‘We Shall Overrun’ - How the political, cultural andrevolutionary components of the Black Power Movement

influenced a collective consciousness among AfricanAmericans in the 1960s.

Matthew M. J. O’Brien, B.A., GDip.

University College Dublin

College of Arts and Celtic Studies

This Dissertation is submitted in part fulfillment of the

Masters of Arts History

July 2014

Head of School: Dr. John McCafferty

Supervisor: Dr. Sandra Scanlon

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Dedicated to my father, Michael, who inspired my love for history.

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CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

INTRODUCTION - ‘We Shall Overrun.’1

CHAPTER I - The Re-emergence of Black Nationalism‘By Any Means Necessary.’

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CHAPTER II - LeRoi Jones’s Dutchman ‘An Apostrophe to Hate.’20

CHAPTER III - Black Panthers and Revolution.‘All Power to the People.’ 31

CONCLUSION – ‘I don’t see an American Dream, I see an American nightmare.’

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BIBLIOGRAPHY 48

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 56

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Acknowledgements

As this marks my third dissertation in as many years, I would like to take this opportunity to extend my sincerest and most profound gratitude to those who have helped in innumerable ways throughout the duration of thelast academic year.

To my parents, Michael and Loret, whose love and support has been omnipresent in all of my twenty-three years. They have guided me, moulded me, made me who I am and it is for that, that I am, and will always remain eternally grateful. I want to also express my gratitude to my sister, Louise Nolan, who has been with me each step of the way through the tempestuous seas of academia. Her knowledge and experience have been invaluable assets. To my best friend, Hugh O’Neill who has been a source of both refuge and advice, thank you for always supporting me in my endeavours. I would also like to thank my peers who have all endured this rather interesting lifestyle the past few months. Their friendship has acted as a sounding board for concerns, worries, questions and many other dissertation related fears throughout the year. Finally, I want to extend my most sincere gratitude to mysupervisor, Dr. Sandra Scanlon. Without her incisive knowledge, her patience and most importantly her direction, this paper surely would have never made the presses.

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INTRODUCTION‘We Shall Overrun.’

The swift rise of the Black Power Movement in the mid

1960s was met with vociferous criticism from many senior

Civil Rights leaders such as Roy Wilkins of the National

Association for the Advancement of Colored People

(NAACP), who denounced Black Power as, ‘a reverse Hitler,

a reverse Ku Klux Klan… the father of hate and the mother

of violence.’1 Dr. Martin Luther King shared Wilkins’s

disdain for the emerging movement and charged that it

connoted black supremacy and anti-white power.2 But what

was the catalyst for Black Power in the summer of 1966?

As the July edition of Ebony recorded that same year, the

ambush of James Meredith on a U.S. highway in Mississippi

reminded African Americans that the problem with the

world was the white man’s possession of arms and the

‘millions of silent whites behind the white men with the

guns.’3 The incident involving radical whites and Meredith

proved to be the breaking point for many Afro-Americans

in their acceptance of the status quo.

Meredith’s only transgression was that he was the

first black to attend the University of Mississippi, and

following his graduation he decided to begin his “walk

against fear”. This would demonstrate that an African

American could walk freely through the South without 1 Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar, Black Power Radical Politics and African American Identity (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005), 64.2 ibid. 3 John H. Johnson, “White House Conference on Whites.” Ebony, July 1966.

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incident; as he commented, ‘Nothing can be more enslaving

than fear.’4 His chief aim was to encourage the black

citizens of Mississippi to exercise their newly

established right to vote – enabled by the 1965 Voting

Rights Act - in the November elections, however; just ten

miles into his solo march he was shot. This event

breathed life into the latent Black Power foundations and

helped create a collective consciousness among many Afro-

Americans. It was not only this event that contributed to

the growing interests in Black Nationalism and the

desideratum of fighting fire with fire, but many urban

riots, including the Watts riot of 1965, the Vietnam War,

and the assassination of Malcolm X penetrated Afro-

American society and led to a powerful black fervor that

propagated domestic policies, particularly in the urban

North.5

Many satellites of head Civil Rights organizations

galvanized to complete the march that Meredith had

started in earnest. There was a divergence of philosophy

however and while the NAACP’s Roy Wilkins and the Urban

League’s Whitney Young wanted to use this opportunity to

raise support for and promote the passage of President

Johnson’s 1964 Civil Rights Bill, other more militantly

conscious outfits such as the Student Nonviolent

Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Congress of Racial

4 Terry Anderson, The Sixties (New York: Longman, 2001), 82.5 Vincent Harding, “We the People: The Struggle Continues,” in The Eyeson the Prize Civil Rights Reader, ed. Clayborne Carson, David J. Garrow, Gerald Gill, Vincent Harding and Darlene Clarke Hine (New York: Penguin Books, 1991), 234.

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Equality (CORE), and the Deacons for Defense felt that

supporters should make it clear that they championed a

less passive approach.6

Figure i. Gunned down. James Meredith is shot as he participates inthe ‘walk against fear.’

This rift between the traditional liberal civil rights

activists was an ominous portend for the remainder of the

decade and was exemplified in the newly adopted

philosophies of SNCC and CORE in their defense of

retaliation in the face of violence. Even a recuperating

Meredith told reporters that before the march he debated

whether to bring a gun or a bible and that to his regret

he chose the bible. ‘I will return to the march and I

will be armed unless I have assurances I will not need

arms.’7

6 Ogbar, Black Power, 61. 7 Lance Hill, The Deacons for Defense Armed Resistance and the Civil Rights Movement (London: The University of North Carolina Press, 2004), 247-248.

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The most significant result of the march was the

emergence of SNCC’s call for Black Power, which was

identified and promulgated with their ‘radical,

charismatic, and often provocative new chairperson,

Stokely Carmichael.’8 It is possible to pinpoint the

emergence of the calls for ‘Black Power’ through the

recollections of Cleveland Sellers, a member of SNCC who

participated in the march. Following Carmichael’s arrest

and subsequent release for defying police orders not to

pitch a tent on the grounds of a black high school,

‘Stokely let it all hang out. “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. We been saying freedom for

six years and we ain’t got nothin’. What we gonna start

saying now is Black Power!’9 As Sellers recounts, this was

met with a chorus of ‘BLACK POWER!’ chanting.

Thus the term Black Power was added to the lexicon

of African American studies, forever rooted in

determination, yet regularly overlooked by many

historians. In response Peniel E. Joseph contends that

while the Black Power Movement is characterized by Black

Panthers, urban rioting and black separatism, ‘new

scholarship alters this narrative,’ by arguing that the

angelic Civil Rights period shared its roots with the

Black Power Movement and that the two are inextricably

8 Harding, The Eyes on the Prize, 235. 9 Cleveland Sellers, “From Black Consciousness to Black Power,” in The Eyes on the Prize, 281-282.

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linked.10 In truth, the term that grew and resonated with

many African Americans in the mid 1960s was, and

continues to be, shrouded in ambiguity. Yet, for Lance

Hill the ambiguity of Black Power was insignificant next

to its initial impact, ‘Black Power conveyed to white

people that African Americans were no longer willing to

behave politically in ways prescribed by white

liberals.’11 Rather, it presented the image of black

people united, defiant and proud, but there is no doubt

that it languished as an interpretative term evident in

the manner in which many blacks engaged with it. This

made it all the more appealing to black people, who

subscribed to its amorphous ideology, some used it as an

excuse to bear arms, others to feed starving communities

and many embraced the hubristic culture it endorsed. It

resurfaced with additional pomp and fervor at a critical

juncture in Afro-American history and offered blacks,

frustrated with the stuttering Civil Rights Movement, an

alternative philosophical avenue.

This frustration manifested itself in the anti-

antagonistic approach of Civil Rights leaders and

organisations towards non-violence. ‘Now understand what

a boycott is,’ Stokely Carmichael explained in Stockholm

in 1967, ‘a boycott is a passive act. It is the most

passive political act that anyone can commit…’12 His own

10 Peniel E. Joseph, The Black Power Movement Rethinking the Civil Rights – Black Power Era (New York: Routledge, 2006), 4.11 Hill, The Deacons for Defense, 274-248.12 Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975, directed by Göran Hugo Olsson (2011; London: Soda Pictures 2011), DVD.

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vitriolic attitude towards passivity was vehemently

expressed as he continued, ‘Dr. King’s policy was that

non-violence would achieve gains for black people in the

United States. His major assumption was that if you are

non-violent, if you suffer, your opponent will see your

suffering and will be moved to change his heart.’

Carmichael then made clear King’s fallacious assumption

that in order for this to be a possibility, the opponent

has to have a conscious. He then quipped, ‘America has

none.’13 While the divergence between Civil Rights

ideology and Black Power ideology was vast, it was also

unyielding as neither philosophy bended to the other.

This however is not what I am attempting to broach in

this paper, but it does serve as an important precursory

topic if we are to accept that Black Power was born out

of the stagnant progress of the Civil Rights model. As

previously mentioned, Black Power’s ambiguity was

attractive to those African Americans who wanted more

action, something that they could believe in, celebrate

and most importantly rally behind. William L. Van Deburg

provides a poignant description of Black Power, stating

that, ‘It sought far more than the reaffirmation of legal

equality and the government’s admission that it had a

duty to protect the constitutional rights of its

citizens. Its supporters demanded access to the basic

operative force of American society: power…’14 13 ibid. 14 William L. Van Deburg, New Day in Babylon: The Black Power Movement and African American Culture, 1965-1975 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 24.

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In their quest for power, certain themes arose and

what I am seeking to discover and perorate on is how the

individuals and organizations that were affiliated with

the Black Power Movement engaged with those specific

themes effectively and selectively. This will address the

political, cultural and revolutionary trends of Black

Power and how these themes inspired the movement.

Beginning with advocating a black nationalism that became

a burning fire of inspiration for many in the early

1960s, this dissertation will address the political

rhetoric of Malcolm X and discuss how his framework would

later manifest itself in the form of Black Power. This

Black Nationalistic surge was reactionary to the

realpolitik of the continued plight of the Afro-American

within the United States and was ultimately politicized

by Malcolm X, a mercurial leader who sought a change in

philosophy, employing a passionate rhetoric, he denounced

the modus operandi of civil rights organisations and

leaders. In doing so he became an icon who inspired

hundreds of thousands of African Americans and attempted

to cultivate a strong political consciousness through his

passionate preaching.

Secondly, this dissertation will address the role of

redeveloping and reestablishing a proud and nationalistic

Afro-American culture. This section will be localised to

the work of LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) in particular, and

his nationalistic play, Dutchman. A disciple of Malcolm

X, Jones supported the nationalistic proclivities that he

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promulgated. This is reflected throughout Dutchman but is

not its only device. Jones’s brutal condemnation of

assimilationists and integrationists echoed that of the

Black Nationalist agenda and simultaneously assisted in

eliciting a powerful cultural consciousness among Afro-

Americans. His promotion and desire of the black arts to

be used as an effective device of engagement and

awareness enabled Jones to be the harbinger of the Black

Arts Movement (BAM).

The final chapter will focus on the revolutionary

philosophy that Black Power evinced and how it manifested

itself in the heart of Oakland with the Black Panther

Party (BPP). The community programmes that the Panthers

initiated were in part to awaken a consciousness at

grassroots levels and to direct this critical thinking at

the inimical situation that many urban blacks in the

ghettos faced on a daily basis, particularly regarding

police intimidation. Their philosophy was buttressed by a

socialist ideology that enabled them to defend their

community from the white aggressors while simultaneously

acknowledging themselves as a colony of capitalistic

America. This is described lucidly through Robert Self’s

American Babylon. The Black Panthers fought to provide and

assist their communities as they deemed the United States

government as negligible and apathetic towards their

survival.

In adopting a thematic and chronological approach to

this dissertation the vast conceptualization of Black

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Power becomes more accessible. It will identify the key

agents of Black Power, including those of Black

Nationalism, and their relationships with the political,

cultural and revolutionary strands that composed the very

DNA of the divergent ideology. It is imperative to have

an understanding of the emergence of a consciousness that

was simmering just below the surface in conjunction to an

understanding of how this consciousness developed through

selective outlets to embrace contemporary surroundings.

