole Negro race enters with me!” Anna Julia Cooper is Africana Studies. Her work and legacy continues to live on within the discipline and is intellectually embodied in the likes of scholars like Stephanie Evans and Jarvis Givens. 

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Carter G. Woodson. (Public Domain; wikkimedia commons via wikki media)

Carter G. Woodson

Carter Goodwin Woodson exists within the same echelon as the aforementioned DuBios and Cooper. In fact, Woodson was the contemporary and peer of both DuBois and Cooper and Woodson’s work was in constant dialogue and discourse with the work of both DuBois and Cooper. As previously stated, DuBois was the first individual of Afrikan descent to earn his Ph.D. from Harvard University. Woodson was the second, earning his Ph.D. in History in 1912. Like Cooper, Woodson taught at M Street High School. Consequently, it was Woodson’s time at M Street High School that helped propel him through Harvard. Givens’ states, “Several of the school’s alum had already gone to Harvard where Woodson was actively working towards his PhD.”^[32] The intellectual milieu and acumen that was pervasive at M Street thoroughly empowered Woodson’s sense of self and would go on to shape his future pedagogical beliefs. Givens’ continues, “Furthermore, while graduate degrees were not required of the faculty, the school [M Street High School] had numerous teachers with advanced degrees in liberal arts, law, and medicine. The teachers at the school were impressive beyond their credentials.”^[33]

Woodson’s contribution to the cannon of Africana Studies is irreplaceable, the theories Woodson deploys in the seminal text The Miseducation of the Negro would go on to shape the ideations and theorization of Africana Studies practitioners in our contemporary moment. In Miseducation, Woodson argues there is psychological and spiritual harm done to Afrikan people in their attempts to obtain schooling within the United States. Woodson posits, "The thought of the inferiority of the Negro is drilled into him in almost every class he enters and in almost every book he studies. If he happens to leave school after he masters the fundamentals, before he finishes high school or reaches college, he will naturally escape some of this bias and may recover in time to be of service to his people.”^[34]

Woodson deploys a scathing critique against American institutions of schooling. Woodson charges , not only does it embed in Afrikan people an inferiority complex, schooling makes Afrikan people useless in terms of being of service to themselves. What becomes uncanny about Woodson’s critique is the fact, Woodson himself obtained the highest credential in American schooling, earning a Ph.D. from Harvard. The natural question must arise: What would lead Woodson, who received the highest level of schooling from America’s most prestigious institution, to make such a claim? The answer to this inquiry is embedded in the question. Woodson is able to make this critique due to his experience of being the second individual of Afrikan descent to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard. Clearly, within the classrooms Woodson entered as a student, and the textbooks he engaged throughout the course of his study, the message of his inferiority was constantly drilled into him. Yet, how Woodson was able to distinguish himself from his peers who pursued the highest of American schooling, was his ability to work in the service of Afrikan people.

 Woodson’s subsequent work and intellectual production would be to subvert the inherent inferiority complex deployed against Afrikan people by the institutions of American schooling. As a trained historian, Woodson’s would engage in the type of diasporic Afrikan history that would come to embody the work of Africana Studies. One of the main conduit for Woodson’s counter or subversive historical work was the formation of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASALH) and it’s publications Journal of Negro History and the Negro History Bulletin. Givens states, “Woodson’s association was unprecedented. It is the first and longest running academic organization devoted to the study of race; and its ancillary publications— the Journal of Negro History and the Negro History Bulletin— produced a body of knowledge that challenged, and eventually transformed, established schools of thought in the American academy. This organization is essential to the story of black education.”^[35] Woodson’s organization, publications, texts, and the educators he trained would  go on to influence and  have an indelible impact on not only the discipline of Africana Studies but the science of pedagogy at large. Forms of culturally responsive teaching within the United States can be traced back to the work of Woodson. Not to mention the ASALH and his role in the founding of Black History Month.

