African independence movements

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The African Independence Movements took place in the 20th century, when a wave of struggles for independence in European-ruled African territories were witnessed.

Notable independence movements took place:

• Algeria (former French Algeria), see Algerian War
• Angola (former Portuguese Angola), see Portuguese Colonial War
• Guinea-Bissau (former Portuguese Guinea), see Portuguese Colonial War
• Kenya (former British Kenya), see Mau Mau Uprising
• Madagascar (see Malagasy Uprising)
• Mozambique (former Portuguese Mozambique), see Portuguese Colonial War
• Namibia (former South West Africa) – against South Africa, see Namibian War of Independence and South African Border War
• Zimbabwe (former Rhodesia) – see Rhodesian Bush War

British overseas territories

British Kenya

British-ruled Kenya was the place of a rebellion from 1952 to 1960, an insurgency by Kenyan rebels against the British colonialist rule. The core of the rebellion was formed by members of the Kikuyu ethnic group, along with smaller numbers of Embu and Meru.

French overseas territories

The flag of Algeria

French Algeria

The colonization of Algeria:

French colonization of Algeria began on June 14, 1830 when French soldiers arrived in a coastal town, Sidi Ferruch. The troops did not encounter significant resistance, and within 3 weeks, the occupation was officially declared on July 5, 1830. After a year of occupation over 3,000 Europeans (mostly French) had arrived ready to start businesses and claim land. In reaction to the French occupation, Amir Abd Al-Qadir was elected leader of the resistance movement. On November 27, 1832, Abd Al-Qadir declared that he reluctantly accepted the position, but saw serving in the position as a necessity in order to protect the country from the enemy (the French). Abd Al-Qadir declared the war against the French as jihad, opposed to liberation. Abd Al-Qadir's movement was unique from other independence movements because the main call to action was for Islam rather than nationalism. Abd Al-Qadir fought the French for nearly two decades, but was defeated when the Tijaniyya Brotherhood agreed to submit to French rule as long as “they were allowed to exercise freely the rites of their religion, and the honor of their wives and daughters was respected”. In 1847 Abd Al-Qadir was defeated and there were other resistance movements but none of them were as large nor as effective in comparison. Due to the lack of effective large-scale organizing, Algerian Muslims “resorted to passive resistance or resignation, waiting for new opportunities,” which came about from international political changes due to World War I. As World War I became a reality, officials discussed drafting young Algerians into the army to fight for the French, but there was some opposition. European settlers were worried that if Algerians served in the army, then those same Algerians would want rewards for their service and claim political rights (Alghailani). Despite the opposition, the French government drafted young Algerians into the French army for World War I.

Since many Algerians had fought as French soldiers during the First World War, just as the European settlers had suspected, Muslim Algerians wanted political rights after serving in the war. Muslim Algerians felt it was all the more unfair that their votes were not equal to the other Algerians (the settler population) especially after 1947 when the Algerian Assembly was created. This assembly was composed of 120 members. Muslim Algerians who represented about 9 million people could designate 50% of the Assembly members while 900,000 non-Muslim Algerians could designate the other half.

Muslim mosque in Algeria

Religion in Algeria:

When the French arrived in Algeria in 1830, they quickly took control of all Muslim establishments. The French took the land in order to transfer wealth and power to the new French settlers. In addition to taking property relating Muslim establishments, the French also took individuals’ property and by 1851, they had taken over 350,000 hectares of Algerian land. For many Algerians, Islam was the only way to escape the control of French Imperialism. In the 1920s and 30s, there was an Islamic revival led by the ulama, and this movement became the basis for opposition to French rule in Algeria. Ultimately, French colonial policy failed because the ulama, especially Ibn Badis, utilized the Islamic institutions to spread their ideas of revolution. For example, Ibn Badis used the “networks of schools, mosques, cultural clubs, and other institutions,” to educate others, which ultimately made the revolution possible. Education became an even more effective tool for spreading their revolutionary ideals when Muslims became resistant to sending their children to French schools, especially their daughters. Ultimately, this led to conflict between the French and the Muslims because there were effectively two different societies within one country.

 

Monument to those killed in the first independence protest

Leading up to the fight for independence:

The fight for independence, or the Algerian war, began with a massacre that occurred on May 8, 1945 in Setif, Algeria. After WWII ended, nationalists in Algeria, in alignment with the American anti-colonial sentiment, organized marches, but these marches became bloody massacres. An estimated 6,000-45,000 Algerians were killed by the French army. This event triggered a radicalization of Algerian nationalists and it was a crucial event in leading up to the Algerian War.

In response to the massacre, Messali Hadj, the leader of the independence party, the Movement for the Triumph of Democratic Liberties (MTLD), "turned to electoral politics. With Hadj’s leadership, the party won multiple municipal offices. But, in the 1948 elections the candidates were arrested by Interior Minister Jules Moch. While the candidates were being arrested, the local authorities stuffed ballots for Muslim men, non-members of the independence party. Since the MTLD could not gain independence via elections, Hadj turned to violent means and consulted "the head of its parliamentary wing, Hocine A ̈ıt Ahmed, to advise on how the party might win Algeria’s independence through force of arms." A ̈ıt Ahmed had never been formally trained in strategy, so he studied former rebellions against the French and he came to the conclusion that "no other anti-colonial movement had had to deal with such a sizable and politically powerful settler population." Due to the powerful settler population, A ̈ıt Ahmed believed that Algeria could only achieve independence if the movement became relevant in the international political arena. Over the next few years, members of the MTLD began to disagree about which direction the organization should go to achieve independence, so eventually the more radical members broke off to form the National Liberation Front (FLN).

The fight for independence in the international arena:

The FLN officially started the Algerian War for Independence and followed A ̈ıt Ahmed's advice by creating tensions in the Franco-American relations. Due to the intensifying global relations, the Algerian War became a "kind of world war—a war for world opinion". In closed-door meetings the United States encouraged France to negotiate with the FLN, but during UN meetings the United States helped France end discussion on Algeria. Ultimately, the strategy of just focusing on superpowers was not successful for Algeria, but once A ̈ıt Ahmed began to exploit international rivalries the Algerian war for independence was successful.

Algerian women in the Algerian War of Independence

 

Women in the fight for independence:

Thousands of women took part in the war, even on deadly missions. Women took part as “combatants, spies, fundraisers, and couriers, as well as nurses, launderers, and cooks”. 3% of all fighters were women, which is roughly equivalent to 11,000 women.

This is a quote of three women who participated in the war: “We had visited the site and noted several possible targets. We had been told to place two bombs, but we were three, and at the last moment, since it was possible, we decided to plant three bombs. Samia and I carried three bombs from the Casbah to Bab el Oued, where they were primed...Each of us placed a bomb, and at the appointed time there were two explosions; one of the bombs was defective and didn’t go off.’ - Djamila B., Zohra D., and Samia, Algiers, September 1956”.

Outcome of Independence:

Algeria gained independence on February 20, 1962 when the French government signed a peace accord.

While the women's movement made significant gains post-independence, peace in the country did not last long. Shortly after gaining independence, the Algerian Civil War began. The civil war erupted from anger regarding one party rule and ever increasing unemployment rates in Algeria. In October 1988, young Algerian men took to the streets and participated in week-long riots.

In addition, the Algerian war for independence inspired liberationists in South Africa. However, the liberationists were unsuccessful in implementing Alergian strategy into their independence movement.