While the attempted assassination of James Meredith

served as a catalyst for the ignition of Black Power,

Malcolm X was the avant-courier of contemporary Black

Nationalism and in order to understand how the Black

Power Movement influenced a collective iconographical

consciousness through the political, cultural, and

revolutionary elements of the movement, one must begin

with the enlightened messenger of Allah.

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CHAPTER IThe Re-emergence ofBlack Nationalism

‘By Any Means Necessary.’

In order to understand how Stokely Carmichael, Huey

Newton, Bobby Seale, et al. implemented and utilised the

new philosophy of Black Power, they evidently looked to

what had preceded their nuanced ideology that consciously

abandoned the Civil Rights mantra of integration and non-

violence. For Carmichael, the debate between Malcolm X

and Bayard Rustin at Howard University in 1962 was the

moment that nationalism took a firm grip of SNCC and

became dominant inside the non-violent action group.15 For

Seale and Newton who viewed themselves as the spiritual

heirs of Malcolm X’s Black Nationalism, their party was 15 Stokely Carmichael, interview by Judy Richardson, November 7, 1988.

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founded on the basis of a revolutionary philosophy

reflective in Malcolm’s rhetoric.16 Peniel Joseph

contends, ‘Malcolm X, perhaps more than any individual

figure, reflects the “roots” of Black Power,’ including

among other things its eclectic Black Nationalism.17

Julius Lester reinforces Peniel’s remarks stating, ‘More

than any other person Malcolm X was responsible for the

new militancy that entered the movement in 1965. Malcolm

X said aloud those things that Negroes had been saying

among themselves. He even said those things that Negroes

had been afraid to say to each other.’18

Buttressed by the Nation of Islam (NOI), Malcolm X

at the turn of the decade (1960) was a powerful political

force that gleaned the respect and admiration of many

Afro-Americans with his fiery rhetoric and promulgation

of Black Nationalism, particularly in the urban north. As

Clayborne Carson recalls, the increasingly militant black

protests of the 1960s fostered a new sense of racial

pride and self-confidence among Afro-Americans. Many

attributed the rise of this new racial consciousness to

the influence of prominent northern black nationalists

such as Malcolm X.19

Often scathing in his passionate condemnation of the

liberal integrationist agenda that was promoted by Civil

16 Simon Wendt, “The Roots of Black Power,” in The Black Power Movement Rethinking the Civil Rights – Black Power Era, 159.17 Joseph, The Black Power Movement Rethinking the Civil Rights –Black Power Era, 7.18 Frederick D. Harper, “The Influence of Malcolm X on Black Militancy,” Journal of Black Studies 1, no. 4 (1971), 387. 19 Clayborne Carson, “The Time Has Come,” in The Eyes on the Prize, 244.

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Rights organisations, particularly the NAACP, Malcolm was

not interested in conjecture and was verbose in

opposition to their policies. His 1964 ‘The Ballot or the

Bullet’ speech addressed this frustration, ‘Black People

are fed up with the dillydallying, pussyfooting,

compromising approach that we’ve been using toward

getting our freedom. We want freedom now, but we’re not

going to get it saying ‘We Shall Overcome.’ We’ve got to

fight until we overcome.’20 This indomitable

characteristic was reinforced in his autobiography as he

proudly stated, ‘they called me the angriest Negro in

America. I wouldn’t deny that charge. I spoke exactly as

I felt. I believe in anger.’21 This proved that the most

iconic Muslim in America was not an apologist, an aspect

of his character that would never wane.

Self explains that the histories of post 1965

African American politics have long treated Black Power

in terms of charismatic figures and ideological

pronouncements that marked a distinct, even fatal break

with the civil rights movement.22 Malcolm X’s call for

Black Nationalism, in conjunction with the NOI’s desire

for separatism that would be conducive to self-

sufficiency and breed self reliance, was marked by two

distinct phases that were indeed the antithesis of the

20 “The Ballet or the Bullet,” Black Past, last accessed 6 June, 2014, http://www.blackpast.org/1964-malcolm-x-ballot-or-bullet21 Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X (London: Penguin Books, 2007),483. 22 Robert O. Self, American Babylon Race and the Struggle for Post War Oakland (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2003), 217.

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civil rights methodologies. The first is indicated in the

time Malcolm spent under the guidance and tutelage of the

honourable Elijah Muhammad from 1955 until his split with

the Nation in 1963.23 Subsequently his separation from the

NOI marked the second stage of his Black Nationalist

agenda. In fact, Malcolm became an increasingly

significant source of ideas for black militants following

his new departure and openly challenged Elijah Muhammad.24

This period also represented a significant autonomy for

Malcolm who had been muzzled by the NOI. Before

attempting to unfurl the threads of Malcolm’s staunch

political rhetoric that propelled him onto the world

stage as a revolutionary exemplar, it is necessary to

address his formative years in an attempt to understand

the reasons behind what spurred him to become the

‘angriest black man in America.’

THE FORMATIVE YEARS‘The House Negro andthe Field Negro.’

Malcolm X, originally Malcolm Little was born on 19 May

1925 in Omaha, Nebraska, and was the fourth of seven

children to Earl and Louisa Little. As Condit and

Lucaites explain, his childhood was both tumultuous and

23 “Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam,” US History, last accessed 23 May, 2014, http://www.ushistory.org/us/54h.asp24 Carson, The Eyes on the Prize, 244.

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unstable.25 It appears that Earl Little had a profound

impact on his young son and one of Malcolm X’s most vivid

memories of his father was his verbose dedication and

commitment to Marcus Garvey and his policies, ‘He

believed, as did Marcus Garvey, that freedom,

independence and self-respect could never be achieved by

the Negro in America, and that therefore the Negro should

leave America to the white man and return to his African

Land of origin.’26 Remnants of his father’s Garveyite

philosophy were passed vicariously to Malcolm as he

matured and developed his own policies. Under the

auspices of the NOI, he discarded the surname ‘Little’

and replaced it with ‘X’. Malcolm was forced to

frequently defend his adopted name, and did so proudly on

television shows such as City Desk as he stated that the

honourable Elijah Muhammed ‘teaches us that during

slavery, the same slave master who owned us put his last

name on us to denote that we were his property.’ He

commented further that the real name of an African

American was destroyed during slavery.27

In the Autobiography, Malcolm stated that the image of

his father that instilled in him a sense of deep pride

was Earl’s constant crusading and militant campaigning

through the words of Marcus Garvey. ‘It was only me that

25 Celeste Michelle Condit and John Louis Lucaites, “Malcolm X and the Limits of the Rhetoric of Revolutionary Dissent,” Journal of Black Studies 23, no. 3 (1993), 293. 26 X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, 80. 27 “Malcolm X: Our History was destroyed by Slavery,” YouTube, last accessed 1 July, 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENHP89mLWOY

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he sometimes took with him to the Garvey U.N.I.A.

meetings which he held quietly in different peoples

homes.28 The man responsible for igniting a self-awareness

and political gravity in the heart of his young son was

murdered when Malcolm was just six years of age for his

‘outspoken propagation of Garveyism.’29 Earl’s death was

the catalyst for familial unrest. Shortly after, Malcolm

was placed in a foster home, and not long after that his

mother Louisa was declared mentally unstable and

instituationalised by white social workers.30 This

incident was a seminal moment in his formative years as

it evidently awoke within his psyche, a characteristic of

disdain for the white world that pronounced his initial

ideology – this would later be more formally structured

and emotionally channeled through the NOI.

Malcolm was to brush with the white institutions

that he would later condemn through his education in

predominantly white schools. Frederick Harper explains

that in the seventh grade, Malcolm enrolled in junior

high school in Mason, Michigan achieving among the

highest grades in his studies. Despite his academic

assiduousness, he dropped out a year later. ‘The reason

he gave was a discouraging counseling session with a

teacher, who advised that he plan to be a carpenter

instead of a lawyer because carpentry was more

28 X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, 85. 29 Stephen G. N. Tuck, Beyond Atlanta The Struggle for Racial Equality in Georgia, 1940-1980 (London: The University of Georgia Press, 2003), 22. 30 ibid.

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appropriate for a “nigger.”’31 Malcolm recalled the

conversation with his teacher, noting that it was at this

point that he ‘began to change – inside… I drew away from

white people.’32 This, yet again is demonstrative of the

early formulations of a philosophy of hatred, and a

societal outlook, that would be prove to be pivotal in

his political rhetoric that would surface in later years.

Figure 1.1. Not so smug anymore. Malcolm’s mug shot following hisarrest for burglary.

Malcolm’s dissent into the urban underworld, which

resulted in his incarceration, followed shortly after his

premature aspirations of making something of himself were

eviscerated at the whim of a white schoolteacher. It was

in these formative years that Malcolm came to have an

understanding of the class structure, not only within the

United States, which also included the sordid racial

division he was subjected to, but also within black

communities. He first experienced the pretentiousness and

31 Harper, “The Influence of Malcolm X on Black Militancy,” p. 389.32 X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, 119.

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heightened sense of exclusivity and importance of the

black bourgeois when he moved to Boston with his half-

sister Ella Little in 1941.33 Malcolm was surrounded by

the middle-class black integrationists that he would

later vilify, yet as a boy, he felt more comfortable in

the presence of children he empathized with and as a

result he frequented the ghettos of Roxbury. ‘Not only

was this part of Roxbury much more exciting,’ he

commented, ‘but I felt more relaxed among Negroes who

were being their natural selves and not putting on

airs.’34 While this period of Malcolm’s formative years

represented a rebellious rejection of white America’s

social values, he still ascribed to many of these

elements. He later acknowledged that he was trapped in a

pernicious paradox, ‘I loved the devil… I was trying as

hard as I could to be white.’35

Perhaps most importantly of all, Malcolm found that

through consistent interaction with ghetto life he could

establish a philosophy predicated on forming a new

identity and consciousness that was enhanced by the

increasingly militant black street culture that

propagated the urban north. While Malcolm and his

outspoken troupe didn’t seem ‘political’ at the time,

they dodged the draft so as not to lose their lives over

a ‘white man’s war,’ and they avoided wage work whenever

33 Robin D. G. Kelley, “House Negroes on the Loose: Malcolm X and theBlack Bourgeoisie,” Callaloo 21, no. 2 (1998), 420. 34 X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, 125.35 Condit and Lucaites, “Malcolm X and the Limits of the Rhetoric of Revolutionary Dissent,” p. 294.

17

possible. His denunciation of the white world and

subsequent search for enjoyment brought him to the Mecca

of Harlem. Here ‘petty hustling, drug dealing, pimping,

gambling, and exploiting women became his primary source

of income.’ His luck ran out in 1946 as he was arrested

for burglary and sentenced to ten years in prison.36

Incarceration would prove to be just the tonic that

Malcolm needed. It is significant that at the nadir of

his short life up until this juncture, Malcolm discovered

an institution in which to successfully channel his

hatred of white America, and begin to cultivate a

progressive and powerful rhetoric that would stir the

cultural and political melting pot of black America. His

early life can be credited with creating a consciousness

of the white world and while he mistakenly embraced what

it offered, he would utilize his role within the NOI in

an attempt connect with the masses and educate those

blacks who were unaware of their social status and

position in the white world.

THE NATION OF ISLAM YEARS.‘The Natural Religionof the Black Man.’

