AAAS 207 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, White Supremacy, White Southerners
16 Sep 2016
School
Department
Course
Professor
8-4-16
Tuesday, August 2, 2016
12:35 PM
Jeffries Piece:
Carmichael: organizing independent, black power bases, an approach to political change that
SNCC activists deemed necessary because existing electoral forms and structures did not
permit Black people to participate in political decision making
SNCC activists connected the slogan Black power to a concrete organizing program of forming
all-black, third parties as a first step toward creating independent power bases
They believed that highlighting racial injustice would cause the purveyors of white supremacy to
change their ways
It became clear to many that appealing to the political interests of white northerners was as
futile as appealing to the conscience of white southerners
Southern white hostility and northern white indifference to their struggles in MS had forced the
organizers to rely on the local black communities almost exclusively for support. And without
their assistance, the SNCC projects would have failed. Therefore, developing race-based
strategies for black empowerment, including the formation of parallel political structure, came to
be considered absolutely necessary
Black Power became a controversial slogan
SNCC remained committed to implementing the third party program
Nelson:
● Health was a powerful and elastic political lexicon that could signify many ideals
simultaneously
● Health could also connote inalienable human attributes and freedoms
● The fact of party health politics contravenes accepted wisdom that neither black activists'
express participation nor their particular perspectives contributed to the development of
the health political landscape of the late 1960s and early 1970s
● The Party was firmly rooted in a tradition that had developed during slavery in interface
with how bondage, racism, and segregation affected the well being of Black communities
● In 20th century US, social rights typically emanated from civil rights, so that individuals
could, for example, expect to receive health benefits through their place of employment
● In the late 1960s, the Party exposed the citizenship contradiction facing poor black
communities and demanded rights on their behalf
● Disproportionately incarcerated Blacks and Latinx folx were subject to medical abuse
and experimentation, *Pennsylavania's Holmesburg Prison from the early 1950s to the
early 1970s
● Between January 1968 and December 1969, at least twenty-eight Panthers were
murdered in confrontations with police
● Organization that challenged health inequality by supplying access to medical services,
contesting biomedical authority, and asserting healthcare as a right
1. Why Black Power Now?
1. Economy
1. Exacerbating class divides in the Black community
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Carmichael: organizing independent, black power bases, an approach to political change that. Sncc activists deemed necessary because existing electoral forms and structures did not permit black people to participate in political decision making. Sncc activists connected the slogan black power to a concrete organizing program of forming all-black, third parties as a first step toward creating independent power bases. They believed that highlighting racial injustice would cause the purveyors of white supremacy to change their ways. It became clear to many that appealing to the political interests of white northerners was as futile as appealing to the conscience of white southerners. Southern white hostility and northern white indifference to their struggles in ms had forced the organizers to rely on the local black communities almost exclusively for support. And without their assistance, the sncc projects would have failed. Therefore, developing race-based strategies for black empowerment, including the formation of parallel political structure, came to be considered absolutely necessary.