The Algerian Independence movement also had a lasting impact on French thought about the relationship between the government and religion.

Portuguese overseas territories

Portugal built a five-century-long global empire. Portuguese overseas expansion began in the 15th century, thanks to several factors that gave the small coastal nation an advantage over its larger European neighbours. First, in the 14th century, Portuguese shipbuilders invented several new techniques that made sailing in the stormy Atlantic Ocean more practical. They combined elements of different types of ships to construct stronger, roomier and more manoeuvrable caravels. They also took advantage of more reliable compasses for navigation, and benefited from the school for navigation created by Prince Henry the Navigator (1394–1460) at Sagres in 1419. Starting with voyages to Madeira and the Azores (islands in the Atlantic) in the first part of the 14th century, the Portuguese systematically extended their explorations as far as Japan by the 16th century. In the process, they established forts and settlements along the West and East African coasts. In the 16th through 18th centuries, the Portuguese lost their lead to other European nations, notably England and France, but played a major role in the slave trade to satisfy the demand for labour in Brazil and other American markets. By the beginning of the 19th century, Portugal controlled outposts at six locations in Africa. One was the Cape Verde Islands, located about 700 miles due west of Dakar, Senegal. Claimed for Portugal by Diogo Gomes about 1458, this archipelago of eight major islands was devoted to sugar cultivation using slaves taken from the African mainland. The Portuguese once had extensive claims on the West African coast—since they were the first Europeans to explore it systematically—but by 1800 they were left with only a few ports at the mouth of the Rio Geba in what is now known as the Guinea-Bissau. To the east, the Portuguese controlled the islands of São Tomé and Príncipe, located south of the mouth of the Niger River. Like the Cape Verde Islands, they were converted to sugar production in the early 16th century using slaves acquired on the mainland in the vicinity of the Congo River. By the end of the 19th century, Portuguese landowners had successfully introduced cocoa production using forced African labour. Further south, the Portuguese claimed both sides of the mouth of the Congo River, as well as the Atlantic coast as far south as the Rio Cunene. In practical terms, Portugal controlled port cities like those of Cabinda (north of the Congo River mouth), Ambriz (south of the Congo's mouth), Luanda and Benguela (on the Angolan coast) plus some river towns in the Angolan interior.

The last area claimed by Portugal in Africa was along the southeast coast on either side of the mouth of the Zambezi River. After reaching this area, known as the Swahili Coast, at the end of the 15th century, the Portuguese came to dominate most of it by the end of the 16th century. During the 17th century, they lost control of everything north of Cape Delgado to Arabs from Oman (who established the Sultanate of Zanzibar), leaving them with major ports at Mozambique, Quelimane, and Lourenço Marques, plus settlements along the Zambezi and other rivers.

Despite these holdings, the Portuguese hold in Africa was problematic. The first cause was the small size of Portugal's population, coupled with the lack of popular support for overseas empire. Exploration and conquest began as an enterprise supported by the nobility, and Portuguese peasants rarely participated unless forced to do so. When the common people of Portugal did chose to emigrate, they were much more likely to head to Brazil and other territories than to Africa. To induce Europeans to move to its African holdings, the Portuguese government resorted to releasing degradados—convicted criminals—from prison in exchange for accepting what amounted to exile in Africa. Angola, in particular, gained a reputation as a Portuguese penal colony. Also, since the European population remained almost entirely male, the Portuguese birth rate was negligible, although plenty of "Afro-Lusitanians" were born to African mothers. As a result, the European population of Portugal's African settlements was never very large, and community leaders were just as likely to owe their loyalty to local African governments as they did to the distant Portuguese government.

A second cause of weakness in Portuguese Africa was the effects of three centuries of Atlantic slave trade which had roots in the older African slave trade. Once the Atlantic triangular trade got underway, many Portuguese (including many Brazilian traders) in Africa found little incentive to engage in any other kind of profitable economic activity. The economies of Guinea, Angola and Mozambique became almost entirely devoted to the export of slaves to the New World (plus gold and ivory where they were available) while on the islands, slaves were used to grow sugar for export. Colonial authorities did nothing to stop the slave trade, which had sympathisers even among the several native African tribes, and many became wealthy by supporting it, while the traders themselves generated huge profits with which they secured allies in Africa and Portugal.

Although anti-slavery efforts became organised in Europe in the 18th century, the slave trade only came to an end in the early 19th century, thanks in large part to English efforts to block shipping to the French during the Napoleonic Wars. Portugal was one of the first countries in the world to outlaw slavery, and did it so in mainland Portugal during the 18th century. The Portuguese government ended colonial slavery in stages with a final decree in 1858 that outlawed slavery in the overseas empire. The gradual pace of abolition was due to the strength of pro-slavery forces in Portuguese politics, Brazil and in Africa, they interfered with colonial administrators who challenged long-established and powerful commercial interests.

The Napoleonic Wars added a new force to the Portuguese political scene—republicanism—introduced as an alternative to the monarchy by French troops in 1807. The French invasion induced the Portuguese royal family to make the controversial decision to flee to Brazil (on English ships), from where they ruled until 1821. By the time King João VI returned to Lisbon, he faced a nobility divided in their support for him personally, plus a middle class that wanted a constitutional monarchy. During Joao VI's reign (1821–1826) and that of his successors—Peter IV (1826–1831), Maria (1833–1853), Peter V (1853–1861), Louis I (1861–1889), and Carlos (1889–1908)—there was a civil war that lasted from 1826 to 1834, a long period characterised by what one author called "ministerial instability and chronic insurrection" from 1834 to 1853, and finally the end of the monarchy when both Carlos and his heir were assassinated on February 1, 1908. Under those circumstances, colonial officials appointed by governments in Lisbon were more concerned with politics at home than with administering their African territories.

As it did everywhere else, the Industrial Revolution stimulated change in Portuguese Africa. It created a demand for tropical raw materials like vegetable oils, cotton, cocoa and rubber, and it also created a need for markets to purchase the expanded quantity of goods issuing from factories. In Portugal's case, most of the factories were located in England, which had had a special relationship with Portugal ever since Philippa, the daughter of England's John of Gaunt, married John of Avis, the founder of the Portuguese second dynasty. Prodded by Napoleon's invasion and English support for the royal family's escape to Brazil, King João and his successors eliminated tariffs, ended trade monopolies and generally opened the way for British merchants to become dominant in the Portuguese empire. At times, that caused friction, such as when both British and Portuguese explorers claimed the Shire Highlands (located in modern Malawi), but for the most part Great Britain supported the Portuguese position in exchange for incorporating Portugal's holdings into the British economic sphere.

With neither a large European population nor African wage earners, the Portuguese colonies offered poor markets for manufactured goods from the private sector. Consequently, industrialisation arrived in the form of government programs designed to improve internal communications and increase the number of European settlers. During the late 1830s, the government headed by Marquis Sá da Bandeira tried to encourage Portuguese farmers to migrate to Angola, with little success. Between 1845 and 1900, the European population of Angola rose from 1,832 to only about 9,000. European migration to Mozambique showed slightly better results—about 11,000 in 1911—but many were British from South Africa rather than Portuguese. The other major force for change was the rivalries that developed between European nations in the century between the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the outbreak of World War I. Forbidden from fighting each other by the "balance of power" established by the Treaty of Vienna, they competed in other ways including scientific discoveries, athletic competitions, exploration and proxy wars. Although not a major power anymore, Portugal participated in the competition, especially by sending out explorers to solidify their claim to all of the land between Angola and Mozambique. That bought them into conflict with men like Cecil Rhodes, whose own vision of an empire from "Cape to Cairo" required that the British gain control over the same land.