The years that Malcolm spent as a Muslim Minister for the

NOI were initially propitious to his political aim of

attempting to create a consciousness in the fibers of

Afro-American society throughout the urban north. While

36 Kelley, “House Negroes on the Loose,” p. 422.

18

his political agenda was somewhat precluded by the

Nation’s strict policies, it was to serve as an ideal

vessel of motivation and commitment to the specific

reformed ideology of Black Nationalism in the United

States. It was in prison that Malcolm X was introduced to

the teachings of Elijah Muhammad. Malcolm’s brother

Philbert, who was ‘forever joining something’, wrote to

Malcolm informing him that he had discovered the ‘natural

religion of the black man.’37

While initially skeptical and uncertain, Malcolm

slowly began to appreciate and develop an understanding

of the Muslim religion and particularly identified its

advantages. As mentioned when discussing his formative

years, Malcolm had already begun to develop his

independent stream of critical thinking and there was a

distinct corollary between his newfound consciousness and

the modus operandi of the NOI. The founding myth of the

Black Muslim faith legitimized and empowered the history

and culture of black society, and upon encountering it,

Malcolm converted to it immediately.38 As Robin Kelley

explains, Malcolm transformed himself, cleaned up,

underwent a process of self-education and began

conducting himself in a respectable manner. He submitted

to the discipline and guidance of the NOI and began to

read widely both histories and religions, ‘behind the

37 X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, 248.38 Condit and Lucaites, “Malcolm X and the Limits of the Rhetoric of Revolutionary Dissent,” p. 295.

19

prison walls he quickly emerged as a powerful orator and

brilliant rhetorician.’39

This represented a new departure for Malcolm, that

would become a benchmark in his own life and in turn

inspire and convert hundreds of thousands of struggling

African Americans to rally behind the Black Muslim banner

in the face of societal flux in mid twentieth century

America. ‘Yes, we hate drunkenness, we hate dope

addiction, we hate nicotine, we hate all of the vices the

white man has taught us to

partake in.’40 Symbolic of his

lifestyle change and armed with

his fresh approach, Malcolm had

reinvented himself and soon

became an expert recruiter for

the NOI.

Founded by the obscure

clothing salesman Fard

Muhammad, the NOI appeared in

1930 during the economic

depression. As Ogbar recalls,

‘the itinerant entrepreneur told his clients about a

hidden history and hidden religion – Islam. The “so

called Negro,” he told them, was really the Asiatic black

man – the founder of civilization and Original Man,

created in the image of God…’41 The establishment of the 39 Kelley, “House Negroes on the Loose,” p. 422.40 “Malcolm X and Black Nationalism,” YouTube, last accessed 1 July, 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGoAvQw11wQ41 Ogbar, Black Power, 13.

Figure 1.2. Preaching. Malcolm

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NOI breathed new life into Black Nationalism in the wake

of the failed attempts of Marcus Garvey and the U.N.I.A.

in the early 1920s. Garvey’s agenda was to improve the

condition of blacks in America, politically,

industrially, commercially and socially, but he also

promoted black emigration to Africa as a program of

‘national independence, an independence so strong as to

enable us to rout others if they attempt to interfere

with us.’42 The Nation, contrary to the Garveyite

approach, favoured the development of an intentionally

separate and economically self-sufficient black community

that would be governed by a revised version of the Muslim

faith.43 This was tantamount with Huey Newton’s original

philosophy. Newton considered joining the NOI but the

idea of being governed by any faith sullied its appeal,

marking a convergence with Black Power ideology.44 If Fard

Muhammad is credited with laying the strict and

disciplined foundations of the NOI’s philosophy that

tried to penetrate the black consciousness for the next

thirty years and evoke a new brand of black nationalist

sentiment through religion, then Elijah Muhammad can be

lauded for propagating the NOI after 1955 and even more

importantly recognizing and using Malcolm X as its

poster-boy.

42 “Black Nationalism,” Stanford, last accessed 23 July, 2014, http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_black_nationalism/43 ibid.44 Ogbar, Black Power, 82.

Figure 1.2. Preaching. Malcolm

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In terms of the Malcolm X’s political agenda and how

that contributed towards the emergence of the Black Power

Movement later on in the 1960s, it is inherently clear

that the NOI had a profound effect on his rhetoric,

particularly when it came to the divergence between

advocates of violence as self-defense and non-violence.

He claimed that Elijah Muhammad made those who rejected

non-violence ‘brave enough,’ and ‘men enough,’ to defend

themselves.45 Given the power that Malcolm X wielded in

his time with the NOI, his influence on others stretched

far and wide, for many blacks, his was the voice of

reason.

While Malcolm’s truest version of Black Nationalism

would unveil itself in the years following his break with

the NOI, he was staunch in promoting particular values

that composed their philosophy. Perhaps most importantly,

the NOI placed great emphasis upon black consciousness

and racial pride, claiming that a man cannot know another

man until he knows himself.46 It is relevant to note that

this was promoted because it was an attainable goal of

the Nation and one that could be met with more immediacy

than complete separation. Malcolm was active in local

communities, stating that black Americans needed to

‘”wake up, clean up, and stand up” in order to achieve

true freedom and independence.’ Similarly, Malcolm sought45 “The Nation of Islam and Malcolm X,” PBS, last accessed 18 July, 2014, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eyesontheprize/resources/vid/11_video_noi_qt.html46 J. Herman Blake, “Black Nationalism,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 382 (1969), 19.

22

to root out any behavior that conformed to racist

stereotypes, as this was pernicious to the Nation’s

philosophy.47

This was a reaction of hatred that the Nation

preached in defiance of the white man, a hatred that was

repeated at every opportunity. It is particularly

prevalent in Malcolm’s ‘Message to the Grass Roots’

speech that he gave just before he parted company with

the NOI in 1963, as he targeted the common enemy once

more. ‘But once we all realize that we have a common

enemy, then we unite – on the basis of what we have in

common. And what we have foremost in common is that enemy

– the white man.’48 Despite his fervent white disdain,

Malcolm would come to accept that the white man was not

Satanic following his pilgrimage to Mecca indicating that

his policies were amorphous and capable of changing.

THE MALCOLM X YEARS.‘Chickens ComingHome to Roost.’

There can be no doubt that the Nation of Islam nurtured

and channeled Malcolm’s powerful philosophy that

propelled him to prominence among African Americans,

particularly at a grassroots level. In fact, he had

become so widely known and respected that by 1963, he was

the second most requested speaker on the college circuit,

47 “Black Nationalism and Black Power,” Digital History, last accessed 22 June, 2014, http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtid=2&psid=333148 Malcolm X, ”Message to the Grass Roots,” in The Eyes on the Prize, 249.

23

after Barry Goldwater.49 This proves that Malcolm had a

profound effect on members of the Afro-American

communities in the north. It was through his various

speaking commitments that he struck a particular cord

with the black youth; this explains why he is so

frequently considered to have had a profound influence on

the Black Power Movement. His impending dismissal from

the Nation would in fact free his political spirit and at

the same time alienate him from a faction of Muslims.

His comments following the Kennedy assassination in

November 1963 were not an aberration of his philosophy as

just a year earlier he had commented that natural

disasters and human calamities were proof that the end of

White power was near.50 Nonetheless, his comparison of the

assassination of President Kennedy to the ‘chickens

coming home to roost’ prompted Elijah Muhammad to silence

the Nation’s most popular speaker.51 Malcolm broke with

the NOI on the basis that he disagreed with the rules

that they maintained against political participation but

was also stunned to discover that Mr. Muhammad had

committed several counts of adultery – a fact he had

previously refused to believe.52 He not only felt that

political mobilisation was indispensible but occasionally

49 Joe Wood, “The New Blackness,” in Malcolm X in Our Own Image, ed Joe Wood (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992), 10. 50 Condit and Lucaites, “Malcolm X and the Limits of the Rhetoric of Revolutionary Dissent,” p. 296.51 “Malcolm X Scores U.S. and Kennedy,” New York Times, December 2, 1963. 52 X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, 404.

24

defied the rule by supporting boycotts and other forms of

protest.53

In an interview following his departure from the

Nation, Malcolm stated, ‘it is my intention to take the

teachings of the honourable Elijah Muhammad and make them

work on a broader level.’54 This ‘broader level’ is in

reference to his political philosophy that was contained

by the NOI. Malcolm claimed that for some time he had

encountered obstacles while trying to assist Elijah

Muhammad, and that through separation from the Muslim

movement he felt he could engage on a more effective

level.55 This issue is salient for Harper, who notes that

his break with the Black Muslims freed Malcolm X to

develop his own philosophy.56 On another level however,

there was a frustration associated with the NOI in that

it failed to actively do anything to alter the Afro-

American’s situation in the United States. Michael Flug,

a former member of CORE, stated that there was a

prevailing skepticism about the Nation’s lack of

activity. Malcolm alluded to this too contending that

their philosophy was a political ‘straightjacket’ that

limited black activism.57

Malcolm’s philosophy was nebulous and in a state of

flux in early 1964. While he extended his belief that

53 Kelley, “House Negroes on the Loose,” p. 428.54 “Malcolm X After Leaving the Nation of Islam,” YouTube, last accessed 4 June, 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zh7L8uRiW-Q55 ibid.56 Harper, “The Influence of Malcolm X on Black Militancy”, p. 390.57 Ogbar, Black Power, 60.

25

black Americans had to help themselves by recognising

their role in the United States and embracing a political

and cultural nationalism that would become more prevalent

over the next decade, they also had to embrace a

revolutionary rhetoric and educate themselves on the

injustice that was on their doorstep. This became a motif

of the Black Power Movement that would resurface with the

Panthers later in the decade. By reforming themselves and

formulating a positive racial identity through self-

determination, African Americans could expedite the

process of acquiring mental manifestations of group-based

solidarity.58 This solidarity that Malcolm promoted

regularly tried to instill in the consciousness of the

black man a confidence and passion that encouraged growth

and progression on a political, cultural and

revolutionary scale. He frequently defended his fellow

Afro-Americans through recognition of the contemporary

landscape of America:

the so-called Negro is unable to stand on his own two feet. He has no self-confidence. He hasno proud confidence in his own race because thewhite man destroyed your and my pasts, destroyed the knowledge of our culture and by having destroyed it we don’t know that we have any achievements, any accomplishments, and as long as you can be convinced that you never didanything, you can never do anything.59

58 Van Deburg, New Day in Babylon, 53. 59 “Malcolm X – Wake Up, Clean Up, Stand Up,” YouTube, last accessed 30 June, 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zPdkKuEXFM

26

His unwavering political rhetoric inspired many

despondent Afro-Americans throughout the urban north, and

clearly resonated with fellow ‘field negroes’ who could

relate to what Malcolm X was attempting to do. ‘I dig

[Malcolm] the best. He’s the only one that makes any

sense for my money,’ stated a Harlem taxi driver in 1963,

as he claimed that he made more sense than the NAACP and

Urban League combined and that he was a good ‘down to

earth brother.’60 Malcolm’s attempt to appeal to the

consciousness of urban African Americans was

uncompromising in the early 1960s and proves that he was

an integral political component of what would soon emerge

as the Black Power Movement.

Another critical development that became more

pertinent in the years after he split from the Muslim

Movement was his approach towards nonviolence and more

specifically his opinions of black revolution. It was in

this period that he openly challenged blacks to form

armed units for self-defense, even arming himself. His

passionate rejection of non-violence is summed up in an

iconic photograph in which he boldly brandishes an

assault rifle while peering through a net curtain.61 His

advocacy of rejecting non-violence was an affront to the

peaceful philosophy of Martin Luther King and the Civil

Rights Movement. While Terry Anderson stated that the

idea was not original, he does comment that Malcolm X was

the first new phenomenon, ‘a bold black man demanding 60 Ogbar, Black Power, 22.61 ibid, 60.

27

self-determination and if necessary self defense.’

Newsweek referred to Malcolm as ‘a spiritual desperado… a

demagogue who titillated slum Negroes and frightened

whites.’62 Retrospectively, this was one of his most

effective policies when it came to influencing the Black

Power Movement and was a key influence to the Black

Panther Party in Oakland, California that will be

discussed in Chapter three.

It was in 1964 that his own brand of Black

Nationalism went through a paradigm shift; he slowly

began to soften his approach towards black militancy and

substituted it with a political philosophy that took a

similar line to those supporting civil rights.63 Echoing

his earlier sentiment, Malcolm argued that in order to

develop an effective liberation movement, Afro-Americans

needed to rethink their experience in the United States

and stressed the importance of political education.64 This

ran in tandem with his sojourn to Mecca.

