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Black Power was a phrase used to describe the idea that black Americans should be more direct and forceful in dealing with the violence, discrimination and poverty that they faced. Even after the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act, segregation and discrimination continued. Neither of these laws did anything to improve the poor living conditions of many black Americans. Nor did they lead to increased job opportunities for black Americans, especially in the cities in the northern states.

Race riots

One way that black Americans showed their frustration with the continuing discrimination was through race riots. Tens of thousands of people rioted in Watts, California, in 1965 and a large number of people rioted in Newark, New Jersey, in 1967. There were also widespread race riots across the USA following the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King Jnr in 1968.

The riots resulted in hundreds of deaths, thousands of serious injuries and hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of damage. In response, President Lyndon B Johnson ordered an investigation that led to the Kerner Report, written by the governor of Illinois, Otto Kerner, in 1968. Kerner concluded that the riots had been caused by racism in society and the use of violence by the police. He stated that there had become two USAs, one black and one white.

Stokely Carmichael and Black Power

One of the leaders of the Black Power movement in the 1960s was Stokely Carmichael. At the beginning of the 1960s, Carmichael had been a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee(SNCC), which had organised sit-ins, marches, boycotts and voter registration campaigns. However, he became increasingly angry at the violence and intimidation that campaigners faced from the police. He argued that black Americans should be solving problems for themselves without needing the help of white people. This was what he saw as Black Power.

Inspired by Malcolm X, Carmichael encouraged black Americans to be proud of who they were and to celebrate their African heritage. Eventually he left the SNCC, became involved with the Black Panthers, changed his name and went to live in Africa.

Impact of the Black Power movement

The Black Power movement had a wide range of impacts. Some can be seen as positive and some negative.

Some positive impacts included:

• The Black Power movement persuaded some civil rights organisations, such as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference(SCLC), to turn their focus away from passing laws and more towards improving the living conditions and economic circumstances of black Americans.
• The Black Power movement persuaded President Johnson that more had to be done to help black Americans, especially in terms of education. Johnson supported busing, which meant using buses to take students from the black American parts of a town to schools in the white American parts.
• Johnson built on President Kennedy’s policy of affirmative action by issuing a presidential executive order on the topic in 1965. Affirmative action involves putting in place policies and practices which were designed to increase opportunities for historically underrepresented groups. At this time, this involved the encouraging employers and colleges to give opportunities to as many black Americans as they could.

Some negative impacts included:

• Law enforcement authorities used the forceful nature of the Black Power movement as an excuse to treat all African American activists with hostility.
• Many white Americans and politicians were alienated by the movement’s ideas and approach. They did not want to ‘reward’ any violence.