European rivalries appeared most often as commercial competition, and in 19th century Africa, that included the right to move goods by steamboat along rivers. The British had a head start thanks to their early adoption of steam technology and their supremacy on the high seas. They became the strongest proponents of the principle of "free trade" which prohibited countries from creating legal barriers to another country's merchants. Occasionally, Portuguese leaders resisted, but the British alliance provided sufficient benefits to convince various administrations to go along (although they faced revolts at home and in their colonies).

It was Portugal's claim to the land on either side of the mouth of the Congo River that triggered the events leading up to the Congress of Berlin. That claim, which dated from Diogo Cão's voyage in 1484, gave Portugal places from which naval patrols could control access to Africa's largest river system. The British eyed this arrangement with suspicion for years, but paid tariffs (like everyone else) for the right to trade there, mostly for slaves.

After the abolition of slavery got underway, the Portuguese dragged their heels, so in 1839 the British government declared its right to inspect Portuguese ships for evidence of slave trading with or without Portuguese consent. That stirred the Portuguese to action, and in a subsequent series of agreements made in the 1840s, the British acquired the right to land their ships to land where no Portuguese authorities were present. When the Portuguese refused to renew the agreement in 1853, the British ceased paying tariffs at the ports on either side of the Congo River mouth, claiming that Portugal's claim had expired because they had left the area unoccupied for too long. Portugal reoccupied the ports of Cabinda and Ambriz in 1855, and relations with Great Britain improved after that. The dispute set a precedent, however, that effective occupation was a prerequisite for recognition of colonial claims. The question continued to reappear until 1885 when it was enshrined in the agreements that emanated from the Congress of Berlin.

The final straw was the Anglo-Portuguese Treaty signed on February 26, 1884. It granted exclusive navigation rights on the Congo River to Britain in exchange for British guarantees of Portugal's control of the coast at the mouth of the Congo River. Most significantly, it prevented the French from taking advantage of treaties signed by one of its explorers (Savorgnan de Brazza) with Africans living along the north side of the Congo River. International protests forced the two countries to abandon the treaty in June 1884, and Bismarck used the controversy to call the Congress of Berlin later that year.

The Portuguese were the first Europeans to claim territory in sub-Saharan Africa, and their example inspired imitation from other European powers. For the British, the Portuguese were acceptable proxies in the competition with France, Russia and Germany for world domination. For Portuguese governments, the British alliance gave them influence that they could not command themselves, while the idea of a Portuguese empire offered something with which to distract domestic opponents from the struggles initiated by the Napoleonic Wars.

The issues that were raised by Portugal's claims in Africa and the efforts of other countries to whittle them down became the fundamental issues of the Congress of Berlin. In the end, the Congress settled more than the future of Portugal's African holdings—it also set the rules for any European government which wished to establish an empire in Africa.

In the 1950s, after World War II, several African territories became independent from their European rulers, but the oldest Europe-ruled territories, those ruled by Portugal, were rebranded "Overseas Provinces" from the former designation as Portuguese colonies. This was a firm effort of Portugal's authorities to preserve its old African possessions abroad and refuse any claims of independence. This was followed by a wave of strong economic and social developments in all Portuguese Africa, in particular the overseas provinces of Angola and Mozambique.

By the 1960s, several organisations were founded to support independence's claims of the Portuguese overseas provinces in Africa. They were mostly entirely based and supported from outside Portugal's territories. Headquartered and managed in countries like Senegal, Tanzania, Algeria, Guinea and Ethiopia, these guerrilla movements sought weapons, financing and political support in Eastern Bloc's communist states and the People's Republic of China. A Cold War conflict in Portuguese Africa was about to start. Marxist-Leninist and Maoist ideologies, backed by countries like the Soviet Union and People's Republic of China were behind the nationalist guerrilla movements created to attack Portuguese possessions and claim independence. The USA and other countries, in order to counter communist growing influence in the region also started to support some nationalist guerrillas in their fight against Portugal. The series of guerrilla wars involving Portugal and several armed nationalist groups from Africa in its overseas provinces of Angola, Guinea, and Mozambique, become known as the Portuguese Colonial War (Guerra Colonial or Guerra do Ultramar).

African nationalism in Portuguese Africa

Portuguese Angola

Portuguese soldiers in Angola.

In Portuguese Angola, the rebellion of the ZSN was taken up by the União das Populações de Angola (UPA), which changed its name to the National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA) in 1962. On February 4, 1961, the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) took credit for the attack on the prison of Luanda, where seven policemen were killed. On March 15, 1961, the UPA, in a tribal attack, started the massacre of white populations and black workers born in other regions of Angola. This region would be retaken by large military operations that, however, would not stop the spread of the guerrilla actions to other regions of Angola, such as Cabinda, the east, the southeast and the central plateaus.

Portuguese Guinea

PAIGC's checkpoint in 1974

In Portuguese Guinea, the Marxist African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) started fighting in January 1963. Its guerrilla fighters attacked the Portuguese headquarters in Tite, located to the south of Bissau, the capital, near the Corubal river . Similar actions quickly spread across the entire colony, requiring a strong response from the Portuguese forces.

The war in Guinea placed face to face Amílcar Cabral, the leader of PAIGC, and António de Spínola, the Portuguese general responsible for the local military operations. In 1965 the war spread to the eastern part of the country and in that same year the PAIGC carried out attacks in the north of the country where at the time only the minor guerrilla movement, the Frente de Luta pela Independência Nacional da Guiné (FLING), was fighting. By that time, the PAIGC started receiving military support from the Socialist Bloc, mainly from Cuba, a support that would last until the end of the war.

In Guinea the Portuguese troops mainly took a defensive position, limiting themselves to keeping the territories they already held. This kind of action was particularly devastating to the Portuguese troops who were constantly attacked by the forces of the PAIGC. They were also demoralised by the steady growth of the influence of the liberation supporters among the population that was being recruited in large numbers by the PAIGC.

With some strategic changes by António Spínola in the late 1960s, the Portuguese forces gained momentum and, taking the offensive, became a much more effective force. Between 1968 and 1972, the Portuguese forces took control of the situation and sometimes carried attacks against the PAIGC positions. At this time the Portuguese forces were also adopting subversive means to counter the insurgents, attacking the political structure of the nationalist movement. This strategy culminated in the assassination of Amílcar Cabral in January 1973. Nonetheless, the PAIGC continued to fight back and pushed the Portuguese forces to the limit. This became even more visible after PAIGC received anti-aircraft weapons provided by the Soviets, especially the SA-7 rocket launchers, thus undermining the Portuguese air superiority.

Portuguese Mozambique

Portuguese Mozambique was the last territory to start the war of liberation. Its nationalist movement was led by the Marxist-Leninist Liberation Front of Mozambique (FRELIMO), which carried out the first attack against Portuguese targets on September 24, 1964, in Chai, province of Cabo Delgado. The fighting later spread to Niassa, Tete at the centre of the country. A report from Battalion No. 558 of the Portuguese army makes references to violent actions, also in Cabo Delgado, on August 21, 1964. On November 16 of the same year, the Portuguese troops suffered their first losses fighting in the north of the country, in the region of Xilama. By this time, the size of the guerrilla movement had substantially increased; this, along with the low numbers of Portuguese troops and colonists, allowed a steady increase in FRELIMO's strength. It quickly started moving south in the direction of Meponda and Mandimba, linking to Tete with the aid of Malawi.