62 Anderson, The Sixties, 83. 63 Ferdie Addis, I Have a Dream: The Speeches That Changed History (London: Michael O’Mara Books Ltd, 2011), 139. 64 Reiland Rabaka, “Malcolm X and/as Critical Theory: Philosophy, Radical Politics, and the African American Search for Social Justice,” Journal of Black Studies 22, no. 2 (2002), 152.

28

Just 5 weeks after announcing the creation of his

own independent Muslim Mosque, Inc. and the Organization

of Afro-American Unity (OAAU), his rhetoric was laced

with appeals for unity, human rights and Black

Nationalism. More specifically, he publically

characterized the shifting

nature of his philosophy from

a new perspective, calling for

a new generation of blacks ‘to

look at the thing not as they

wish it were, but as it

actually is.’65 This is

indicative of his ever-

changing policy of Black

Nationalism but was met with a

prevailing desire that a

collective black consciousness

would emerge and create a powerful political unity that

was not afraid to speak out against the injustices within

America. Malcolm X set out his most structured agenda

with his Declaration of Independence speech on March 12,

1964. Detailing the political desiderata within African

American communities, as he asserted himself as the

spokesman for urban black America. Recognising that

separation back to Africa was a long-range programme,

Malcolm proved that he was to be the harbinger for the

Black Power Movement as he identified that white America

65 Condit and Lucaites, “Malcolm X and the Limits of the Rhetoric of Revolutionary Dissent”, p. 299.

Figure 1.2. Malcolm X holds hiscarbine rifle close after

29

had shirked its responsibilities when it came to the

Afro-American, particularly in terms of basic human

rights, food, clothing, housing, education and jobs as he

stated that these were issues that needed to be addressed

‘right now.’66 He continued by begging pardon from those

civil rights leaders who he had so heavily criticized in

the past stating that, ‘the problem facing our people

here in America is bigger than all other personal

organizational differences.’67 But most importantly his

framework for the political philosophy of Black

Nationalism that was extolled in the ‘Ballot or the

Bullet’ speech given just a month later,

The political philosophy of Black Nationalism means that the black man should control the politics and the politicians of his own community… the economic philosophy of Black Nationalism [means] that we should control the economy of our community. Why should white people be running the stores of our community?68

It was no consequence that those involved in the Black

Power Movement that began just two years later, were

profoundly influenced by Malcolm X. Stokely Carmichael,

Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, and so many others continually

attempted to tap into the psyche of the black man in the

urban north and using the philosophy of Malcolm, initiate

a change and a strength that would endure in the struggle

66 “Malcolm X: A Declaration of Independence,” YouTube, last accessed7 June, 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdWvQrTOMZU67 ibid. 68 Addis, I Have a Dream, 142.

30

against racism on all fronts. One can only speculate the

role that Malcolm X would have played in the upcoming

movement and whether his Garveyite dream of returning

black people to their natural homeland would ever have

come to fruition. As Gene Roberts wrote for the New York

Times, the Black Power Movement ‘had Mr. Carmichael as its

leader and the late Malcolm X as its prophet.’69 Malcolm

X’s relationship with the Black Power Movement was

intrinsic, and in attempting to broach the consciousness

of the Afro-American with his coruscating political

rhetoric of Black Nationalism, he would forever be rooted

in Black Power’s short, but intricate history.

CHAPTER IILeRoi Jones’s Dutchman ‘An Apostrophe to Hate.’

While Malcolm X had attempted to reignite a fire within

the political psyche of the African Americans

consciousness with his policies of reinvention through

self-education, self-awareness and self-worth, Amiri

69 Gene Roberts, “Rights March Disunity,” New York Times, June 28, 1966.

31

Baraka carried a cultural torch for those who were

willing to re-embrace a proud culture through a similar

method of reform. Author of twenty-seven plays, three

jazz operas, seven books of nonfiction, a novel, and

thirteen volumes of poetry, Baraka was perhaps most

widely known as a major cultural leader and one of the

most crucial components that galvanised a second Black

Renaissance and the Black Arts Movement.70 In doing so,

he made an indelible contribution to creating a

collective cultural consciousness that would endure and

adapt throughout the Black Power Movement. With specific

focus on his 1964 one act-play, Dutchman, it is clear

that LeRoi Jones (his name prior to 1968) wanted to

build on the framework of solidarity and union that

Malcolm X had promoted in his life that could only be

produced through a revolutionary black consciousness.71

It is important to note that for the purposes of this

research paper, the period that is of relevance relates

to the years in which Jones promoted a cultural

nationalism that witnessed his own personal political

development in conjunction with initiating a cohesive

movement through the black arts. This relates to the

foundations of the cultural appeal that would later

manifest itself in the Black Power Movement.

It was initially through cultural nationalism that

Jones sought to have his voice heard, choosing the arts

70 Komozi Woodard, A Nation Within a Nation Amiri Baraka (Leroi Jones) & Black Power Politics (London: The University of North Carolina Press, 1999), xi.71 ibid, 59.

32

as his medium. Cultural nationalism offered another

avenue towards approaching the denial of equality to

Afro-Americans in the 1960s and, like economic

nationalism the emphasis was upon racial solidarity,

with the added attraction of developing racial pride and

dignity.72 This development was not exclusive to either

separatists or integrationists and there was a mutual

consensus that there was a growing need to uplift blacks

from cultural destitution.73

J. Herman Blake outlines that these goals were

sought through the study of the history of the black man

and his contribution to mankind. The cultural

nationalist believed that through scholarly analysis and

the study of the history of black people around the

world, particularly in the United States, it would prove

to blacks and whites alike that Afro-Americans are

descended from a proud heritage that has made

outstanding contributions to human progress.74 This is

reflective of the process that Malcolm X went through.

While in prison, he read widely and educated himself on

the history of African Americans so as to have a more

informed outlook that would assist in his efforts of

connecting with a collective consciousness. After all,

this was what influenced him to become a Muslim, as

Condit and Lucaites explain, ‘the founding myth of the

72 Blake, “Black Nationalism”, p. 17. 73 Daniel Martin, ““Lift up Yr Self!” Reinterpreting Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones), Black Power, and the Uplift Tradition,” The Journal of American History 93, no. 1 (2006), 112. 74 ibid.

33

Black Muslim faith legitimized and empowered the history

and culture of black society’75 A disciple of Malcolm X,

Jones evinced the same philosophy, ‘the lowest, pig-

eatingest, whiskey-drinkingest nigger on the street’

must be redeemed in the struggle for liberation…

“Believe this, Brother, and lift up yr self!”’76

Despite LeRoi Jones’s recognition of the literary

work that had preceded the revolutionary period of the

1960s, his essay The Myth of a Negro Literature composed in

1962, offers a rather scathing view of his Afro-American

predecessors and contemporaries:

From Phyllis Wheatley to Charles Chesnutt, to the present generation of American Negro writers, the only recognizable accretion of tradition readily attributable to the black producer of a formal literature in this country, with a few notable exceptions, has been of an almost agonizing mediocrity.77

As David Lionel Smith highlights, these black

writers that Jones chided all aspired to middle-class

respectability and as a result they could only strive

towards the quest of mediocrity. More importantly though,

it was a malleable renege of those writers’ own black

identity and of their honesty in rendering their own

experience as the black middle-class had always spurned

honesty as pernicious to its hopes of being accepted by 75 Condit and Lucaites, “Malcolm X and the Limits of the Rhetoric of Revolutionary Dissent”, p. 295.76 Martin, “Lift up Yr Self!”, p.112.77 David Lionel Smith, “The Black Arts Movement and Its Critics,” American Literary History 3, no. 1 (1991), 97.

34

whites.78 For Jones, the truthful accounts of the Afro-

American experience were central to the arts, an element

of his own philosophy that he deftly applied to Dutchman.

While his philosophies developed over time, it is the

early 1960s that is under particular scrutiny for the

purposes of this paper. Jones evinced the rhetoric of

Malcolm X through cultural nationalism and in doing so

was he made a concerted effort to cultivate a collective

consciousness through the arts.

THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE‘It was the period when the Negro was in vogue.’

The second coming of cultural nationalism that appeared

in the literature and poetry of Jones in the 1960s was

heavily influenced by the first cultural awakening some

forty years earlier. The Harlem Renaissance that began in

1924 is often said to have ended in the mid 1930s, a

victim of the Wall Street Crash and subsequent Great

Depression.79 If one is to agree with Woodard that LeRoi

Jones can be credited with galvanizing a second black

Renaissance, then it is pertinent to address the initial

movement that he had clearly recognised as a vital

component of his own progress but more importantly the

progress of the Afro-American in the United States.

George Hutchinson refers to the idea that Nationalism was

the basis for all works produced throughout the Harlem 78 Smith, “The Black Arts Movement and Its Critics”, p. 97.79 Cary D. Wintz, The Harlem Renaissance A History and an Anthology (New York: Brandywine Press, 2003), 1.

35

Renaissance, which is indicative of the major

characteristic of the movement and relates to the

cultural nationalist arena of thought in the 1960s. The

Harlem Renaissance enabled African Americans to engage

with cultural nationalism through actively writing about

their own experiences in the world, a particular value

that would be bequeathed to the BAM and embraced by

writers such as Lorraine Hansberry, ‘Write the world as

you see it and as you think it ought to be and must be if

there is to be a world.’80

This encouragement embedded itself in Harlem and

coincided with the great African American migration from

the rural south to the urban north following the American

Civil War and Reconstruction Era in the mid to late

nineteenth century.81 While the mecca of Harlem proved to

be a propitious hunting ground for aspiring writers it

also subscribed to a new aesthetic known as the ‘New

Negro.’ This advocated a break from the ‘Old Negro’

stereotypes that had for so long precluded African

American creativity.82 Alain Locke’s The New Negro: An

Interpretation, written in 1925 attempted to galvanise the

black populace of Harlem by informing them of the older

repressive model stating that the ‘Old Negro’ was a

80 Milton Esterow, “The Role of Negroes in Theatre Reflects Ferment of Integration,” New York Times, June 15, 1964. 81 George Hutchinson, The Harlem Renaissance in Black and White (London: The University of Harvard Press, 1995), 9. 82 Matthew M. J. O’Brien, “Go inspectin’ like Van Vechten” A Historical Analysis of Nigger Heaven and Carl Van Vechten Through theHarlem Renaissance” (Graduate Diploma thesis, University College Dublin, Ireland, 2013), 9.

36

creature of moral debate and historical controversy. But,

Locke contended that there was a distinct need for

knowledge of what was being discarded in order to move

forward.83

While it was inevitable that that there would be a

white reaction to the black Renaissance, it was not as

scathing as was perhaps anticipated. Yet there was a

feeling of resentment towards the ubiquitous nature of

some of the texts produced to pander to white audiences.84

There was however a more pervasive problem in the form of

voyeurism. As Langston Hughes recorded in his

autobiography, ‘white people began to come to Harlem in

droves… flooding the little cabaret bars where formerly

only colored people laughed and sang… the strangers were

given the best ringside tables to sit and stare at the

negro customers – like amusing animals in the zoo.’85 This

was one of the distinct elements that tainted the

cultural growth and expansion that the Renaissance

promised, and is an area that Jones and his culturally

nationalistic counterparts sought to eradicate from every

aspect of their art. Similarly, in Dutchman, there is a

brutal condemnation of assimilationists, a reaction to

those who peacefully rallied for integration. While the

Harlem Renaissance became a voyeuristic endeavor and

83 Emily Bernard, “The Renaissance and the Vogue,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Harlem Renaissance, ed. George Hutchinson (London: Cambridge, 2007), 30. 84 Hutchinson, The Harlem Renaissance in Black and White, 9.85 Langston Hughes, The Langston Hughes Reader, ed. George Braziller (New York, 1958), 369.

37

outlet for white hegemony, the cultural nationalist

consciousness of 1960s America was completely re-invented

and the content of its art acted as a bulwark to white

proclivities. This defensive approach is exemplified in

Howard Taubman’s article in the New York Times on March 25,

1964 in response to the first showing of Dutchman.

