




“Black Power” by Stokely Carmichael is a speech given to an almost all white crowd of college students at the University of California at Berkeley. Carmichael was a leader in the Civil Rights Movement and his speech coincides with that as he preaches his ideals about integration and racism as a whole. This speech had a great impact on segregation across the West Coast and made Stokely Carmichael a more prominent figure in this period of struggle for African Americans. By looking at “Black Power and the U.S Civil Rights Movement” by Phillip Altbach and “Persistence and Change in Intergroup Relations: The Crisis upon US” by James Blackwell, we are able to compare and contrast the different viewpoints of this movement between Altbach, Blackwell and Carmichael’s respective works of literature.

“Black Power and the U.S Civil Rights Movement” by Phillip Altbach talks about and describes the violence which came about during this social movement. This idea of violence and militancy by blacks was known as “Black Power.” This concept of Black Power came about by the constant failure and frustration of those blacks who went against White Supremacy. Black Power is focused more on the fight against American politics. This is a huge contributing factor to the main message of this article as most readers think that the cause for black power is solely as a result of White Supremacy. Since this form of protest involved violence, it wasn’t fully supported by the entire black community, which made up 11 percent of the country’s overall population at the time. Main political leaders in the Civil Rights Movement such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Roy Wilkins were entirely against the use of violence to stand up for what they believe in. These two figures were both part of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP). Other black organizations such as the Student Non-Violent Co-Ordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) were in favor of and willing to support this violent policy known as Black Power. Clearly this policy was a controversial topic in the Black Community as it radically changed their existing adopted policy of a non-violent protest. There are positives and negatives that come with each of these concepts. For a non-violent protest, all black people are able to keep their lives and not have to fight for their freedom. However, this idea might take more time to get the attention of the government. When it comes to Black Power, violence would get the Black Society results from the government immediately. At the same time, there would be severe casualties and restrictions directed towards the entire Black Community. The Civil Rights Movement had many debated ways of approaching this issue, including Black Power, which was enacted by some. The main takeaway from this article is the different ways, including Black Power, in which the Black Society achieved their goal of individual freedom.

“Black Power” by Stokely Carmichael and “Black Power and the U.S Civil Rights Movement” by Phillip Altbach both have several similarities and differences. The main difference between these two pieces is that Carmichael’s speech is a form of non-violent protest whereas Altbach’s article describes Black Power and the violent protest aspect of the Civil Rights Movement. Along with this difference is the audience to which each work is addressing. Carmichael’s speech is given to a predominantly white audience at a University. This was thought out with great care by Stokely Carmichael as he is portraying an educated black man to an exceedingly large crowd of white college students. This move could potentially have had a major impact on how these students looked at the average black man. On the other hand, Altbach’s article is addressing the black people involved in this Black Power movement. The difference between these two works of literature shows how differently people can go about expressing their concerns publicly. However, these two pieces are similar in that both go about describing the Civil Rights Movement. They complement each other very nicely as it gives the reader a true description of what this time period was like and how difficult it was for some people. Both writers portray their own forms of protest in a great way. These depictions are what help the audience realize how important of a time period this was. Phillip Altbach’s article complements the speech of Stokely Carmichael very well as they show how cruel of a world we really lived in during that time period of the Civil Rights Movement. 

“Persistence and Change in Intergroup Relations: The Crisis upon US” by James Blackwell breaks down the Civil Rights Movement into three different parts: agitation, protest and retrogression. By viewing this article and comparing it to Stokely Carmichael’s “Black Power”, we are able to create a full picture of what the Civil Rights Movement really looked like. The first part of this article goes on to describe how the anger built up in most blacks during this time period. It was very obvious that almost all blacks were not treated equally. Some examples of this are them not being able to vote and having segregated bathrooms and schools. This inequality didn’t just start out of nowhere as blacks have been slaves for many years. After a while, they finally had enough and started fighting against this inequality which leads into the second part of the article, protest. Most blacks followed under the leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and took part in non-violent protests. These protests occurred all around the U.S and really started to have a growing impact. At the same time, many blacks were attempting forms of protest in a violent way. Over time, the non-violent method showed to be the stronger action and is what would eventually lead to freedom for all blacks in the United States. The third and final part of this article is the retrogression of black society. Black people may have won their freedom and rights, but this didn’t contribute to the success of the community as a whole. Numerous amounts of families were living in poverty-stricken homes after this achievement and some conditions even worsened. This retrogression following the end of the Civil Rights Movement had a big impact on black society for the future. Along with the retrogression was the death and sickness of even more blacks before the Civil Rights Movement Ended. Society seemed to have completely released the black community after they achieved independence. This had a tremendously negative effect on the future generations of blacks and those who lived currently in this time period. James Blackwell does a great job in this article describing how severe these times were and exactly what the black community suffered through to reach this goal of freedom. This background provided by Blackwell is very influential to “Black Power.” 

“Persistence and Change in Intergroup Relations: The Crisis upon US” by James Blackwell directly relates to “Black Power” by Stokely Carmichael. The main similarity between these two articles is the form of protest and detail in describing it. Blackwell goes into the many different forms of protest and talks about how non-violent protest was clearly the most successful. This factors directly into Carmichael’s speech as he was portraying a non-violent protest in this act. These non-violent protests really got the message across to society. Blackwell also does a great job in showing how these non-violent protests grabbed a much larger audience. You are able to reach more people with words rather than by throwing fists. This method was executed by Carmichael in his address to the predominantly white crowd at the University of California Berkeley. This article relates perfectly to Carmichael’s “Black Power” in showing how these protests went about and just how successful they really were. Along with this depiction, Blackwell gives an insight to the audience’s reaction and shows how much more receptive they are to a political protest. “Persistence and Change in Intergroup Relations: The Crisis upon US” by James Blackwell goes along with and contributes to the message and form of Stokely Carmichael’s “Black Power” by setting a great background for this scary time period. 

“Black Power” by Stokely Carmichael is a great piece of literature to analyze with the use of outside sources. “Black Power and the U.S Civil Rights Movement” by Phillip Altbach and “Persistence and Change in Intergroup Relations: The Crisis upon US” by James Blackwell are two sources that can be used very effectively to help bring the message across in Carmichael’s speech. Altbach’s article focuses on the similarity and differences of protests and how Carmichael’s speech relates to these forms of protest. On the other hand, Blackwell goes more in detail about the time period of the Civil Rights Movement and sets a great background for Carmichael’s speech. By looking at both of these articles, the message and significance of Stokely Carmichael’s speech is much more clear and allows the audience to have a better understanding of what the black society was going through in this stage of the Civil Rights Movement.    





  