Until 1967 the FRELIMO showed less interest in Tete region, putting its efforts on the two northernmost districts of the country where the use of landmines became very common. In the region of Niassa, FRELIMO's intention was to create a free corridor to Zambézia. Until April 1970, the military activity of FRELIMO increased steadily, mainly due to the strategic work of Samora Machel in the region of Cabo Delgado. In the early 1970s, after the Portuguese Gordian Knot Operation, the nationalist guerrilla was severely damaged.

Role of the Organisation of African Unity

The Organisation of African Unity (OAU) was founded May 1963. Its basic principles were co-operation between African nations and solidarity between African peoples. Another important objective of the OAU was an end to all forms of colonialism in Africa. This became the major objective of the organisation in its first years and soon OAU pressure led to the situation in the Portuguese colonies being brought up at the UN Security Council.

The OAU established a committee based in Dar es Salaam, with representatives from Ethiopia, Algeria, Uganda, Egypt, Tanzania, Zaire, Guinea, Senegal and Nigeria, to support African liberation movements. The support provided by the committee included military training and weapon supplies. The OAU also took action in order to promote the international acknowledgement of the legitimacy of the Revolutionary Government of Angola in Exile (GRAE), composed of the National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA). This support was transferred to the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and to its leader, Agostinho Neto in 1967. In November 1972, both movements were recognised by the OAU in order to promote their merger. After 1964, the OAU recognised PAIGC as the legitimate representatives of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde and in 1965 recognised FRELIMO for Mozambique.

Eritrea

Eritrea sits on a strategic location along the Red Sea, between the Suez Canal and the Bab-el-Mandeb. Eritrea was an Italian colony from 1890–1941. On April 1, 1941, the British captured Asmara defeating the Italians and Eritrea fell under the British Military Administration. This military rule lasted from 1941 until 1952. On December 2, 1950, the United Nations General Assembly, by UN Resolution 390 A(V) federated Eritrea with Ethiopia. The architect of this federal act was the United States. The federation went into effect September 11, 1952. However, the federation was a non-starter for feudal Ethiopia, and it started to systematically undermine it. On December 24, 1958—the Eritrean flag was replaced by the Ethiopian flag; On May 17, 1960—The title "Government of Eritrea" of the Federation was changed to "Administration of Eritrea". Earlier Amharic was declared official language in Eritrea replacing Tigrinya and Arabic. Finally on November 14, 1962 -– Ethiopia officially annexed Eritrea as its 14th province.

The people of Eritrea, after finding out peaceful resistance against Ethiopia's rule was falling on deaf ears formed the Eritrean Liberation Movement (ELM) which was formed in 1958. The founders of these independence movement were: Mohammad Said Nawud, Saleh Ahmed Iyay, Yasin al-Gade, Mohammad al-Hassen and Said Sabr. ELM members were organised in secret cells of seven. The movement was known as Mahber Shewate in Tigrinya and as Harakat Atahrir al Eritrea in Arabic. On July 10, 1960, a second independence movement, the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) was founded in Cairo. Among its founders were: Idris Mohammed Adem, President, Osman Salih Sabbe, Secretary General, and Idris Glawdewos as head of military affairs. These were among those who made up the highest political body known as the Supreme Council. On September 1, 1961, Hamid Idris Awate and his ELF unit attacked an Ethiopian police unit in western Eritrea (near Mt. Adal). This heralded the 30-year Eritrean war for independence. Between March and November 1970, three core groups that later made up the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) split from the ELF and established themselves as separate units.

In September 1974, Emperor Haile Selassie was overthrown by a military coup in Ethiopia. The military committee that took power in Ethiopia is better known by its Amharic name the Derg. After the military coup the Derg broke ties with the U.S. and realigned itself with the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) and the USSR and its eastern bloc allies replaced America as patrons of Ethiopia's aggression against Eritrea. Between January and July 1977, the ELF and EPLF armies had liberated 95% of Eritrea capturing all but 4 towns. However, in 1978–79, Ethiopia mounted a series of five massive Soviet-backed offensives and reoccupied almost all of Eritrea's major towns and cities, except for Nakfa. The EPLF withdrew to a mountain base in northern Eritrea, around the town of Nakfa. In 1980 the EPLF had offered a proposal for referendum to end the war, however, Ethiopia, thinking it had a military upper hand, rejected the offer and war continued. In February–June 1982, The EPLF managed to repulse Ethiopia's much heralded four-month "Red Star" campaign (aka the 6th offensive by Eritreans) inflicting more than 31,000 Ethiopian casualties. In 1984 the EPLF started its counter-offensive and cleared the Ethiopian from the North-eastern Sahil front. In March 1988 the EPLF demolished the Ethiopian front at Afabet in a major offensive the British Historian Basil Davidson compared to the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu. In February 1990 the EPLF liberated the strategic port of Massawa and in the process destroyed a portion of the Ethiopian Navy. A year later the war came to conclusion on May 24, 1991, when the Ethiopian army in Eritrea surrendered. Thus Eritrea's 30-year war crowned with victory.

On May 24, 1993, after a UN-supervised referendum on April 23–25, 1993, in which the Eritrean people overwhelmingly, 99.8%, voted for independence, Eritrea officially declared its independence and gained international recognition.

Namibia

South African soldiers pose with a captured German flag after their successful invasion of South-West Africa in 1915.

 

At the onset of World War I, the Union of South Africa participated in the invasion and occupation of several Allied territories taken from the German Empire, most notably German South-West Africa and German East Africa (Tanzania). Germany's defeat forced the new Weimar Republic to cede its overseas possessions to the League of Nations as mandates. A mandate over South-West Africa was conferred upon the United Kingdom, "for and on behalf of the government of the Union of South Africa", which was to handle administrative affairs under the supervision of the league. South-West Africa was classified as a "C" mandate, or a territory whose population sparseness, small size, remoteness, and geographic continuity to the mandatory power allowed it to be governed as an integral part of the mandatory itself. Nevertheless, the League of Nations obliged South Africa to promote social progress among indigenous inhabitants, refrain from establishing military bases there, and grant residence to missionaries of any nationality without restriction. Article 7 of the South-West Africa mandate stated that the consent of the league was required for any changes in the terms of the mandate.

With regards to the local German population, the occupation was on especially lenient terms; South Africa only repatriated civil and military officials, along with a small handful of political undesirables. Other German civilians were allowed to remain. In 1924 all white South-West Africans were automatically naturalised as South African nationals and British subjects thereof; the exception being about 260 who lodged specific objections. In 1926 a Legislative Assembly was created to represent German, Afrikaans, and English-speaking white residents. Control over basic administrative matters, including taxation, was surrendered to the new assembly, while matters pertaining to defence and native affairs remained in the hands of an administrator-general.

Following World War II, South-West Africa's international status after the dissolution of the League of Nations was questioned. The United Nations General Assembly refused South Africa permission to incorporate the mandate as a fifth province, largely due to its controversial policy of racial apartheid. At the General Assembly's request the issue was examined at the International Court of Justice. The court ruled in 1950 that South Africa was not required to transfer the mandate to UN trusteeship, but remained obligated to adhere to its original terms, including the submission of annual reports on conditions in the territory.

South African military convoy in Namibia, 1978.