‘Everything about LeRoi Jones’s “Dutchman” is designed to

shock – its basic idea, it’s language, it’s murderous

rage.’86 Taubman continued, ‘If this is the way the

Negroes really feel about the white world around them,

there’s more rancor buried in the breasts of colored

conformists than anyone can imagine… there is ample cause

for guilt as well as alarm, and for a hastening of

change.’87 The only change that Jones and his

contemporaries demanded was that African American’s

would, upon encountering such art, connect on a conscious

level to the underlying theme of their art and carry on

their message in whatever way they could. Perhaps most

importantly, the influence that it had on the culture of

the Black Power Movement was hubristic in nature and was

only coaxed out through diligent cultural icons like

LeRoi Jones.

The Harlem Renaissance has its detractors and

historian, professor Henry Louis Gates, has referred to

it as ‘a forced phenomenon’ and a ‘culturally willed

myth.’ That being said, he mentions that its importance

86 Howard Taubman, “The Theatre: ‘Dutchman’,” New York Times, March 25, 1964.87 ibid.

38

in African American cultural history is undeniable.88 It

can be argued that the Harlem Renaissance, in light of

the second wave of cultural nationalism, was used as an

example of what not to do. Jones instead promoted his

black nationalistic theatre and became a shining beacon

for cultural nationalists with Dutchman.

DUTCHMAN‘The only thing that will flow from my pen will be a violent uncontainable

hatred of the white man.’

A theatre report by Milton Esterow on June 15, 1964 in

the New York Times gave credence to the burgeoning black

cultural consciousness, ‘In the season that just ended,

there were 13 productions relating to the Negro – from a

gospel singing play to dramas of anguish and bitterness.

Next season, Broadway and Off Broadway may stage more

works by Negro writers than ever before.’89 The surge in

black productions and the increased participation of

black actors represented a paradigm shift in the black

arts in the 1960s, a shift that would continue to

influence black culture through the next decade. There is

further evidence to reinforce this growth as Esterow

explained that with the increased number of productions,

whether they were integrated or entirely black, there was

a much larger Afro-American audience at play-houses

88 Bernard, The Cambridge Companion to the Harlem Renaissance, 30.89 Esterow, “The Role of Negroes in Theatre Reflects Ferment of Integration,” NYT, June 15, 1964.

39

throughout New York in 1964.90 Jones’s production of

Dutchman was at the heart of this growing fervor for

African American theatre and through it he attempted to

alter the perspective of the black patrons.

While theatrical

performance is interpretative

and can often be deemed

magniloquent, it is frequently

used as a reflective mechanism

that seeks to address a

particular societal issue or

current event. Dutchman

describes ‘the unambiguous

reality of the situation

American blacks in the 1960s

[faced] and gives an impression of American history and

politics of that time.’91 It also represented a distinct

shift in Jones’s own career as

it marked a personal growth

for the twenty-nine year old. Jones recorded in his

autobiography that he began to develop an interest in

drama and that he wanted to write some kind of action

literature, ‘the most pretentious of all literary forms

is drama, because there one has to imitate life, to put

characters on stage and pretend to actual life.’92 He

90 ibid. 91 Ireen Trautmann, The Success of Amiri Baraka’s Play Dutchman (Grin Publishing, 2007), 7.92 Amiri Baraka, The Autobiography of LeRoi Jones (Chicago; Lawrence Hill Books, 1997), 275.

Figure 2.1. The Showcard programguide for LeRoi Jones' Dutchmanand Albee's The American Dream.

40

noted further that drama, superseded poetry when it came

to social upsurge and that it had the ability to reach

more people because it conveyed a more realistic version

of life.93 This of course is one of the main reasons that

Dutchman resonated with so many African Americans upon

its release in March 1964; the brutal drama that played

out on stage clearly struck a cord with both the white

and black audience. However, when it was initially staged

in Cherry Lane Theatre it was preformed to a

predominantly white audience and only managed to reach

the black audience when Jones moved the play to Harlem.

In doing so he reached the more destitute African

American populace of New York.94 This was indeed part of

his goal.

As Margalit Fox explains, Dutchman was experimental,

allegorical and unabashedly angry, set aboard a New York

City subway car, the focus is on Lula, a young white

woman and Clay, a young middle-class black man.95 Fox

explains that as the play unspools, Lula goads Clay with

liberal righteousness into identifying the anger that as

a black man, he must surely harbour. ‘When Clay finally

explodes, Lula stabs him to death as the other riders

passively look on. After disposing of his body with

casual impunity, she sits back, smiles and, as another

93 ibid.94 Trautmann, The Success of Amiri Baraka’s Play Dutchman, 9.95 Margalit Fox, “Amiri Baraka, Polarizing Poet and Playwright, Dies at 79,” New York Times, January 9, 2014.

41

black man boards the train, makes pointed eye contact

with him before the curtain falls.96

As Andrzej Ceynowa states, ‘Dutchman is viewed as a

public exorcism in which Jones, about to become Baraka,

casts out his old liberal self.’97 Armed with a new

perspective, Jones mingled subtleties with rapier-like

truths that attempted to scythe the audiences’

consciousness. A simple example is in the opening action

of the play that revolves around looking and being looked at.98

This also shows Jones’s historical faculties and

recognition of past voyeurism as Lula playfully stares at

Clay. In stark contrast, Clay, through his hatefully

imbued speech towards the end, physically slaps Lula and

threatens her as he roars, ‘I’ll rip your lousy breasts

off.’99 The moment that Clay erupts with disdain for the

white subject represents a catharsis for the playwright

and is the most indicative symbol of his personal

progression through casting out his former liberal

tendencies. His hatred of the white subject only becomes

clear in the final moments of the play as up until this

point Clay, the patient integrationist has withstood all

of Lula’s scurrilous verbosity. When Clay losses control,

Jones asserts himself and empahsises his vision of

reality but cannot save his character who has been 96 ibid.97 Andrzej Ceynowa, “The Dramatic Structure of Dutchman,” Black American Literature Forum 17, no. 1 (1983), 15.98 Nita N. Kumar, “The Logic of Retribution: Amiri Baraka’s “Dutchman”,” African American Review 37, no. 2/3 (2003), 275.99 LeRoi Jones, “Dutchman.” Arkansas Tech University, http://faculty.atu.edu/cbrucker/Engl2013/texts/Dutchman.pdf

42

poisoned by white society. However, as the curtain falls

it is Clay’s ringing indictment of white society that

Jones intended to strike a particularly powerful cord

with the audience, and as Daphne Reed contends, greatly

distressed many white viewers as she echoes the sentiment

of Taubman.100

This presents the double-edged dynamic of Dutchman.

On one side Jones mirrors the brutal truths of the racist

society of the United States and on the other is the

playwright’s blatant disapproval of assimilationist

proclivities – both combine in an effort to perforate the

Afro-American psyche. The sudden emergence of the play

helped expose those ambiguities in American race

relations that would shortly erupt nationwide101, and for

the Black Power Movement, would culminate in the shooting

of James Meredith in 1966 displaying that culture was

indissolubly linked to the philosophy of nationalism. The

tangible white hatred that is prevalent in the play

manifests itself doubly. Firstly it is apparent through

Lula, who Jones saw as the metaphor of white America,

‘she represented temptation and seduction, but also

death.’102 Lula is intrinsically linked to the second

element of hate. Through her vitriolic assault on Clay

she makes it clear that the middle-class Afro American is

100 Daphne S. Reed, “LeRoi Jones: High Priest of the Black Arts Movement,” Educational Theatre Journal 22, no. 1 (1970), 55.101 Celia McGee, “A Return to Rage, Played Out in Black and White,” New York Times, January 14, 2007. 102 ibid.

43

nothing but a modern Uncle Tom.103 This is transmogrified

from a hatred of society to a conscious recognition of

self-deprecation, which results in death. Clay the

pretender, who reads Chinese poetry and drinks lukewarm

sugarless tea104 soon transforms into a transient figure of

Black Power.

This reveals the most significant moment of Jones’s

action theatre, the fiery outburst from Clay. As Kumar

suggests, Lula is to Clay a white bohemian and Clay is to

Lula a stereotypical, eager, young black man struggling

to come to terms with white American society. Through

Clay’s passionate speech he begins to wrench away the

middle-class fake white façade and offers a glimpse into

the tortured psyche of a black man in America.105 At the

height of his anger Clay threatens to murder Lula, ‘I

could murder you now. Such a tiny ugly throat. I could

squeeze it flat, and, watch you turn blue on a humble.

For dull kicks.’106 In spite of his threats, Clay does not

possess the moral fortitude to see them through. They are

hollow and as Jones suggested, he [Clay] foolishly

rejects violence.107

In renouncing his true feelings of hatred and

murderous desire, Clay relapses into individualism and

103 Julian C. Rice, “LeRoi Jones’ Dutchman: A Reading,” Contemporary Literature 12, no. 1 (1971), 42. 104 Jones, “Dutchman.” Arkansas Tech University, http://faculty.atu.edu/cbrucker/Engl2013/texts/Dutchman.pdf105 Kumar, “The Logic of Retribution”, p. 275.106 Jones, “Dutchman.” Arkansas Tech University, http://faculty.atu.edu/cbrucker/Engl2013/texts/Dutchman.pdf107 Rice, “LeRoi Jones’ Dutchman”, p. 42.

44

his own language where he feels he is safe. This denotes

a significant break from his Black Power scripture, and

the voice of the revolutionary playwright. In a word he

betrays his revolutionary vocation and his people, and

the growth of a black consciousness into a revolutionary

consciousness is slowed.108 This is the root of the issue

for the playwright, and is a significant attempt to

address the conception of a prevailing black

consciousness through culture and a theatre of revolt.

Clay fails to see the value inherent in his blackness and

indeed in himself. As a result, his fate is sealed. His

tenuous aspiration is reflective of the path taken by

those championing integration through civil rights, a

path that Jones dooms in Dutchman with cowardice and

death.

THE BLACK ARTS REPETORYTHEATRE SCHOOL/ BARTS

‘Our philosophy is nature revealed.’

The one-act play described by Allan Lewis as ‘an

apostrophe to hate,’109 divided the opinion of blacks and

whites prompting mixed reviews and as Jones recalled, he

felt an overwhelming sense from the reviews that

something explosive had happened and that his life ‘would

change again.’110 While he initially thought that it would

an abject form of change, the very opposite was true, 108 Ceynowa, “The Dramatic Structure of Dutchman”, p. 18.109 Hugh Nelson, “Dutchman: A Brief Ride on a Doomed Ship,” Educational Theatre Journal 21, no. 1 (1968), 58. 110 Baraka, The Autobiography of LeRoi Jones, 276.

45

‘Suddenly I got offers to write for the Herald Tribune and

the New York Times. One magazine wanted me to go down South

and be a civil rights reporter.’111 His career in the black

arts had witnessed a swift and unprecedented spike. He

received further plaudits as he won an Obie (Off

Broadway) award for Dutchman, along with the princely sum

of $500.112 LeRoi Jones was, as the New York Herald Tribune

Sunday magazine dubbed him, ‘King of the East Village.’113

Despite the attention that he lavishly received, he had

not lost sight of the cultural nationalist agenda that

had inspired him to pen Dutchman and in fact this was

augmented and enhanced following the assassination of

Malcolm X in 1965.

It was at this moment that Jones became more

radicalised and extreme in his pursuit of Nationalism. He

had come to believe that marriage to a white woman was

ideologically untenable and so he left his wife and their

two daughters.114 More significantly he left his life in

the bohemian Greenwich Village and rooted himself deep in

the fabric of Harlem. James De Jongh explained that

Harlem was a pivotal location for Jones, and that the

transition from the antibourgeois individualism of his

Greenwich Village bohemianism of the 1950s to the

consciousness of a group identity in Black Nationalism of

111 ibid.112 “Jones’s ‘Dutchman’ Wins Drama Award,” New York Times, May 25, 1964.113 McGee, “A Return to Rage,” NYT, January 14, 2007.114 Fox, “Amiri Baraka, Polarizing Poet and Playwright,” NYT, January 9, 2014.