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Zora N. Hurston (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0, flickr photo stream via flickr  )

Zora N. Hurston

Zora Neal Hurston’s theoretical contribution to the discipline of Africana Studies holds its own weight with each of the aforementioned theorists. Hurston is the only theorist of the four covered in this section who did not earn a Ph.D.. Yet, this minuscule fact does not depreciate Hurston’s theoretical contributions. An author, trained anthropologist, and griot for the Afrikan diaspora, Hurston carved out her own lane in the discipline of African Studies. Hurston would attend Howard University from 1918 to 1924. In 1925, Hurston would obtain a scholarship to attend Bernard College of Columbia University. As the only Afrikan student at Bernard, Hurston would be introduced to ethnographic research and the anthropological work of Franz Boas, earning her B.A. in Anthropology in 1929. Hurston would pursue her Masters at Columbia University studying under Boas. Hurston’s training in ethnographic research and anthropology would drastically shape and focus her literary work, which would be foundational to Africana Studies. Hurston’s training positioned her as the ideal intellectual griot, gathering and maintaining the oral traditions of the Afrikan diaspora.          

Evans provides further detail to the role of Hurston’s graduate work in collecting the folklore of the Afrikan diaspora positing, “After her graduation from Bernard, Boas arranged a fellowship for Hurston to collect folklore of the black South. Though Hurston did extensive graduate research with Boas at Columbia, she did not complete her graduate course work, the dissertation, or the defense. She did, however, give considerable attention to her research, recorded her reflections of academic life, and created powerful fictive narratives based on her ethnographic research in the African diaspora.”^[36]In Hurston’s text Mules and Men she returns to her home of Eatonville Florida to collect folklore, Hurston explains, “I hurried back to Eatonville because I knew that the town was full of material and that I could get it without hurt, harm or danger.”^[37] Hurston’s methodological approach to anthropological work can be located in her attempts for documenting Afrikan folklore. Hurston states,

Folklore is not as easy to collect as it sounds. The best source is where there are the least outside influences and these people, being usually upper-privileged, are the shyest. They are most reluctant at times to reveal that which the soul lives by. And the Negro, in spite of his open-faced laughter, his seeming acquiescence, is particularly evasive. You see we are polite people and we do not say to our questionnaire, ‘Get Out of here!’ We smile and tell him or her something that satisfies the white person because, knowing so little about us, he doesn’t know what he is missing.”^[38]       

Embedded in Hurston’s assessment of the difficulty in collecting folklore is her attentiveness to the subversive nature of Afrikan people, or the coded language of Black refusal. The smile is to conceal the scorn, the seeming acquiescence is to conceal the refusal. Opposed to offense and outright hostility, Afrikan people instead opt for deception and subterfuge. This fact speaks to Hurston’s anthropological methodology, only a member of the community would be able to have access to this folklore. Even if an outsider were provided access to said folklore. Given the above passage from Hurston, we can not dismiss the fact that what the outsider heard may have been an act of subterfuge and not folklore at all. Anthropology as a discipline, is the scientific study of humanity or human behavior. Historically, due to axis of power and dominant narratives, anthropology is practiced by Europeans observing the human behavior of non-europeans and the findings have been used to authenticate race-based pseudo-science that was employed to falsify European paramountcy. Like Woodson’s counter history, Hurston’s counter to dominant anthropological work was to study not as an outsider but as a member of the community. This approach to anthropology allows for the humanity, nuance, and subtlety of the group being studied to be translated authentically. Avoiding, in the words of Hurston, “hurt, harm or danger,” not only for herself but the community she is observing.           

DuBois, Cooper, Woodson, and Hurston are all theorists whose intellectual production shaped the foundation of Africana Studies while simultaneously challenging and expanding western epistemology. Each of these theorist intellectual productions caused vast ruptures within the classroom and approaches to pedagogy, while simultaneously being attentive to the social conditions of the Afrikan community that existed beyond the classroom or university. The theoretical interventions of each theorist aligns directly with the objectives of Africana Studies: The production of liberatory epistemologies, developing intellectuals dedicated to serving and developing the Afrikan community, establishing an intimate relationship between the campus and community. The theoretical interventions of each theorist also align with the overarching mission of Africana Studies: cultural grounding, academic excellence, and social responsibility. The next section of the chapter will take a look at two social movements, the Civil Rights movement and the Black Power movement to uncover their pedagogical principles and engage how these movements informed the discipline’s fugitive knowledge and liberatory pedagogies.