Led by newly elected Afrikaner nationalist Daniel François Malan, the South African government rejected this opinion and refused to recognise the competence of the UN to interfere with South-West African affairs. In 1960 Ethiopia and Liberia, the only two other former League of Nations member states in Africa, petitioned the Hague to rule in a binding decision that the league mandate was still in force and to hold South Africa responsible for failure to provide the highest material and moral welfare of black South-West Africans. It was pointed out that nonwhite residents were subject to all the restrictive apartheid legislation affecting nonwhites in South Africa, including confinement to reserves, colour bars in employment, pass laws, and influx control over urban migrants. A South African attempt to scupper proceedings by arguing that the court had no jurisdiction to hear the case was rejected; conversely, however, the court itself ruled that Ethiopia and Liberia did not possess the necessary legal interest entitling them to bring the case.

In October 1966 the General Assembly declared that South Africa had failed to fulfill its obligations as the mandatory power and had in fact disavowed them. The mandate was unilaterally terminated on the grounds that the UN would now assume direct responsibility for South-West Africa. In 1967 and 1969 the UN called for South Africa's disengagement and requested the Security Council to take measures to oust the South African Defence Force from the territory that the General Assembly, at the request of black leaders in exile, had officially renamed Namibia. One of the greatest aggravating obstacles to eventual independence occurred when the UN also agreed to recognise the South West African People's Organization (SWAPO), then an almost exclusively Ovambo body, as the sole authentic representative of the Namibian population. South Africa was offended by the General Assembly's simultaneous dismissal of its various internal Namibian parties as puppets of the occupying power. Furthermore, SWAPO espoused a militant platform which called for independence through UN activity, including military intervention.

By 1965 SWAPO's morale had been elevated by the formation of a guerrilla wing, the People's Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN), which forced the deployment of South African Police troops along the long and remote northern frontier. The first armed clashes between PLAN cadres and local security forces took place in August 1966.

Black Power

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Power

Black Power is a political slogan and a name which is given to various associated ideologies which aim to achieve self-determination for people of African descent. It is primarily, but not exclusively, used by African Americans in the United States. The Black Power movement was prominent in the late 1960s and early 1970s, emphasizing racial pride and the creation of black political and cultural institutions to nurture and promote black collective interests and advance black values.

The basis of Black Power is various ideologies that aim at achieving self-determination for black people in the U.S. Black power dictates that blacks create their own identities despite being subjected to pre-existing societal factors.

"Black Power" expresses a range of political goals, from defense against racial oppression, to the establishment of social institutions and a self-sufficient economy, including black-owned bookstores, cooperatives, farms, and media. However, the movement has been criticized for alienating itself from the mainstream civil rights movement, for its apparent support of racial segregation, and for constituting black superiority over other races.

Etymology

The earliest known usage of the term "Black Power" is found in Richard Wright's 1954 book Black Power. New York politician Adam Clayton Powell Jr. used the term on May 29, 1966, during an address at Howard University: "To demand these God-given rights is to seek black power."

The first popular use of the term "Black Power" as a political and racial slogan was by Stokely Carmichael (later known as Kwame Ture) and Willie Ricks (later known as Mukasa Dada), both organizers and spokespersons for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). On June 16, 1966, in a speech in Greenwood, Mississippi, after the shooting of James Meredith during the March Against Fear, Stokely Carmichael said:

This is the twenty-seventh time I have been arrested and I ain't going to jail no more! The only way we gonna stop them white men from whuppin' us is to take over. What we gonna start sayin' now is Black Power!

Stokely Carmichael saw the concept of "Black Power" as a means of solidarity between individuals within the movement. It was a replacement of the "Freedom Now!" slogan of Carmichael's contemporary, the non-violent leader Martin Luther King. With his use of the term, Carmichael felt this movement was not just a movement for racial desegregation, but rather a movement to help end how American racism had weakened blacks. He said, "'Black Power' means black people coming together to form a political force and either electing representatives or forcing their representatives to speak their needs."

Variants

Black Power adherents believed in black autonomy, with a variety of tendencies such as black nationalism, black self-determination, and black separatism. Such positions caused friction with leaders of the mainstream Civil Rights Movement, and thus the two movements have sometimes been viewed as inherently antagonistic. Civil Rights leaders often proposed passive, non-violent tactics while the Black Power movement felt that, in the words of Stokely Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton, "a 'non-violent' approach to civil rights is an approach black people cannot afford and a luxury white people do not deserve."  "However, many groups and individuals—including Rosa Parks, Robert F. Williams, Maya Angelou, Gloria Richardson, and Fay Bellamy Powell—participated in both civil rights and black power activism. A growing number of scholars conceive of the civil rights and black power movements as one interconnected Black Freedom Movement.

Numerous Black Power advocates were in favor of black self determination due to the belief that black people must lead and run their own organizations. Stokely Carmichael is such an advocate and states that, "only black people can convey the revolutionary idea—and it is a revolutionary idea—that black people are able to do things themselves." However, this is not to say that Black Power advocates promoted racial segregation. Stokely Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton write that "there is a definite, much-needed role that whites can play." They felt that whites could serve the movement by educating other white people.

Not all Black Power advocates were in favor of black separatism. While Stokely Carmichael and SNCC were in favor of separatism for a time in the late 1960s, organizations such as the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense were not. Though the Panthers considered themselves to be at war with the prevailing white supremacist power structure, they were not at war with all whites, but rather with those (mostly white) individuals empowered by the injustices of the structure and responsible for its reproduction.

Bobby Seale, Chairman and Co-Founder of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, was outspoken about this issue. His stance was that the oppression of black people was more a result of economic exploitation than anything innately racist. In his book Seize the Time, he states that "In our view it is a class struggle between the massive proletarian working class and the small, minority ruling class. Working-class people of all colors must unite against the exploitative, oppressive ruling class. So let me emphasize again—we believe our fight is a class struggle and not a race struggle."

Internationalist offshoots of black power include African Internationalism, pan-Africanism, black nationalism, and black supremacy.

History

The term "Black Power" was used in a different sense in the 1850s by black leader Frederick Douglass as an alternative name for the Slave Power—that is the disproportionate political power at the national level held by slave owners in the South. Douglass predicted: "The days of Black Power are numbered. Its course, indeed is onward. But with the swiftness of an arrow, it rushes to the tomb. While crushing its millions, it is also crushing itself. The sword of Retribution, suspended by a single hair, hangs over it. That sword must fall. Liberty must triumph."

In Apartheid Era South Africa, Nelson Mandela's African National Congress used the call-and-response chant "Amandla! (Power!)", "Ngawethu! (The power is ours!)" from the late 1950s onward.

The modern American concept emerged from the Civil Rights Movement in the early 1960s. Beginning in 1959, Robert F. Willams, president of the Monroe, North Carolina chapter of the NAACP, openly questioned the ideology of nonviolence and its domination of the movement's strategy. Williams was supported by prominent leaders such as Ella Baker and James Forman, and opposed by others, such as Roy Wilkins (the national NAACP chairman) and Martin Luther King Jr. In 1961, Maya Angelou, Leroi Jones, and Mae Mallory led a riotous (and widely covered) demonstration at the United Nations in order to protest against the assassination of Patrice Lumumba. Malcolm X, national representative of the Nation of Islam, also launched an extended critique of nonviolence and integrationism at this time. After seeing the increasing militancy of blacks in the wake of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, and wearying of Elijah Muhammad's domination of the Nation of Islam, Malcolm left that organization and engaged with the mainstream of the Civil Rights Movement. Malcolm was now open to voluntary racial integration as a long-term goal, but he still supported armed self-defense, self-reliance, and black nationalism; he became a simultaneous spokesman for the militant wing of the Civil Rights Movement and the non-separatist wing of the Black Power movement.