46

the 1960s was a crucial component of his growth.115 Jones

reflected on the move as ‘a socially and intellectually

seismically significant development, the leaving of some

of us from downtown ... and actual cutting of certain

ties and the attempt to build a black arts institution.’116

The institution alluded to was the Black Arts Repertory

Theatre/School (BARTS) that was to be located in Harlem.

Figure 2.2. LeRoi Jones leads the Black Arts parade down 125th Streettowards the Black Arts Repertory Theatre School in New York City

(June, 1965).

While the programme was particularly aimed at black

youths it also sought to provide a place for professional

artists to perform.117 The building was a stereotypical old

brownstone on 130th Street, as Jones remembered, ‘we set

up shop and cleaned and swept and painted. We got a flag…

all in gold and black.’118 The establishment of the theatre115 James De Jongh, Vicious Modernism Black Harlem and the Literary Imagination (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 112.116 Krys Verrall, “Art and Urban Renewal,” in The Sixties, ed. Dimitry Anastakis (London: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2008), 145.117 Woodard, A Nation Within a Nation, 64.118 Baraka, The Autobiography of LeRoi Jones, 295-296.

47

school served as an exclamation mark to a growing black

cultural consciousness and through its location, it

reached out to many despondent youths and taught them the

value in the blackness. In 1965, he dedicated BARTS to

the education and cultural awakening of Afro Americans.119

Jones’s generosity was demonstrated by sharing his

opportunity with younger, developing writers, giving them

a chance to be heard and, as Lorenzo Thomas comments, was

one of the engines that made the BAM an important,

nationwide resurgence of African American creativity and

artistic accomplishment.120 BARTS was the initial phase of

what would become widely acknowledged as the Black Arts

Movement that maintained the goals of the short-lived

theatre school. The BARTS experiment established some 800

black theatre and culture centres across the U.S. as

dozens of cities began to build their own models based on

the blueprint of the Harlem theatre school.121 The Black

Arts were blended with Black Power in 1966 through the

organisation of a black arts festival held hosted in

Newark that was attended by the leading proponent of

Black Power, Stokely Carmichael.122

Philosopher Patrick Roney makes the distinction that

the BAM is recognised as the artistic counterpart of the

Black Power Movement, solidifying it’s historical

119 Van Deburg, New Day in Babylon, 177.120 Lorenzo Thomas, “The Character of Consciousness,” African American Review, 37, no. 2/3 (2003), 190. 121 Woodard, A Nation Within a Nation, 66.122 ibid.

48

import.123 This inextricable link aided the re-

establishment of a hubristic black culture that served as

an inspiration for the Black Power years. The

multifaceted nature of Black Power was one of its most

significant characteristics, and culture proved to be a

vital cog in the machine of racial camaraderie.

Playwrights, such as Jones used their cultural form as a

weapon in the struggle for liberation and in doing so,

‘provided a much-needed structural underpinning for the

movement’s more widely triumphed political and economic

tendencies.’124 As a result, Dutchman thus affirms the

validation of art, but more importantly culture, in the

process of liberation.

CHAPTER IIIBlack Panthers and Revolution.‘All Power to the People.’

The multifaceted ideology of Black Power remained unclear

in its distinction even after its introduction to the

pantheon of racial disquisition in the summer of 1966.

Gene Roberts commented that it ‘could grow more strident

123 Patrick Roney, “The Paradox of Experience: Black Art and Black Idiom in the Work of Amiri Baraka,” African American Review 37, no. 2/3 (2003), 407. 124 Van Deburg, New Day in Babylon, 9.

49

at any moment,’ contending that ‘the term “black

consciousness” appeared to suit it best.125 As explained

through the preceding chapters, black consciousness was

ubiquitous in its nature but needed to be unlocked

through various modes of engagement (political and

cultural), in order for it to thrive and develop into a

powerful vessel for change and acceptance. Revolution was

also a vital component towards achieving this goal.

Stokely Carmichael stated in September 1966 that

Black Power could ‘clearly be defined for those who do

not attach the fears of white America to their questions

about it.’ He lamented the basic fact was that black

Americans had two problems: they were poor and they were

black, making them an easy target for capitalistic

America.126 This was elaborated on further through

Carmichael’s joint literary effort with Charles Hamilton,

Black Power, ‘It is a call for black people to unite, to

recognize their heritage, to build a sense of community.

It is a call for black people to begin to define their

own goals, to lead their own organizations.’127

This presented an opportunity for revolution at a

grassroots level and was embodied in the Black Panther

Party for Self Defense in Oakland, California. At this

juncture of the Civil Rights Movement there were those

who began to simply mistrust senior leaders and the

125 Roberts, “Rights March Disunity,” NYT, June 28, 1966.126 Stokely Carmichael, What We Want, 1966, University of Southern Mississippi Libraries, Digital Archive.127 Stokely Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton, Black Power The Politics of Liberation in America (Middlsex, Penguin Books, 1971), 58.

50

hallow promises they had made over the preceding decade.

As a result, working class Afro-Americans were unwilling

to settle for the status quo and sought a new departure.128

For SNCC and CORE, Black Power meant the abandonment of

the central tenets of the Civil Rights Movement, namely

the philosophy of non-violence and the goal of

integration, and in the wake of the urban unrest and

rioting in Los Angeles and Chicago in 1966, Carmichael

urged that southern black students relate to northern

ghettos.129 This presented a different dynamic to the

movement, as the urban ghetto was tantamount to an

exploited colony prompting new methods of liberation.130 As

Robert Self explains:

They moved away from the desegregation and opportunity politics of their forbears in search of a framework and a discourse to capture both the persistence of racial segregation in American cities and an affirmingmessage of community power. They found it in the spatial situating of black power and identity in the ghetto itself.131

It was within this vacuum of change that the BPP emerged

and carried a community banner that in turn created

cohesion and unity cloaked in revolution. As Gerald

Fraser recalled, Carmichael came to believe that the

Panthers – wise to the ways of the slums and organized 128 Philip G. Altbach, “Black Power and the US Civil Rights Movement,”Economic and Political Weekly 1, no. 6 (1966), 234. 129 Tuck, Beyond Atlanta, 195.130 Self, American Babylon, 217.131 ibid.

51

around the gun – had the nerve and ability to carry on

the struggle of America’s urban communities.132 As has been

proved, the vehicle of Black Power did not simply appear

out of the mistrust of civil rights philosophies and

agendas, it had in fact been slowly gathering pace since

the turn of the decade and had been adroitly weaved into

the fabric of racial discourse by its leaders.

Philip Altbach commented that the societal landscape

of 1966 America proved that black Americans were no

longer willing to rely on whites for their political

emancipation and it was evident that they had decided to

strive for freedom both politically and economically on

an independent basis.133 This suggests that many black

people who opposed the de facto elements of 1960s

American racial discourse, such as un-equal opportunity

and exploitation, accepted the earlier groundwork of

Malcolm X and LeRoi Jones regarding self-determination.

The de facto elements that for so long contained the

Afro-American consciousness were challenged openly and

passionately by the likes of Huey Newton, who stated

bluntly that, ‘We suffer from what psychology calls

“fixation.” We have done the same thing over and over… we

must become psychologically free so that we can be fully

capable of meaningful self-determination.’134

Newton used this argument to buttress the BPP’s

justification of socialism that formed their ideological 132 Gerald Fraser, “S.N.C.C. in Decline After 8 Years in Lead,” New York Times, October 7, 1968.133 Altbach, “Black Power and the US Civil Rights Movement”, p. 234.134 Huey Newton, “The Black Panthers.” Ebony, August 1969.

52

backbone. The militant undertones that beset the rally

cry of Black Power in the summer of 1966 emerged in the

iconography of the BPP – black berets, leather jackets,

dark sunglasses, clenched raised fists, and guns. The

Panthers’ revolutionary philosophy was built on the

foundations of self-determination as they forged their

own path in the hostile hotbed of Oakland. This is

pertinent for Self who claims that the Panther’s slogan,

‘all power to the people,’ signaled their self-

identification as leftist revolutionaries for whom the

people represented a broad spectrum of colonised

communities.135 It is important to note that the BPP did

not originate simply as an armed and violent response to

police brutality and murder.136 While their intimidation of

the police will come under scrutiny, it is also important

to weigh up their community imbued goals too, namely

their survival initiatives that are often deemed

insignificant next to their endorsement of the bullet.

THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY‘The number one threat to the security of the United States.’

Through the historical looking glass, the Black Panther

Party has been somewhat doomed to wade in the waters of

insignificance and is frequently rendered a transient

blip on the civil rights radar. Former Vice President

Spiro Agnew saw the BPP as a ‘completely irresponsible 135 Self, American Babylon, 218.136 David Hilliard, ed, The Black Panther Party Services to the People Programs (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2008), xi.

53

anarchistic group of criminals.’137 By the same token, FBI

director J. Edgar Hoover considered them the ‘number one

threat to the security of the United States.’138

Congressman Richard Preyer of North Carolina offered a

more balanced assessment. Speaking at the House of

Representatives Committee on Internal Security in 1971,

Preyer summed up the presence of the Panthers stating

that they fascinated the left, inflamed the police,

terrified much of America, and had an extraordinary

effect on the Black community. He concluded that they

even appealed to moderate blacks who felt that the BPP

served as an effective outlet within the ghettos,

instilling a sense of pride in black localities.139

As established, the Panthers were set in the

revolutionary mould of the Black Power Movement and they

offset their brand of revolution with a strong sense of

community affinity. This powerful communal strand of the

Panthers agenda posited a great threat to American

apartheid; it was indigenous in composition, interracial

in strategies and tactics, and international in vision

and analysis. As Cornel West contends, ‘it was indigenous

in that it spoke to the needs and hopes of the local

community,’ witnessed in the party’s Survival Programs.140 137 Charles E. Jones, “The Political Repression of the Black Panther Party 1966-1971: The Case of the Oakland Bay Area,” Journal of Black Studies 18, vol. 4 (1988), 416.138 ibid.139 Yohuru Williams, “Some Abstract Thing Called Freedom: Civil Rights, Black Power, and the Legacy of the Black Panther Party,” OAH Magazine of History 22, vol. 3 (2008), 16.140 Cornel West, “Introduction,” in The Black Panther Party Services to the PeoplePrograms, x.

54

Before looking at the divergent threads of the BPP in

terms of their vilified actions such as patrolling the

police, and their exemplary strategy of initiating

community survival programmes, it is imperative to have

an understanding of how their foundation, deeply embedded

in the Black Power Movement, was introduced to the

splintered arena of 1960s racial discourse.

Self postulates that while the Panthers operated

within the larger national frame, they emerged out of,

and played a vital role in the milieu of the black

struggle in North and West Oakland, and that Newton and

Seale launched the party in 1966 amid a ‘rich and

contentious period of debate and conflict over the

direction of the African American community in Oakland.’141

Newton and Seale underwent a similar process to that of

Malcolm X in terms of self-discovery and it is crucial to

this study to attempt an understanding as to where their

larger revolutionary tendencies emanated. While Newton

and Seale were the harbingers of a new brand of

revolution that spoke to urban ghettos of the northwest,

theirs was not the first Black Panther Party. As Woodard

explains, ‘there were earlier groups organized by the

Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM) in the aftermath of

SNCC’s voting rights experiment in Lowndes County,

Alabama, led by Stokely Carmichael.’142

141 Self, American Babylon, 222.142 Woodard, A Nation Within a Nation, 72.

55

To satisfy state requirements the party adopted the black

panther as its symbol.143 The Panther logo that was

implemented by the Oakland party was of significant

import for Bobby Seale who commented that the nature of a

panther is to attack when cornered provided there is no

other escape route.144 Following in the footsteps of the

Lowndes County Freedom Organization (LCFO), Panther

groups sprang up in Chicago, New York and San Francisco,

but membership numbers dwindled and the party became

disjointed in the

summer of 1966

following a poorly

organized boycott in

Harlem resulting in the

arrest of twelve

panthers.145 The initial

phases of the

revolutionary

consciousness that

began with the likes of

the LCFO and RAM were elevated by Newton and Seale in

October 1966 as the Black Panther Party for Self Defense

was established in earnest.146 Having originally met on the

campus of Merritt Junior College, Newton and Seale began

143 Michael T. Kaufman, “Stokely Carmichael, Rights Leader Who Coined ‘Black Power,’ Dies at 57,” New York Times, November 16, 1998. 144 All Power to the People The Black Panther Party and Beyond, directed by Lee LewLee (1997; Electronic News Group, 2005.), DVD. 145 Woodard, A Nation Within a Nation, 73.146 Williams, “Some Abstract Thing Called Freedom”, p. 18.

