Power & Racism

              Black power forum
Distributed at Black Power Forum
POWER & RACISM
Held Elliott Hall N0v. 1-3, 196?
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.  It served as
a sort of buffer zone between them and angry young blacks.  None
of its so-called leaders could go into a rioting community and be
listened to.  In a sense, I blame ourselves-together with the mass
media-for what has happened in Watts, Harlem, Chicago, Cleveland,
Omaha.  Each time the people in those cities saw Martin Luther King
get slapped, they became angry; when they saw four little black
girls bombed to death, they were angrier; and when nothing happened,
they were steaming.  We had nothing to offer that they could see,
except to go out and be beaten again. We helped to build their
frustration.
An organization which claims to speak for the needs of
a community-as does the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee-
must speak in the tone of that community, not as somebody else's
buffer zone.  This is the significance of black power as a slogan.
For once, black people are going to use the words they want to use-
not just the words whites want to hear.  And they will do this no
matter how often the press tries to stop the use of the slogan by
equating it with racism or separatism.
An organization which claims to be working for the needs of
a community-as SNCC does-must work to provide that community with
a position of strength from which to make its voice heard.  This is
the significance of black power beyond the slogan.
Black Power can be clearly defined for those who do not
attach the fears of white America to their questions about it. We
should begin with the basic fact that black Americans have two
problems:  they are poor and they are black.  All other problems
arise from this two-sided reality:  lack of education, the so-called
apathy of black men.  Any program to end racism must address itself to that double reality.
Almost from its beginning, SNCC sought to address itself
to both conditions with a program aimed at sinning political power
for impoverished Southern blacks. We had to begin with politics
because black Americans are a propertyless people in a country where
property is valued above all.  We had to work for power, because
this country does not function by morality, love, and nonviolence,
but by power.  Thus we determined to win political power, with the
idea of moving on from there into activity that would have economic
effects. With power, the masses could make or participate in making
the decisions which govern their destinies, and thus create basic
change in their day-to-day lives.
But if political power seemed to be the key to self-determination, it was also obvious that the key had been thrown down a