An early manifestation of Black Power in popular culture was the performances given by Nina Simone at Carnegie Hall in March 1964, and the album In Concert which resulted from them. Nina Simone mocked liberal nonviolence ("Go Limp"), and took a vengeful position toward white racists ("Mississippi Goddamn" and her adaptation of "Pirate Jenny"). Historian Ruth Feldstein writes that, "Contrary to the neat historical trajectories which suggest that black power came late in the decade and only after the 'successes' of earlier efforts, Simone's album makes clear that black power perspectives were already taking shape and circulating widely...in the early 1960s." 

By 1966, most of SNCC's field staff, among them Stokely Carmichael (later Kwame Ture), were becoming critical of the nonviolent approach to confronting racism and inequality—articulated and promoted by Martin Luther King, Jr., Roy Wilkins, and other moderates—and they rejected desegregation as a primary objective. King was critical of the black power movement, stating in an August 1967 speech to the SCLC: "Let us be dissatisfied until that day when nobody will shout 'White Power!' — when nobody will shout 'Black Power!' — but everybody will talk about God's power and human power." In his 1967 book, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, King stated:

In the final analysis the weakness of Black Power is its failure to see that the black man needs the white man and the white man needs the black man. However much we may try to romanticize the slogan, there is no separate black path to power and fulfillment that does not intersect white paths, and there is no separate white path to power and fulfillment, short of social disaster, that does not share that power with black aspirations for freedom and human dignity. We are bound together in a single garment of destiny. The language, the cultural patterns, the music, the material prosperity, and even the food of America are an amalgam of black and white.

SNCC's base of support was generally younger and more working-class than that of the other "Big Five" civil rights organizations and became increasingly more militant and outspoken over time. As a result, as the Civil Rights Movement progressed, increasingly radical, more militant voices came to the fore to aggressively challenge white hegemony. Increasing numbers of black youth, particularly, rejected their elders' moderate path of cooperation, racial integration and assimilation. They rejected the notion of appealing to the public's conscience and religious creeds and took the tack articulated by another black activist more than a century before, abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who wrote:

Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. ... Power concedes nothing without demand. It never did and it never will.

Most early 1960s civil rights leaders did not believe in physically violent retaliation. However, much of the African-American rank-and-file, especially those leaders with strong working-class ties, tended to complement nonviolent action with armed self-defense. For instance, prominent nonviolent activist Fred Shuttlesworth of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (and a leader of the 1963 Birmingham campaign), had worked closely with an armed defense group that was led by Colonel Stone Johnson. As Alabama historian Frye Gaillard writes,

...these were the kind of men Fred Shuttlesworth admired, a mirror of the toughness he aspired to himself…They went armed [during the Freedom Rides], for it was one of the realities of the civil rights movement that however nonviolent it may have been at its heart, there was always a current of 'any means necessary,' as the black power advocates would say later on.

During the March Against Fear, there was a division between those aligned with Martin Luther King, Jr. and those aligned with Carmichael, marked by their respective slogans, "Freedom Now" and "Black Power."

While King never endorsed the slogan, and in fact opposed the Black Power movement, his rhetoric sometimes came close to it. In his 1967 book Where Do We Go From Here?, King wrote that "power is not the white man's birthright; it will not be legislated for us and delivered in neat government packages."

"Crisis and Commitment Statement"

The "Crisis and Commitment Statement" was a full-page ad taken out in the New York Times on October 14, 1966. The ad was written and signed onto by Civil Rights leaders, condemning the "extreme" measures used by groups such as the Black Power movement, while reaffirming the basic tenets of the Civil Rights Movement. The statement was signed by Dorothy Height, A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin, Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young, and Hobson R. Reynolds.

Impact

Although the concept remained imprecise and contested and the people who used the slogan ranged from business people who used it to push black capitalism to revolutionaries who sought an end to capitalism, the idea of Black Power exerted a significant influence. It helped organize scores of community self-help groups and institutions that did not depend on Whites, encouraged colleges and universities to start black studies programs, mobilized black voters, and improved racial pride and self-esteem.

One of the most spectacular and unexpected demonstrations for Black Power occurred at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City. At the conclusion of the 200m race, at the medal ceremony, United States gold medalist Tommie Smith and bronze medalist John Carlos wore Olympic Project for Human Rights badges and showed the raised fist (see 1968 Olympics Black Power salute) as the anthem played. Accompanying them was silver medalist Peter Norman, a white Australian sprinter, who also wore an OPHR badge to show his support for the two African Americans.

Black politics

Tommie Smith and John Carlos showing the raised fist on the podium after the 200 m race at the 1968 Summer Olympics.

 

Though the Black Power movement did not remedy the political problems faced by African Americans in the 1960s and 1970s, the movement did contribute to the development of black politics both directly and indirectly. As a contemporary of and successor to the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Power movement created, what sociologist Herbert H. Haines refers to as a "positive radical flank effect" on political affairs of the 1960s. Though the nature of the relationship between the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Power movement is contested, Haines' study of the relationship between black radicals and the mainstream civil rights movement indicates that Black Power generated a "crisis in American institutions which made the legislative agenda of 'polite, realistic, and businesslike' mainstream organizations" more appealing to politicians. In this way, it can be argued that the more strident and oppositional messages of the Black Power movement indirectly enhanced the bargaining position of more moderate activists. Black Power activists approached politics with vitality, variety, wit, and creativity that shaped the way future generations approached dealing with America's societal problems (McCartney 188). These activists capitalized on the nation's recent awareness of the political nature of oppression, a primary focus of the Civil Rights Movement, developing numerous political action caucuses and grass roots community associations to remedy the situation.

 

The National Black Political Convention, held March 10–12, 1972, was a significant milestone in black politics of the Black Power era. Held in Gary, Indiana, a majorly black city, the convention included a diverse group of black activists, although it completely excluded whites. The convention was criticized for its racial exclusivity by Roy Wilkins of the NAACP, a group that supported integration. The delegates created a National Black Political Agenda with stated goals including the election of a proportionate number of black representatives to Congress, community control of schools, national health insurance, etc. Though the convention did not result in any direct policy, the convention advanced goals of the Black Power movement and left participants buoyed by a spirit of possibility and themes of unity and self-determination. A concluding note to the convention, addressing its supposed idealism, read: "At every critical moment of our struggle in America we have had to press relentlessly against the limits of the 'realistic' to create new realities for the life of our people. This is our challenge at Gary and beyond, for a new Black politics demands new vision, new hope and new definitions of the possible. Our time has come. These things are necessary. All things are possible." Though such political activism may not have resulted in direct policy, they provided political models for later movements, advanced a pro-black political agenda, and brought sensitive issues to the forefront of American politics. In its confrontational and often oppositional nature, the Black Power movement started a debate within the black community and America as a nation over issues of racial progress, citizenship, and democracy, namely "the nature of American society and the place of the African American in it." The continued intensity of debate over these same social and political issues is a tribute to the impact of the Black Power movement in arousing the political awareness and passions of citizens.

