The Evolution of a Revolution: "From Jim Crow to Civil Rights to Black Liberation?"

1. The Evolution of a Revolution
"From Jim Crow to Civil Rights to Black Liberation?"
By Marc Imhotep Cray, M.D. / bna RBG Street Scholar
Tutorial Icebreaker Video
ALUTA CONTINUA
(The Struggle Continues)

2. From Jim Crow to Civil Rights
The 1950s was a very
politically unstable time
for Afrikan in American.
Our rights were
constantly under attack.
All the efforts made
during the Forties to
integrate the Armed
Forces were abolished during the Korean War. A
new era of racist assassinations began to occur
and we as a people started to take a stand against
the system and business of white supremacy and
its blatant racism. The NAACP argued cases in
Southern states against the discriminatory practices in public schools.
In May of 1954, the Brown vs. Board of Education occurred. This case ruled racial
segregation in public schools to be unconstitutional. The African American non-violent
movement began taking the form of boycotts, sit-ins, and peaceful protests. The African
American authors during this decade were writing about love, discrimination, the prison
system, protest, black sexuality, and black life
in Harlem. (also see The Black Arts Movement
) In addition, the decade of the 1950s in the
United States is known for the dramatic rise of
repressive U.S. government politics,
especially the virulent anti-communism of the
McCarthy era. Amidst and against this
backdrop emerged the civil rights struggle,
initially spearheaded in the southern United
States where Black repression was greatest.
Witnessing the Brown v. Board of Education decision, the lynching of Emmett Till and
the resistance of Rosa Parks, the Black community was enlivened, enraged and
galvanized into collective action. The boycott that followed Rosa Parks ' courageous
stand in the south began as a protest against police brutality sprung in the north. Soon
events transformed into an all-out denunciation of segregation and other forms of
oppression.
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3. The Two Tendencies of Black Struggle
The Montgomery bus boycott inspired Black students in Greensboro, North Carolina to
organize sit-ins in segregated spaces. After centuries of enslavement and decades of Jim
Crow inequality, the Black community seized upon the first opportunity to fight the
system, throw off the yoke of legal segregation and finally achieve formal democratic
rights. Consequently, great numbers of Black people entered into the civil rights
movement.
Alongside the civil rights movement, the 1950s also witnessed
the rise of the Nation of Islam , which advocated a separatist
agenda. The NOI
kept its distance
from the non-
violent, direct
action of
integrationist
groups.
Malcolm X came to embody this second current of the Black
liberation movement, which emphasized our common heritage,
identity and destiny as a people. The Nation of Islam encouraged
the Black community to take control of its own institutions, to
support Black businesses and to disengage from the cultural and
socio-political happenings of the white man. Over time, Malcolm
X’s frustration with this overall policy of disengagement of the
NOI and his silencing over the "chicken coming home to roost"
comment; Minister Malcolm made his official break with the
Nation of Islam in 1964. Critical of the non-violent principles of
mainstream civil rights groups, Malcolm organized the secular
Organization of Afro-American Unity to take the political, social
and economic demands of the growing Black and liberation
movement into an international arena.
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4. For those forces increasingly frustrated with mainstream civil rights leadership and the
overall project of integration into a white supremacist / racist society, Malcolm
philosophy offered an uncompromising, internationalist vision and a no-nonsense
paradigm that linked the struggle of Black people in Amerikkka with anti-colonial
struggles in Afrika. As such, Malcolm—along with revolutionary leaders like the
Hornorable Robert F. Williams —served as a bridge to a new stage in the movement from
civil rights to Black liberation. As the civil rights struggle moved into a movement for
Black national liberation and self determination, many activists began looking for
political strategies that went
beyond the humanist-
integrationist inbetweenity of
mainstream civil rights
groups. Influenced by the
liberation movements
sweeping the oppressed
countries in Africa, Asia and
Latin America, more and
more Black militants began to
study socialist ideas.
(please see Lets Grow Up and Move On By Junious Ricardo Stanton in ChickenBones Journal).
The two tendencies of civil rights
verses human rights, therefore,
cannot be fully understood in the
tactical framework of self-defense
versus non-violence—what is
often referred to as the “Malcolm-
versus-Martin” debate . The
revolutionary wing of the Black
liberation movement set its
sights beyond the democratic /
integrationist goals of freedom,
justice and equality that the
mainstream civil rights groups aimed for. More
higher, it aimed for social equality, based first and
foremost on the Black community’s control of its
own social, political, economic and educational
organizations and institutions. Dozens of national groups and hundreds of local
organizations took part in what became a full-scale Black liberation movement within the
United States. The Black Panther Party was perhaps the most developed and highest
expression of this movement, but there were a variety of groups with varying political
programs that comprised the revolutionary wing of the Black liberation movement.