Movements and Principles

Be it that the discipline emerges out of activism and is grounded in social and political struggle, social  movements played a critical role in the origins and evolution of the discipline. This section will focus on two key social movements that drastically shaped the discipline: The Civil Rights Movement and The Black Power Movement. The aim of this particular section of the chapter is to provide a cursory historical overview of each movement, while highlighting and emphasizing how each movement impacted the emergence and pedagogical approach of the discipline. This will provide a means to extract    key pedagogical principles from each movement that have shaped the discipline’s approach to education and pedagogy.

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Kwame Ture. (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0; flickr photo stream via flickr)

The Civil Rights Movement

The Civil Rights Movement is one of the most widely celebrated and researched movements in American history. In fact, it is often positioned as the model par excellence for social activism and civil disobedience. Many social movements, like the more contemporary Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, are juxtaposed or pitted against the Civil Rights Movement. Often, this juxtaposition is employed in attempts to devalue or invalidate the tactics of groups like BLM for not taking the same approaches or tactical steps as the Civil Rights Movement. The highly touted and over-represented non-violent approach of the Civil Rights Movement is often over emphasized and weaponized as a form of respectability politics that seeks to handicap the creativity, justified rage, and non compromising nature of many movements. While non-violence was certainly a foundational component of the Civil Rights Movement, the non-violent narrative has become so pervasive in discourse surrounding the Civil Rights Movement that moments of armed self defense become effaced. This section on the Civil Rights Movement seeks to engage the pedagogical practices of the Movement in attempts to uncover how it shaped the aims and goals of the discipline, while simultaneously problematizing the static and overrepresented non-violent narrative of the Civil Rights movement.

The intersection of the Civil Rights Movement and student activism is situated squarely within the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). SNCC was made up of some of the most non-compromising and demanding students of the time. They organized  and advocated  for the United States to live up to all her grandiose promises of liberty and equality. The youth leadership in SNCC were the promise of a brighter future in America and their activism sought to hold America accountable. Founded in April of 1960, SNCC would engage in various forms of civil disobedience ranging from voter registration, sit-ins, freedom rides, voter education projects, and freedom schools. In the text IBS: Introduction into Black Studies Maulana Karenga explains , “some of SNCC’s most important leaders were John Lewis, Ruby Doris, Kwame Ture and H. Rap Brown. It was also SNCC, as mentioned above, who would lead the movement discussion and organizational move away from one of integration to one of Black Power.”^[39] According to Karenga, “SNCC also built the Lowndes County Freedom Organization which was popularly called the Black Panther Party. It is from this organization that the Oakland-based Black Panther Party took its name.”^[40]   

SNCC’s work in Lowndes County is where we can best locate its pedagogical practices and uncover cracks in the non-violent narrative. In order to effectively establish a Black voter bloc in Lowndes County, SNCC recognized political education would be necessary in order for the Black citizens of Lowndes County to understand their political power. Establishing freedom schools, or what would be known as “Tent City” was SNCC’s means of political education. The autobiography of Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael), Ready for Revolution. is the ideal text for insight into SNCC’s freedom schools. In the chapter “Lowndes County: The Roar of the Panther” Ture details their process, "A black farmer volunteered some land and we moved the families into tents. Then we used all the techniques SNCC had developed in Mississippi. We set up freedom schools. We had literacy and political education classes. We played tapes of Malcolm [X]. Taught African history. I remember we developed comic books to teach local politics. The role of tax assessors, of the sheriff, and like that. These comics were very effective.”^[41]

Ture highlights aspects of SNCC ’s pedagogical approach for their project of political education, illustrating that the  freedom schools themselves served as a symbolic teaching tool for self determination, a demonstration of the Black community’s ability to pull together and address the community’s needs. This established  a heightened sense of self confidence and communal agency produced a shift in consciousness that made the freedom schools successful. The freedom schools provided access to literacy and made a seemingly abstract political system intellectually accessible for the Black community in Lowndes County. 