Figure 3.1. The Black Panther Partylogo, adopted by the Oakland Panthers

56

to grow intensely dissatisfied with the black

organisations that were already in existence,

particularly with their promotion of a Black Nationalism

that emphasised a middle class composition.147 . It was

within the widening gyre of tumult that the BPP was born.

As Seale recollected, ‘Huey and I sat there… and began a

revolutionary party, knowing that the program was not

just something we had thought up.’ In fact it had solid

foundations and was viewed by both men as a continuation

of earlier Afro-American movements that had grappled with

oppression and exploitation.148 In order to counter this

exploitation, the BPP explained that Afro-Americans

needed to gain control of land and harness a political

power through national liberation by establishing

revolutionary socialism as their operative creed.149

Seale credited Newton with identifying that the

Panthers required a program and a platform that would

resonate with the lumpenproletariat population of

Oakland. Newton asserted the need for ‘a program that

relates to the people… that people can understand, read

and see, and which expresses their desires and needs at

the same time.’150 It was through this identification and

147 John A. Courtright, “Rhetoric of the Gun: An Analysis of the Rhetorical Modifications of the Black Panther Party,” Journal of Black Studies 4, vol. 3 (1974), 252.148 James A. Tyner, “Defend the Ghetto: Space and the Urban Politics of the Black Panther Party,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 96, vol. 1 (2006), 106.149 Jessica C. Harris, “Revolutionary Black Nationalism: The Black Panther Party,” The Journal of Negro History 86, vol. 3 (2001), 411.150 Bobby Seale, Seize the Time (Baltimore, Black Classic Press, 1991), 59.

57

knowledge of what was required, coupled with the

conducting of door-to-door questioning of residents

regarding what they wanted and needed for a better life

in the ghettos that ultimately led to the BPP’s ten-point

program, drafted in October 1966.

Upon foundation, the BPP emerged as the strongest

militarily conscious component of the amorphous Black

Power Movement. Perhaps the most important element of its

revolutionary agenda was the ideology that encompassed

its progressive leftist philosophy. Newton and Seale were

influenced by a spectrum of revolutionary writings

including Karl Marx, Friedrich Engles, and Mao Zedong.

The writings of Malcolm X were crucial, particularly when

it came to the emphasis of self-defense and the concept

of gaining freedom “by any means necessary.”151 Yet, above

all, Franz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth was the most

central influence to the BPP regarding revolution. As

Anthony Earl observes, Fanon was an apostle of violence

to the BPP. ‘For us The Wretched of the Earth was like a road

map to revolution… but at the end you know there was

armed struggle.’152 Relating to the manner in which they

promoted their ideology as an active agent of revolution

within the black communities of Oakland, the BPP employed

Marxist terminology and deemed the lumpenproletariat the

most open to revolution. They identified that the lumpen

populace, i.e. the most destitute ghettoised Afro-

Americans, were the most capable of initiating grassroots151 Courtright, “Rhetoric of the Gun”, p. 252.152 ibid.

58

flux, and as Ogbar highlights, ‘Newton and other leading

Panthers viewed the most downtrodden elements of black

communities as the rebellious forces that pushed the

movement forward when middle-class organizations were

overly cautious.’153 It was this specific element of their

approach that enticed Eldridge Cleaver to join the

Panthers. Cleaver became one of the more verbose and

talismanic leaders within the party and took pride in the

lumpen character that was integral to the struggle. He

explained that the lumpenproletariat ‘have no secure

relationship or vested interest in the means of

production and the institutions of capitalist society.’154

This made them the ideal collective group for which to

test the waters of revolution. The conception of

revolution that targeted the lumpenproletariat of the

Oakland ghettos heralded an expected level of violence

that ultimately manifested in a brutal rivalry between

the Panthers and the Bay police.

POLICING THE POLICE!‘Violence is as American

as Cherry Pie.’

The voracious chant of Black Power that filled the air

during the Meredith March Against Fear contained

connotations of violence that streaked through the

movement and grew more virulent among the radical urban

blacks of the mid 1960s. The civil unrest in Watts that

153 Ogbar, Black Power, 94.154 ibid.

59

unfolded in 1965 was the breaking point between the

philosophies of non-violence and defending the use of

violence. Newton commented that, ‘we had seen Martin

Luther King come to Watts in an effort to calm people,

and we had seen his philosophy rejected.’155 It was clear

that the traditional civil rights organisations were

unable to impact the lives of the Afro-American in an

urban setting. This is buttressed by the sentiment of

Ella Baker of SNCC, who lamented that SNCC were unable to

make the transition from working in the South to working

in the North.156 Watts represented a flux in how the

previously disdainful concept of violence was perceived.

As Fraser states, it ‘gave status to urban youth in

northern black communities,’ as they had previously

bottled their resentment of American racism.157 Armed with

a revolutionary consciousness, the urban Afro-Americans

took to the streets throughout 1967 as the rioting

continued unabated.

In an attempt to understand the civil unrest,

President Johnson appointed Illinois Governor, Otto

Kerner to investigate the reasons for the urban

upheavals. Having surveyed 20 cities, the commission

found that the rioters had particular grievances with

police brutality, among other issues.158 The Kerner Report

of 1967 summarised, ‘What white Americans have never

155 Ogbar, Black Power, 84.156 Fraser, “S.N.C.C. in Decline After 8 Years in Lead,” NYT. October 7, 1968.157 ibid. 158 Anderson, The Sixties, 94.

60

fully understood – but what the Negro can never forget –

is that white society is deeply implicated in the ghetto.

White institutions created it, white institutions

maintain it, and white society condones it.’159

While the Kerner Reports findings on the grievances

of the urban Afro-Americans were pertinent, it was the

iniquity embedded in the policing of the ghettos that was

of particular importance. The Panthers’ emphasis was on

doing. They were not the ‘armchair revolutionaries’ that

they claimed occupied other chapters of the party, and

they were serious, dedicated soldiers who were willing to

confront the racist and brutal police officers that the

lumpenproletariat considered the occupying force in

Oakland.160 Through the ten-point program, the Panthers

were positioned as a vanguard party and a vehicle for

raising the consciousness of the destitute black ghetto

population.161 Point number seven read that, ‘We want an

immediate end to police brutality and murder of black

people.’162 Seale endorsed this vehemently as he decried,

‘We believe we can end police brutality in our black

community by organizing black self-defense groups that

are dedicated to defending our black community from

racist police oppression and brutality.’ He continued,

‘we therefore believe that all black people should arm

159 ibid.160 Ogbar, Black Power, 89.161 Self, American Babylon, 232.162 Aaron Dixon Defense Fund, Hands off Aaron Dixon, 1968, University of Washington Libraries, Special Collection Division, Digital Library.

61

themselves for self-defense.’163 In light of this

philosophy that intimated that violence was necessary,

the Panthers conspicuously armed themselves with rifles,

shotguns and other weapons, and organised armed patrols

throughout the ghetto. Whenever the police stopped a

black resident, a Panther patrol was sure to be near by,

brandishing their weapons and carrying a law book from

which to cite specific violations that the police might

make.164

The presence of the Panthers struck fear into the

heart of their racist oppressor and at the same time

alerted their brothers and sisters to the common cause,

in turn raising the consciousness of the community. Bobby

Seale alluded to this claiming that the goal in

patrolling the police was to recruit the people: the

Panthers wanted to capture the imagination of the people

in the community.165 Similarly, Newton stated ‘we hoped

that by raising encounters to a higher level, by

patrolling police with arms, we would see a change in

their behavior. Further, the community would notice this

and become interested in the party.’166 This is further

supported as several observers of the BPP have suggested

that the patrols were successful in discouraging

harassment of black citizens. While this had a positive

effect on the community and raised awareness among

163 Seale, Seize the Time, p. 67-68.164 Courtright, “Rhetoric of the Gun”, p. 253.165 All Power to the People, Lee Lew Lee, DVD.166 Huey P. Newton, “The Founding of the Black Panther Party and Patrolling.” in The Eyes on the Prize, 347.

62

residents, the police soon directed their efforts at

Panther members. Philip Foner, explains that ‘Police

bulletin boards featured descriptions of Party members

and their cars. On foot or driving around, Panthers would

be stopped and arrested on charges ranging from petty

traffic violations to spitting on the sidewalk.’167

Figure 3.2. Protest. Black Panthers protest the Mulford Bill inSacramento, May 2, 1967.

The popularity of the BPP in its embryonic years was

relatively paltry in comparison to its surge in

membership numbers following the infamous March on

Sacramento in May 1967, when Seale and a troop of armed

Panthers protested the Mulford Bill that would, when

passed, make it illegal for anyone to carry firearms in

public in California. According to the Panthers, this

167 Courtright, “Rhetoric of the Gun”, p. 254.

63

legislation would adversely affect the Panther Police

Patrol that had recorded a good deal of success in

protecting the Oakland slums.168 Their membership numbers

also spiked in the aftermath of Newton’s arrest which

followed the shooting of a police officer, John Frey, in

October the same year. His incarceration became a

rallying point for the BPP, which resulted in national

visibility and status that was echoed in their membership

figures of over 2000, occupying 32 chapters in 15

states.169 With this new found publicity and support, the

BPP were the ‘inheritors of the discipline, pride and

calm self-assurance preached by Malcolm X, the Panthers

became national heroes in African American communities by

infusing abstract nationalism with street toughness.’170 Of

course, the BPP’s agenda was not only to manage the

police through intimidation and scaremongering. While

this initially assisted in spreading the party’s name and

philosophy, the BPP saw ample cause for improving the

local communities in other, more peaceful ways.

THE FREE BREAKFAST FORCHILDREN PROGRAM

‘The Panthers are feedingmore kids than we are.’

While the issue of violence and self-defense was at the

very core of the Black Panther machine that bellowed

revolution among the urban ghettos, it did offer another 168 Jones, “The Black Panther Party”, p. 417.169 ibid.170 Self, American Babylon, 221.

64

branch of communal welfare through its survival

programmes. The party’s concept of revolutionary

intercomunalism involved a strategy of building community

service programs that served to positively mould

institutions within the community to help meet the needs

of the individual.171 The programmes ranged from benefit

counseling to drama classes.172 These initiatives were

corollaries to the BPP’s socialist ideology and were a

reaction to the capitalist bourgeois white American

institutions that plagued the ghettos throughout America

with their self-righteous oppressive proclivities. The

Free Breakfast Program (FBP) spoke to the lumpen populace

in ghettos nation wide and was described as a fundamental

facet of the BPP to the communities of Babylon.173

Its appeal was so wide in scope that it attracted covert

funding from the likes of Jane

Fonda, Donald Sutherland, and Marlon Brando. Ogbar

summarises that the party

wanted to convey a love and affinity for the people and

through acting as the ‘people’s party’ the Panthers

developed their strong community ties with the likes of

the FBP.174 In spreading their survival programmes, the BPP

connected on a conscious171 Community Survival Programs, PBS, last accessed 12 June, 2014, http://www.pbs.org/hueypnewton/actions/actions_survival.html172 The Black Panther Community Programs 1966-1982, Stanford University, last accessed 16 July, 2014, http://web.stanford.edu/group/blackpanthers/programs.shtml173 Elmer James Dixon, Welton Armstead Murdered by Seattle Pigs, 1969,University of Washington’s Libraries, Vietnam War Era Ephemera Collection.174 Ogbar, Black Power, 121.