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5. The Revolutionary Action Movement
In 1963, young activists led by Max Stanford
(Muhammad Ahmad)—a close associate of Malcolm X and Queen Mother Audley Moore
—created the Revolutionary Action Movement. A semi-clandestine organization and
paramilitary wing of the OAAU, the RAM articulated a
revolutionary program for African Americans that fused Black
nationalism with Marxism-Leninism. Its goal was to develop
revolutionary cadre in the northern cities and connect with more
militant students in the south involved with the Student Non-
violent Coordinating Committee and the Congress of Racial
Equality.
RAM supported the
movement by SNCC and
others for armed self-defense for southern Blacks
terrorized by the Ku Klux Klan—the extra-legal army
enforcing the racist Jim Crow segregation system.
RAM also provided security for Malcolm X after his
break from the Nation of Islam and members of RAM
actively participated in the Organization of Afro-
American Unity.
RAM had an extremely active branch in Detroit, which had become a center of
revolutionary activism. During the 1967 Detroit Rebellion , RAM formed the Black Guards,
a youth group that hoped to channel the spontaneous rebellion into coordinated
revolutionary action. Despite their limited success in this regard, RAM was one of the
first groups that not only recognized the legitimacy of urban rebellions, but also aimed to
formulate a concrete plan of action around those rebellions.
Consequently, RAM became one of the first casualties of the FBI’s Counter-Intelligence
Program (COINTELPRO). Max Stanford and other RAM leaders were charged with
plotting to assassinate mainstream political leaders Roy Wilkins and Whitney Young.
At this point, Stanford dissolved the formal structure of the organization. As individuals,
many RAM members gained influence in groups like the League of Revolutionary Black
Workers.
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6. Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
SNCC had pioneered the “sit-in” movement that desegregated lunch counters all over
the country. Just a few years earlier, it was considered a cornerstone of the mainstream
civil rights movement. SNCC led the student section of the civil rights struggle, helping
to register African Americans in the most racist and dangerous areas of the south,
including the Mississippi delta and Lowndes County, Alabama. SNCC was influential in
creating the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party , perhaps the most famous working-
class organizing effort to have ever taken place in the south. Mirrored in other places
throughout the South, the MFDP was a state-wide political party that challenged Dixiecrat
control of the Democratic Party and the white supremacy embedded in the electoral
system as a whole. Concerned about preserving the “Solid South,” liberals in the
Democratic Party permitted an all-white slate from Mississippi and denied the MFDP its
place at the 1964 Democratic National Convention.
The white power structure’s rejection of the MFDP led to a radicalization of many within
the civil rights movement. Activists in SNCC and elsewhere began to
see the problems of African Americans in the United States as greater
than just the denial of democratic rights. They developed an analysis
heavily influenced by the African liberation movements and sent
delegations to meet with revolutionary leaders all over the world.
SNCC turned dramatically away from the pacifist
mainstream civil rights movement, cutting ties with many
white liberal organizations. Influenced by Malcolm X and
the Watts rebellion of 1965 , SNCC leaders like Stokely
Carmichael (The Honorable Kwame Toure),
H. Rap Brown , Jim Forman and others began to articulate
views based on Marxism and revolutionary Black
nationalism.
( please see Lets Grow Up and Move On By Junious Ricardo
Stanton in ChickenBones Journal).
SNCC became a breeding ground for young
revolutionaries. One of the first civil rights and student organizations to denounce the
Vietnam War , SNCC elaborated an anti-imperialist analysis that distinguished itself from
the issue-oriented and often near-sighted outlook of other organizations of that era.
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7. Despite the problems of sexism that plagued all
movements of the period,someof the most dynamic
women of color leaders, including Kathleen Cleaver of
the Black Panthers, came to prominence as SNCC
leaders. Kathleen Cleaver became the BPP's National
Communications Secretary and helped to organize the
campaign to get Huey Newton released from prison.
In 1966, SNCC activist Willie Mukasa Ricks proclaimed the slogan of Black liberation
movements to come: “Black Power.” SNCC leaders like Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap
Brown became widely known premier revolutionary leaders, with Carmichael’s book,
“Black Power,” emerging as one of the first manifestos of the rapidly expanding
revolutionary movement.