Other minorities

Though the aims of the Black Power movement were racially specific, much of the movement's impact has been its influence on the development and strategies of later political and social movements. By igniting and sustaining debate on the nature of American society, the Black Power movement created what other multiracial and minority groups interpreted to be a viable template for the overall restructuring of society. By opening up discussion on issues of democracy and equality, the Black Power movement paved the way for a diverse plurality of social justice movements, including black feminism, environmental movements, affirmative action, and gay and lesbian rights. Central to these movements were the issues of identity politics and structural inequality, features emerging from the Black Power movement. Because the Black Power movement emphasized and explored a black identity, movement activists were forced to confront issues of gender and class as well. Many activists in the Black Power movement became active in related movements. This is seen in the case of the "second wave" of women's rights activism, a movement supported and orchestrated to a certain degree by women working from within the coalition ranks of the Black Power movement. The boundaries between social movements became increasingly unclear at the end of the 1960s and into the 1970s; where the Black Power movement ends and where these other social movements begin is often unclear. "It is pertinent to note that as the movement expanded the variables of gender, class, and only compounded issues of strategy and methodology in black protest thought."

African-American identity

Protester raises his hand in black power salute, Ferguson, Missouri, 15 August 2014

 

Due to the negative and militant reputation of such auxiliaries as that of the Black Panther Party, many people felt that this movement of "insurrection" would soon serve to cause discord and disharmony through the entire U.S. Even Stokely Carmichael stated, "When you talk of Black Power, you talk of building a movement that will smash everything Western civilization has created." Though Black Power at the most basic level refers to a political movement, the psychological and cultural messages of the Black Power movement, though less tangible, have had perhaps a longer-lasting impact on American society than concrete political changes. Indeed, "fixation on the 'political' hinders appreciation of the movement's cultural manifestations and unnecessarily obscures black culture's role in promoting the psychological well being of the Afro-American people," states William L. Van Deburg, author of A New Day in Babylon, "movement leaders never were as successful in winning power for the people as they were in convincing people that they had sufficient power within themselves to escape 'the prison of self-deprecation'"  Primarily, the liberation and empowerment experienced by African Americans occurred in the psychological realm. The movement uplifted the black community as a whole by cultivating feelings of racial solidarity and positive self-identity, often in opposition to the world of white Americans, a world that had physically and psychologically oppressed Blacks for generations. Stokely Carmichael stated that "the goal of black self-determination and black self-identity—Black Power—is recognition of the virtues in themselves as black people." Through the movement, blacks came to understand themselves and their culture by exploring and debating the question, "who are we?" in order to establish a unified and viable identity. And "if black people are to know themselves as a vibrant, valiant people, they must know their roots."

Black Lives Matter protest in September 2016

 

Throughout the Civil Rights Movement and black history, there has been tension between those wishing to minimize and maximize racial difference. W.E.B. Du Bois and Martin Luther King Jr. often attempted to deemphasize race in their quest for equality, while those advocating for separatism and colonization emphasized an extreme and irreconcilable difference between races. The Black Power movement largely achieved an equilibrium of "balanced and humane ethnocentrism." The impact of the Black Power movement in generating discussion about ethnic identity and black consciousness supported the appearance and expansion of academic fields of American studies, Black Studies, and African studies, and the founding of several museums devoted to African-American history and culture in this period. In these ways the Black Power movement led to greater respect for and attention accorded to African Americans' history and culture.

Britain

Black Power got a foothold in Britain when Carmichael came to London in July 1967 to attend the Dialectics of Liberation Congress. As well as his address at the Congress, he also made a speech at Speakers' Corner. At that time, there was no Black Power organization in Britain, although there was Michael X's Racial Adjustment Action Society (RAAS). However, this was more influenced by the Malcolm X's visit to Britain in 1964. Malcolm X also adopted Islam at this stage, whereas Black Power was not organized around any religious institution.

The Black Power Manifesto was launched on 10 November 1967, published by the Universal Coloured People's Association. Obi Egbuna, the spokesperson for the group, claimed they had recruited 778 members in London during the previous seven weeks. In 1968 Egbuna published Black Power or Death. He was also active with CLR James, Calvin Hernton and others in the Antiuniversity of London, set up following the Dialectics of Liberation Congress.

Black people in Britain who identified themselves as the British Black Power Movement (BBMP) formed in the 1960s. They worked with the U.S. Black Panther Party in 1967–68, and 1968–72.^[54] The On March 2, 1970, roughly one hundred people protested outside the U.S. embassy in Grosvenor Square, London, in support of the U.S. Black Panther founder Bobby Seale, who was on trial for murder in New Haven, Connecticut. They chanted "Free Bobby!" and carried posters proclaiming "Free, Free bobby Seale" and "You can kill a revolutionary but not a revolution."  London police arrested sixteen of the protestors that day, three women and thirteen men with threatening and assaulting police officers, distributing a flier entitled "the Definition of Black Power", intending to incite a breach of the peace, and willful damage to a police raincoat. The raincoat charge was dropped by the judge, but the judge found five of the accused guilty of the remaining charges.

Jamaica

A Black Power movement arose in Jamaica in the late 1960s. Though Jamaica had gained independence from the British Empire in 1962, and Prime Minister Hugh Shearer was black, many cabinet ministers (such as Edward Seaga) and business elites were white. Large segments of the black majority population were unemployed or did not earn a living wage. The Jamaica Labour Party government of Hugh Shearer banned Black Power literature such as The Autobiography of Malcolm X and the works of Eldridge Cleaver and Stokely Carmichael. 

Guyanese academic Walter Rodney was appointed as a lecturer at the University of the West Indies in January 1968, and became one of the main exponents of Black Power in Jamaica. When the Shearer government banned Rodney from re-entering the country, the Rodney Riots broke out. As a result of the Rodney affair, radical groups and publications such as Abeng began to emerge, and the opposition People's National Party gained support. In the 1972 election, the Jamaica Labour Party was defeated by the People's National Party, and Michael Manley, who had expressed support for Black Power, became Prime Minister.

Beauty

The cultivation of pride in the African-American race was often summarized in the phrase "Black is Beautiful." The phrase is rooted in its historical context, yet the relationship to it has changed in contemporary times. "I don't think it's 'Black is beautiful' anymore. It's 'I am beautiful and I'm black.' It's not the symbolic thing, the afro, power sign… That phase is over and it succeeded. My children feel better about themselves and they know that they're black," stated a respondent in Bob Blauner's longitudinal oral history of U.S. race relations in 1986. The outward manifestations of an appreciation and celebration of blackness abound: black dolls, natural hair, black Santas, models and celebrities that were once rare and symbolic have become commonplace.

The "Black is beautiful" cultural movement aimed to dispel the notion that black people's natural features such as skin color, facial features and hair are inherently ugly. John Sweat Rock was the first to coin the phrase "Black is Beautiful", in the slavery era. The movement asked that men and women stop straightening their hair and attempting to lighten or bleach their skin. The prevailing idea in American culture was that black features are less attractive or desirable than white features.

Arts and culture

The Black Power movement produced artistic and cultural products that both embodied and generated pride in "blackness" and further defined an African-American identity that remains contemporary. Black Power is often seen as a cultural revolution as much as a political revolution, with the goal of celebrating and emphasizing the distinctive group culture of African Americans to an American society that had previously been dominated by white artistic and cultural expressions. Black power utilized all available forms of folk, literary, and dramatic expression based in a common ancestral past to promote a message of self-actualization and cultural self-definition. The emphasis on a distinctive black culture during the Black Power movement publicized and legitimized a culture gap between Blacks and Whites that had previously been ignored and denigrated. More generally, in recognizing the legitimacy of another culture and challenging the idea of white cultural superiority, the Black Power movement paved the way for the celebration of multiculturalism in America today.

