The Black Power Movement and Student Protest

"Black Panther Convention, Lincoln Memorial," 1970.

In the summer of 1966, Civil Rights activist and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) leader Stokely Carmichael popularized the phrase "Black Power" in America. That same summer, the New York Times reported on Black Power “Negro groups” who were making several demands of the American education system. These demands, including more black teachers, more black authority figures within schools, and black courses “relevant to the black experience,”  illustrate how these early proponents of the movement sought to change, not assimilate, into previously segregated institutions.

By October of the same year, Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Oakland Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (BPP). The BPP movement gained momentum in the United States, and by 1968, Black Power and the BPP had spread to several campuses. From these influences sprang black student unions such as the Society of Afro-American Culture. A 1970 work by Harry Edwards entitled Black Students noted that they were predominantly "geared to provide Black students with a solid, legitimate power base from which they can bring about needed changes in the colleges and universities involved."

The coming of the Black Power movement reflects a larger dissatisfaction that had been growing among many members of the Civil Rights Movement. Activists such as Greensboro, NC, native Nelson Johnson began to question the seemingly slow pace at which change was occurring within American society using the nonviolent methods espoused by groups such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). As Black Power ideology spread across the nation, activists such as Johnson became adherents to the movement and helped bring it to North Carolina.

Visit other Exhibits in Crossing the Color Line.