The League of Revolutionary Black Workers
By 1968, growing numbers of young Black workers and students,
including Vietnam war veterans, came to the conclusion that only
revolution and self-determination could do away with the systemic
oppression and destitution of the Black community. Two strong,
disciplined organizations emerged, the League of Revolutionary
Black Workers and the Black Panther Party , embodying this spirit.
The League of Revolutionary Black Workers had its roots in the
struggle of Detroit’s Black autoworkers, who in 1968 launched a
series of wildcat strikes to protest the unfair treatment and racism of
the Chrysler Corporation and the United Auto Workers union. These
actions led to the formation of an organization known as DRUM
(originally, Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement, later the Detroit Revolutionary Union
Movement). The efforts of DRUM radicalized workers and led to the formation of an
explicitly Marxist organization, with the goal of galvanizing the Black working class with
a revolutionary consciousness and ultimately leading a socialist-type revolution. The
LRBW put out a regular paper, created a publishing house and was also able to tap into a
large portion of the Black community, as well as the student movement in colleges and
high schools in and around Detroit. The League was one of the only Black groups to
argue explicitly for the organization of the working class and to mobilize thousands of
Black union members into militant action. The actions of the LRBW led to an
improvement in working conditions, and a greater leadership role for Blacks in the
United Auto Workers union.
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8. The Black Panther Party
Perhaps the best-known Black liberation group in the United States is the Black Panther
Party for Self Defense. Organized in 1966 by Huey
Newton and Bobby Seale, the Black Panthers began as
an organization dedicated to the protection of
Oakland’s Black community from racist police
violence. In 1967, however, when Black Panther Party
members staged a dramatic demonstration by walking
into the California State House with shotguns—it was
legal in California to carry such weapons—to bring
attention to their Ten-Point Program, they were
catapulted into the national spotlight. In the next two
years, the Black Panthers developed into a major
national organization with thousands of members. By
1970, they had 35 chapters. The Black Panthers were
best known for their “Survival Programs,” which
provided much needed aid to the Black community. At its peak, their breakfast program
fed 200,000 school children a day. They initiated and operated free health screening
clinics, food drives, sickle cell disease awareness programs and, in Oklahoma City, a
free ambulance service. But, the Black Panther Party was not simply a Black community
service organization. They considered the Survival Programs a step towards self-
determination and a way to raise the political consciousness of Black people. They
spoke about the necessity for revolutionary change inside the United States.
The Party’s political education stressed the principals of Marxism
and the Party elaborated anti-imperialist politics, which included
cultivating relationships with revolutionaries from Africa to China.
The destruction of the Black Panther Party is in many ways a case
study for state repression. Threatened by the revolutionary
potential of socio-politically conscious Black people, the U.S.
government carried out a series of subversive activities, including
the outright assassination of Panther leaders like Fred Hampton
and many others. Although the organization was destroyed, it has
left a powerful legacy that still influences us today.
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9. Aluta Continua / The Struggle Continues
The RAM the SNCC, the DRUM and the BPP are only four of a host of socio-political
organizations which in the late 1960s and 1970s composed an entire movement oriented
towards Black National Liberation and Self Determination. It is important for the Hip Hop
generation and their childern to draw lessons from and reaffirm these movements' place
in the history of the Black civil and human rights struggle and to continue our struggle
for National Liberation and Self Determination as New Afrikan People.
In the wake and aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, revealing for the whole
world to see the systematic racism / white supremacy that the Black
nation in the United States still suffer, it is clear that "the more things
have changed, the more things have stayed the same". The objective
basis for the Black liberation movement remains as pressing today as
ever. Political oppression, social degradation and economic exploitation
of people Afrikan descent is as alive and well today as it was fifty years
ago.
The historical passion for freedom and the socio-political vision of the revolutionary
organizations that grew up in the Black communities of the 60s continues to inspire
thousands of Black civil rights activists and revolutionaries to date looking for a way
move forward in the struggle against white supremacy/racism.
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10. This brief essay has been intended to charge the Hip Hop generation to take the torch of
our ongoing struggle for National Liberation ans Self Determination as "New Afrikan
Peoples"; based on drawing lessons from the those that have preceded us.
RBG Street Scholar 2010
RBG National Strategy of the Front for the Liberation of the New Afrikan Nation
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