The SNCC organizers played tapes of Malcolm X, and this seemingly small detail is generative for dispelling another widely circulated myth regarding the Civil Rights Movement: the divide between Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.. Normative discourse surrounding the Civil Rights era often draws clear ideological demarcations between Malcolm and Martin. Drawing spatial distinctions and separations, Martin organized  the rural South and Malcolm organized the urban North.  These facts held grand implications for the organizing styles and methods of both Malcolm and Martin, Ture’s example of SNCC’s work shows these lines weren’t so neatly drawn and adhered to in real time. SNCC organizers knew the words of Malcolm would resonate with the Black community of Lowndes County who weren’t the turn the other cheek type of people. As Ture explains, “When night riders started driving by firing guns [at Tent City], the men and boys posted sentries along the road and returned fire. The night riding stopped.”^[42] Lowndes County was one of the most anti-Black Counties in the Nation, known for its bigotry and hostility. The organizing efforts of SNCC were not well received, as the SNCC and the Black community of Lowndes county were under the constant threat of harm. The constant threat of violence prompted Ture and SNCC leadership to take action. Ture states ,“We explained the situation to SNCC and proposed that they allow us to take a delegation into the big Northern cities  with brothers and sisters willing to come down to help defend the population. SNCC, after surprisingly little argument, approved.”^[43] Ture continues,

We went to New York, Chicago, Detroit, Philly, the Bay Area etc.… We spoke with the militant, nationalist elements. Also at that time these cities had many clandestine formations… We even contacted gangs, as well as regular groups like the Nation [of Islam] with trained units, like the Fruit of Islam. Every city sent a contingent, every one, however small. Paid for it. Brought their own arms too. Got quietly into the county. All in all, you could say thirty to fifty people. Maybe more. Those who came, came to fight, not just as security. I’d say most had military training.^[44]

This self defense conglomerate would be the impetus for the Black Panther Party for Self Defense. Ture affirms, "But this is important historically. I think we had six, seven fighters out of California… Before they returned home, they asked for a meeting. Not just Mark’s California delegation, but groups from New York, Philly, Detroit. In essence they said, we like this Black Panther Party idea. We want to take it back and try to spread it. We said, it’s the people’s. We ain’t got a patent. Feel free. If local conditions indicate, go for it.”^[45]           

Afrikan history was also a fundamental component of SNCC’s pedagogical practice, doing the work of recovering and restructuring history in a way that provided agency and empowered Afrikan life experiences and social phenomena. SNCC activists also met the community where they were at, they didn’t develop highly theoretical textbooks, that would only stroke their intellectual ego. They provided comic books that resonated with the Black community of Lowndes County and delivered the desired pedagogical outcome. Within the above offering from Ture we can approximate pedagogical principles from SNCC and the Civil Rights Movement:

●      Examples and demonstrations of self-determination and communal agency.

●      A focus on communal literacy and political education.

●      Engagement with critical and radical political thought

●      A close engagement with Afrikan history

The Black Power Movement 

Black Power is one of the most polarizing and misunderstood terms, concepts, and theorization of the modern era. It was Black Lives Matter on steroids in the Civil Rights era, a time and movement where respectability politics abounded. In order to not further add to the confusion and misinformation on this subject, it might be best to engage the source. The source is familiar, no one sits at the intersection of the Civil Rights Movement and Black Power Movement like Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael). It was Ture, as an activist with SNCC, who made the infamous call for BLACK POWER. Naturally, Ture can provide the ideal insight into Black Power. Returning to Ture’s autobiography in which he posits:

By the time I got out of jail, I was in no mood to compromise with racist arrogance. The rally had started. It was huge. The spirit of self-assertion and defiance was palpable. I looked over that crowd, that valiant, embattled community of old friends and fellow strugglers. I told them they can only depend on themselves, their own organized collective strength… I raised the call for Black Power again. It was nothing new, we’d been talking about nothing else in the Delta for years. The only difference was that this time the national media were there. And most of them had never experienced the passion and fervor of a mass meeting before… As I passed by Mukasa [Willie Ricks], he said, “Drop it now. The people are ready. Drop it now.”^[46]An account from Cleve Sellers, an SNCC member who was in attendance, provides deeper insight into that moment positing:

Stokely, who’d been released from jail just minutes before the rally began, was the last speaker… When Stokely moved forward to speak, the crowd greeted him with a huge roar. He acknowledged his reception with a raised arm and clenched fist. ‘This is the twenty-seventh time I have been arrested— and I ain’t going to jail no more!’ The crowd exploded into cheers and clapping. ‘The only way we're gonna stop them white men from whuppin’ us is to take over. We have been saying freedom for six years and we ain’t got nothin’. What we gonna start saying now is Black Power!’^[47]

Sellars recollection of the moment continues:

The crowd right with him. They picked up on his thoughts immediately. “BLACK POWER!” they roared in unison. Willie Ricks, who is as good at orchestrating the emotions of a crowd as anyone I have ever seen, sprang into action. Jumping to the platform with Stokely, he yelled to the crowd, “What do you want?”

                        “What do you want?”

                        “Black Power!”

                        “What do you want?”

                        “Black Power!” “Black Power!” “Black Power!!!!”

                        Everything that happened afterward was a response to that moment.^[48]

These passages from Ture’s autobiography capture the passion and fervor of the moment Black Power arrived on the national stage. Within the passage there’s subtle implication detailing what Black Power is truly about. Ture asserts, “I told them they can only depend on themselves, their own organized collective strength.”^[49] This statement from Ture can best approximate the essence of Black Power, it’s an outgrowth from Malcolm X’s notion of Black Nationalism, to live and move with the understanding that Black people can only depend on themselves and rely on their collective organized strength. A rational notion that seems simple enough to understand.  It is a notion that seems highly reasonable for anyone paying minimal attention to the experiences of Black people within the United States. Yet, the passage from Sellars offers a bleak and stark reality, “Everything that happened afterward was a response to that moment.” The perception of  Black Power would be determined by how the powers that be responded to the moment that produced Black Power, not what Black Power actually was or called for.

Much like the anti-woke movement of our contemporary moment, which uses terms like critical race theory and woke as dog whistle terms to incite right wing conservatives, Black Power was bastardized, politicized, and deployed as a tool to stoke anti-Black sentiments and violence. The detractors of Black Power ignored the literature that provided ample insight into the aims and thrust of Black Power. In attempts not to replicate the intellectual negligence of the Black Power detractors, it will prove prudent to engage the premier theorist and the premier text on Black Power, Kwame Ture’s and Charles Hamilton’s Black Power: The Politics of Liberation. Within the text Ture and Hamilton posit, “The concept of Black Power rests on a fundamental premise: Before a group can enter the open society, it must first close ranks. By this we mean that group solidarity is necessary before a group can operate effectively from a bargaining position of strength in a pluralistic society.”^[50]Providing further context and insight into Black Power Ture and Hamilton continue, “Black Power means proper representation and sharing of control. It means the creation of power bases, of strength, from which black people can press to change local or nation-wide patterns of oppression.”^[51]Ture and Hamilton are attentive to the intellectually inept claims of the Black Power detractors arguing, “Some observers have labeled those who advocate Black Power as racists; they have said that the call for self-identification and self-determination is ‘racism in reverse’ or ‘black supremacy.’ This is a deliberate and absurd lie. There is no analogy— by any stretch of definition or imagination— between the advocates of Black Power and white racist.”^[52]

Ture and Hamilton draw a clear line of distinction between racism and the aims of Black Power. To further unpack Ture’s and Hamilton’s demarcation between racism and Black Power it becomes generative to engage their definition of racism, “By ‘racism’ we mean the prediction of decisions and policies on considerations of race for the purpose of subordinating a racial group and maintaining control over that group.”^[53]  Given Ture’s and Hamilton’s definition of racism, it becomes clear racism is an institutionalized system that seeks to maintain control, exploit, and subjugate racialized groups. While Black Power on the other hand is intended to afford agency, self-determination, self-identification, and is depended on the collective organized strength of Black people in response to racist and anti-Black conditions.