65

Figure 3.3. Black is Beautiful. Children attending a Free BreakfastProgram organized by the Black Panther Party.

level with the community and struck a particular cord

with the youth – a concurrent theme of Black Power and

revolution. The FBP embodied the Panthers’ notion of

practical revolutionary activity and those who ran the

program made sure that the free breakfasts offered

concrete assistance to the destitute populace of the

urban slums while dramatising a powerful symbol of racial

injustice and marginalisation within American society.175

The Panthers’ survival programs that attracted a

kaleidoscope of ethnicities openly sought to educate the

young school children that frequented churches to avail

of pancakes and French toast, and at the same time

reassert the influence of the Panthers in the wider

175 Self, American Babylon, 231.

66

community. Before and after the breakfast was served,

children would sing songs that related to the BPP’s

philosophy, ‘There’s a pig upon the hill, if you don’t

shoot em the Pantheres will,’ and ‘They get Huey in jail,

they won’t let him em out on bail.’176 These songs were

offset by feverous calls that ‘black is beautiful,’ and

‘Free Huey,’ and helped to solidify the party’s standing

in the larger community.177 Hungry children were

shepherded into church basements and halls that

facilitated the FBP and were immediately surrounded by

posters of Cleaver, Newton and Malcolm X that festooned

the walls and instilled in them a knowledge of black

nationalistic heroes, past and present.178

As Hilliard maintained, the funding for the FBP came

from a variety of sources such as local merchants in

surrounding communities, private donors, foundations, and

churches. Operating out of a church had the advantage of

the tax-free status of a non-profit organisation and with

churches receiving the donation on behalf of the FBP;

letters soliciting funds and even equipment could be

mailed out.179 Similarly, Seale immediately recognised the

benefit of using churches as the prime locations for the

FBP in Oakland. They contained all of the facilities that

were required - large halls, a kitchen, tables and

176 Earl Caldwell, “Black Panthers Serving Youngsters a Diet of Food and Politics,” New York Times, June 15, 1969.177 Self, American Babylon, p. 232.178 Caldwell, “Black Panthers Serving Youngsters a Diet of Food and Politics,” NYT, June 15, 1969.179 Hilliard, The Black Panther Party Services to the People Programs, 33.

67

chairs, and were also usually located in the heart of the

community.180 This reinforced the community agenda that the

Panthers delivered.

The impact that the Panthers FBP had on the urban

ghettos was unparalleled during the late 1960s and early

1970s. Coupled with the other 59 or so survival programs,

the FBP helped to raise the Panthers’ profile as

community leaders and diminish their reputation as

gangsters.181 Simultaneously their selfless actions

attempted to raise the community consciousness in the

form of self-determination and even participation on

behalf of residents.182 The public response was incredibly

propitious to the BPP’s endeavors and as one observer

pointed out, ‘Black Panthers are feeding more kids every

day than anyone else is in the whole state of

California.’183 The BPP’s revolutionary philosophy that

emerged in earnest in 1966 presented a platform for

engagement within the locality of the most despondent

black neighborhoods of the north. Through raising a

revolutionary consciousness of iniquity, coupled with

self-defense and self-determination, the BPP asserted

themselves as one of the most important arms of the Black

Power Movement.

180 Seale, Sieze the Time, 413.181 Self, American Babylon, 232.182 Hilliard, The Black Panther Party Services to the People Programs, 34.183 Caldwell, “Black Panthers Serving Youngsters a Diet of Food and Politics,” NYT, June 15, 1969.

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CONCLUSION‘I don’t see an American Dream, I see an American nightmare.’

69

In the final commentary it is crucial to firstly

contextualise this study by noting the relationship

between the divergent mainstream Civil Rights Movement,

championed by those in favour of integration and non-

violence, and the bohemian Black Power Movement that

attracted a new brand of Black Nationalism and revolution

through a rejection of non-violence and separatism. As is

demonstrated, the Black Power Movement was a proponent of

racial unity and pride, and it is evident that its

amorphous and interpretative ideology enabled the

movement to thrive in its multi-dimensional composition.

This enabled many African Americans to engage with it

effectively and selectively.

As has been shown, the militancy and revolutionary

tendencies of the Black Panther Party did not simply

emerge from the initial outburst of popularity that left

many radical Afro-Americans supporting Black Power. The

Black Power Movement was built upon solid political and

cultural foundations that had been growing since the turn

of the decade (1960) and was showcased through the

politically charged rhetoric of Malcolm X and the

culturally nationalistic theatre of revolt garnered by

LeRoi Jones. These elements represented a distinctive

shift in racial discourse throughout the early 1960s that

ultimately culminated in an atmosphere of revolution

giving birth to the Black Panther Party in Oakland. This

was not a domino effect, as each group/individual

discussed engaged with each theme discussed in their own

70

way, once again demonstrating the multivariate nature of

the Black Power Movement.

It was a combination of these elements that breathed

life into the Black Power embryo and enabled it to become

a powerful vessel for change. Through offering an

alternative philosophical path, Black Power encouraged

societal flux and challenged the status quo for many

Afro-Americans that were willing to break with racial

conventions previously facilitated by civil rights

satellites. The chant of ‘Freedom Now!’ had been replaced

by ‘Black Power!’ as Floyd McKissick of CORE stated

‘1966 shall be remembered as the year we left our imposed

status as Negroes and became Black Men.1966 is the year

of the concept of Black Power.’184 This outlook exhibited

many prominent themes, including politics, culture and

revolution that once again were demonstrative of the

multi-faceted Black Power Movement. This perception was

married with a black consciousness that shared its values

with the central tenets of Black Power as it ‘signaled

the end of the use of the word Negro.’185 Black

consciousness was an attitude, a way of seeing the world,

which encouraged a ceaseless search for racial meaning

and recognition of black self-worth.

While Stokely Carmichael was considered the

embodiment of the Black Power Movement, it is evident

that Malcolm X became the movement’s prophet as he

adapted a philosophy of Black Nationalism. Malcolm’s 184 Anderson, The Sixties, 84.185 Carson, The Eyes on the Prize, 279.

71

formative years were an integral component of his

political outlook as his Garveyite father shaped his

early political rhetoric. It was not until he joined the

Nation of Islam that he began to mature in his assessment

of the situation that plagued the Afro-Americans in the

United States. Through the NOI, he discovered the

importance of self-determination through re-invention and

propagated this until his death in 1965. Malcolm X’s call

for self-determination resonated with the very core of

Black Power and represented a constant through its

kaleidoscopic philosophy as it had a distinct influence

on Jones’s art and also the Panthers’ modus operandi in

Oakland. Malcolm’s policies of self-determination and re-

invention, clearly served another purpose - to raise the

consciousness of the Afro-American within the north.

Carson echoes this claiming that the new racial

consciousness of pride and self-confidence that appeared

in Afro-American circles was attributable to Malcolm X.

Similarly, this is evident in the work of Jones and the

Panthers’ community legacy which both exhibited a similar

trend of raising a collective awareness.

The philosophies of Malcolm X were adopted by both

Jones and the BPP and amalgamated with their own agendas.

Jones utilised the concept of self-determination through

cultural nationalism to encourage re-invention, pride and

solidarity. In doing so he deduced that the situation of

the Afro-American should primarily focus on telling

truths through art. This process was to fuel the black

72

consciousness through the ideals of the ‘New Negro,’ by

refocusing perspective. He used the theatrical production

of Dutchman to achieve this goal – shocking the audience

with his hate-imbued drama of truth and at the same time

slamming the integrationists among Afro-Americans. He

later exhibited a similar pattern that would emerge with

the Panthers in terms of serving the community through

the BAM and taught the youths of Harlem the value in

their blackness with free drama classes held at the Black

Arts Theatre School. The values that Jones transferred to

the BAM made it the artistic counterpart of the Black

Power Movement, forming an indissoluble link between the

two.186

The most controversial theme that the Black Power

Movement elicited from those who ascribed to it was

evidently the rejection of non-violence, a bulwark of the

Civil Rights Movement. This manifested itself in the form

of revolution, an arm of the movement that became

synonymous with the Black Panther Party in Oakland. Just

as Malcolm X and Jones had done in their respective

fields, the Panthers related to the rhetoric of

Carmichael. They united many destitute Afro-Americans, by

encouraging them to learn of their heritage and as a

result they forged a strong sense of community in an

urban setting. Through adopting a socialist ideology, the

BPP promoted their revolutionary agenda by patrolling the

police to protect the lumpen populace of Oakland from

186 Roney, “The Paradox of Experience”, p 407.

73

white hegemony. This assisted in raising a consciousness

among the ghettos – people related to the Panthers and

there was a tacit appreciation for what they were doing.

Hilliard commented that the BPP were a misunderstood

organisation, ‘You know about our imagery and about our

guns… but you don’t know about the (community)

programs.’187 These programmes that were born out of the

BPP’s identification of the inimical situation faced by

the Afro-Americans of the ghettos were an important

vehicle of grassroots revolution. The programs that fed

hungry children before school each day were used as an

opportunity to inflict their revolutionary ideology among

the younger generations. The Panthers used revolution as

a two pronged method of reform and in doing so attracted

adoration en masse.

In conclusion, Robin Kelley challenged that cultural

nationalism still ebbed and flowed in the decline of the

Black Power Movement through the remainder of the

twentieth century, manifesting itself in a variety of

ways, including the appearance of Spike Lee’s film,

Malcolm X.188 William Van Deburg contends that the movement

came to connote scarcely more than a slogan of a

transient political fringe movement that was to be

forever confined to paragraph-length treatment in

historical texts.189 The amorphous Black Power Movement

that originally appeared in the guise of Black

187 Williams, “Some Abstract Thing Called Freedom”, p 17.188 Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975), DVD.189 Van Deburg, New Day in Babylon, 294.

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Nationalism, used its many tentacles of influence to

raise the consciousness of those who were willing to

break the liberal mould and engage with their history

through challenging the status quo of 1960s America. This

was done successfully, and to great effect through the

themes of politics, culture and revolution but continues

to attract only a modicum of attention in comparison to

the behemoth Civil Rights vehicle.

75

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List of Illustrations

Figure i. – Gunned down. James Meredith is shot as he participates in the ‘walk against fear.’ Acquired from Carson, Clayborne, Garrow, David J., Kovach, Bill and Polsgrove, Carol, eds. Reporting Civil Rights Part Two. New York,Library of America, 2003.

Figure 1.1. – Not so smug anymore. Malcolm’s mug shot following his arrest for burglary. Acquired from http://www.malcolm-x.org/media/pic_01.htm

Figure 1.2. – Preaching. Malcolm became an expert orator and rose through the ranks swiftly. Acquired from http://www.malcolm-x.org/media/pic_02.htm

Figure 1.3. – Malcolm X holds his carbine rifle close afterthreats are made on his life. Acquired from http://www.malcolm-x.org/media/pic_10.htm

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Figure 2.1. – The Showcard program guide for LeRoi Jones' Dutchman and Albee's The American Dream. Acquired from http://www.derringerbooks.com/shop/derringer/18087

Figure 2.2. – LeRoi Jones leads the Black Arts parade down 125th Street towards the Black Arts Repertory Theatre School in New York City (June, 1965). Acquired from http://piratecaucus.blogspot.ie/2007/08/black-arts-repertory-theaterschool.html

Figure 3.1. – The Black Panther Party logo, adopted by the Oakland Panthers from the LCFO. Acquired from http://studentsforliberty.org/blog/2014/02/10/the-black-panther-party-revisited/

Figure 3.2. – Protest. Black Panthers protest the Mulford Bill in Sacramento, May 2, 1967. Acquired from http://sacobserver.com/2012/08/bill-banning-openly-carrying-rifles-heads-to-governor/

Figure 3.3. – Black is Beautiful. Children attending a FreeBreakfast Program organized by the Black Panther Party. Acquired from http://rortybomb.wordpress.com/2012/01/19/mental-note-link-black-panther-free-lunch-program-ows-infrastructure/

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