The cultural concept of "soul" was fundamental to the image of African-American culture embodied by the Black Power movement. Soul, a type of "in-group cultural cachet," was closely tied to black America's need for individual and group self-identification. A central expression of the "soulfulness" of the Black Power generation was a cultivation of aloofness and detachment, the creation of an "aura or emotional invulnerability," a persona that challenged their position of relative powerlessness in greater society. The nonverbal expressions of this attitude, including everything from posture to handshakes, were developed as a counterpoint to the rigid, "up-tight" mannerisms of white people. Though the iconic symbol of black power, the arms raised with biceps flexed and clenched fists, is temporally specific, variants of the multitude of handshakes, or "giving and getting skin," in the 1960s and 1970s as a mark of communal solidarity continue to exist as a part of black culture. Clothing style also became an expression of Black Power in the 1960s and 1970s. Though many of the popular trends of the movement remained confined to the decade, the movement redefined standards of beauty that were historically influenced by Whites and instead celebrated a natural "blackness." As Stokely Carmichael said in 1966, "We have to stop being ashamed of being black. A broad nose, thick lip and nappy hair is us and we are going to call that beautiful whether they like it or not." "Natural" hair styles, such as the Afro, became a socially acceptable tribute to group unity and a highly visible celebration of black heritage. Though the same social messages may no longer consciously influence individual hair or clothing styles in today's society, the Black Power movement was influential in diversifying standards of beauty and aesthetic choices. The Black Power movement raised the idea of a black aesthetic that revealed the worth and beauty of all black people.

In developing a powerful identity from the most elemental aspects of African-American folk life, the Black Power movement generated attention to the concept of "soul food," a fresh, authentic, and natural style of cooking that originated in Africa. The flavor and solid nourishment of the food was credited with sustaining African Americans through centuries of oppression in America and became an important aid in nurturing contemporary racial pride. Black Power advocates used the concept of "soul food" to further distinguish between white and black culture; though the basic elements of soul food were not specific to African-American food, Blacks believed in the distinctive quality, if not superiority, of foods prepared by Blacks. No longer racially specific, traditional "soul foods" such as yams, collard greens, and deep-fried chicken continue to hold a place in contemporary culinary life.

Black Arts Movement

The Black Arts Movement or BAM, founded in Harlem by writer and activist Amiri Baraka (born Everett LeRoy Jones), can be seen as the artistic branch of the Black Power movement. This movement inspired black people to establish ownership of publishing houses, magazines, journals and art institutions. Other well-known writers who were involved with this movement included Nikki Giovanni; Don L. Lee, later known as Haki Madhubuti; Sonia Sanchez; Maya Angelou; Dudley Randall; Sterling Plumpp; Larry Neal; Ted Joans; Ahmos Zu-Bolton; and Etheridge Knight. Several black-owned publishing houses and publications sprang from the BAM, including Madhubuti's Third World Press, Broadside Press, Zu-Bolton's Energy Black South Press, and the periodicals Callaloo and Yardbird Reader. Although not strictly involved with the Movement, other notable African-American writers such as novelists Ishmael Reed and Toni Morrison and poet Gwendolyn Brooks can be considered to share some of its artistic and thematic concerns.

BAM sought "to link, in a highly conscious manner, art and politics in order to assist in the liberation of black people", and produced an increase in the quantity and visibility of African-American artistic production. Though many elements of the Black Arts movement are separate from the Black Power movement, many goals, themes, and activists overlapped. Literature, drama, and music of Blacks "served as an oppositional and defensive mechanism through which creative artists could confirm their identity while articulating their own unique impressions of social reality." In addition to acting as highly visible and unifying representations of "blackness," the artistic products of the Black Power movement also utilized themes of black empowerment and liberation. For instance, black recording artists not only transmitted messages of racial unity through their music, they also became significant role models for a younger generation of African Americans. Updated protest songs not only bemoaned oppression and societal wrongs, but utilized adversity as a reference point and tool to lead others to activism. Some Black Power era artists conducted brief mini-courses in the techniques of empowerment. In the tradition of cultural nationalists, these artists taught that in order to alter social conditions, Blacks first had to change the way they viewed themselves; they had to break free of white norms and strive to be more natural, a common theme of African-American art and music. Musicians such as the Temptations sang lyrics such as "I have one single desire, just like you / So move over, son, 'cause I'm comin' through" in their song "Message From a Black Man," they expressed the revolutionary sentiments of the Black Power movement.

Ishmael Reed, who is considered neither a movement apologist nor advocate, said: "I wasn't invited to participate because I was considered an integrationist" but he went on to explain the positive aspects of the Black Arts Movement and the Black Power movement:

I think what Black Arts did was inspire a whole lot of Black people to write. Moreover, there would be no multiculturalism movement without Black Arts. Latinos, Asian Americans, and others all say they began writing as a result of the example of the 1960s. Blacks gave the example that you don't have to assimilate. You could do your own thing, get into your own background, your own history, your own tradition and your own culture. I think the challenge is for cultural sovereignty and Black Arts struck a blow for that.

By breaking into a field typically reserved for white Americans, artists of the Black Power era expanded opportunities for current African Americans. "Today's writers and performers," writes William L. Van Deburg, "recognize that they owe a great deal to Black Power's explosion of cultural orthodoxy."

Criticism

Bayard Rustin, an elder statesman of the Civil Rights Movement, was a harsh critic of Black Power in its earliest days. Writing in 1966, shortly after the March Against Fear, Rustin said that Black Power "not only lacks any real value for the civil rights movement, but [...] its propagation is positively harmful. It diverts the movement from a meaningful debate over strategy and tactics, it isolates the Negro community, and it encourages the growth of anti-Negro forces." He particularly criticized the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and SNCC for their turn toward Black Power, arguing that these two organizations once "awakened the country, but now they emerge isolated and demoralized, shouting a slogan that may afford a momentary satisfaction but that is calculated to destroy them and their movement."

The Black Power slogan was also criticized by Martin Luther King Jr., who stated that the black power movement "connotates black supremacy and an anti-white feeling that does not or should not prevail." The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) also disapproved of Black Power, particularly Roy Wilkins, then the NAACP's executive director, who stated that Black Power was "a reverse Hitler, a reverse Ku Klux Klan...the father of hate and mother of violence." The Black Power slogan was also met with opposition from the leadership of SCLC and the Urban League.

Politicians in high office also spoke out against Black Power: in 1966, President Lyndon Johnson criticized extremists on both sides of the racial divide, stating "we are not interested in Black Power, and we're not interested in white power, but we are interested in American democratic power with a small 'd'". At a NAACP rally the next day, Vice President Hubert Humphrey argued "Racism is racism and we must reject calls for racism whether they come from a throat that is white or one that is black."

Responses

Kwame Ture, formerly known as Stokely Carmichael, and Charles V. Hamilton, both activists with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and authors of the book, Black Power: The Politics of Liberation highlight that some observers and critics of the Black Power movement conflated "Black Power" with "Black Supremacy." They countered that Black Power advocates were not proposing a mirror-image of white supremacy and domination, instead they were working towards "an effective share in the total power of society."