Like the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Power Movement provided not only the spiritual ethos for the discipline of Africana Studies, it also provided ample pedagogical principles that are still employed by Africana Studies practitioners. In fact, many of the pedagogical principles of the Black Power Movement are in direct alignment with the goals, aims, and mission of the discipline. Ready for Revolution and Black Power are ideal texts to approximate pedagogical principles in Black Power, we can glean from the passages offered from each text the following pedagogical principles for Black Power.

●      Emphasis on self-determination, self-identification, and collective organized strength

●      Group and political solidarity in attempts to harness collective political power

●      Combating oppressive force that seek to subjugate and limit Black life

●      Sound intellectual critique of attempts at misrepresenting and delegitimation Black thought    

 

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Endnotes

^[21] Ibid. 7

^[22] Asante, Molefi K. and Mazama, Ama. Encyclopedia of Black Studies. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 2005. 397

^[23] Ibid. 397

^[24] DuBois, W.E.B. Black Reconstruction: An Essay Toward a History of the Part Which Black Folks Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860-1880. New York: Library of America, 1935. 3

^[25] Rabaka, Reiland. Africana Critical Theory: Reconstructing The Black Radical Tradition, From W. E. B. Du Bois and C. L. R. James to Frantz Fanon and Amilcar Cabral. New York: Lexington Books, 2009. 41

^[26] DuBois, W.E.B. The Souls of Black Folks. New York: Branes and Noble Classics. 2003. 9

^[27] Cooper, Anna J. A Voice From the South. New York: Oxford University Press. 1988. xxix

^[28] Givens, Jarvis R. Fugitive Pedagogy: Carter G. Woodson and the Art of Black Teaching. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 57

^[29] Evans, Stephanie Y. Black Women in the Ivory Tower, 1850-1954: An Intellectual History. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2007. 8   

^[30] Cooper, Anna J. A Voice From the South. New York: Oxford University Press. 1988. Xxix

^[31] Evans, Stephanie Y. Black Women in the Ivory Tower, 1850-1954: An Intellectual History. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2007. 14

^[32] Givens, Jarvis R. Fugitive Pedagogy: Carter G. Woodson and the Art of Black Teaching. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 57

^[33] Ibid. 57

^[34] Woodson, Carter G. The Miseducation of the Negro. San Bernardino: Amazon Publishing. 2018. 5

^[35] Givens, Jarvis R. Fugitive Pedagogy: Carter G. Woodson and the Art of Black Teaching. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 63

^[36] Evans, Stephanie Y. Black Women in the Ivory Tower, 1850-1954: An Intellectual History. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2007. 87

^[37] Hurston, Zora N. Mules and Men. New York: Harperperennial. 3

^[38] Ibid. 2

^[39] Karenga, Maulana. IBS: Introduction into Black Studies. Los Angeles: University of Sankore Press, 2010. 155

^[40] Ibid. 155

^[41] Ture, Kwame and Thelwell, Michael. Ready for Revolution: The Life and Struggles of Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture). New York: Scribner, 2003. 464

^[42] Ibid. 464

^[43] Ibid. 474

^[44] Ibid. 474

^[45] Ibid. 475

^[46] Ibid. 507

^[47] Ibid. 507

^[48] Ibid. 507

^[49] Ibid. 507

^[50] Ture, Kwame and Hamilton, Charles. Black Power: The Politics of Liberation. New York: Random House, 1967. 44

^[51] Ibid. 46

^[52] Ibid. 47

^[53] Ibid. 3