
Black individuals have had a different experience living in the United States than white individuals. They were first treated as property and not a human being. Later in history they were treated as human beings, but still treated lesser than white individuals. the motive of this opening is on the right track, but it is too generalizing; needs more specific language pertaining to time/specifics of treatment. In Black Power Stokely Carmichael talks about how in the 1960s and 1970s black individuals weren’t treated with equality, how the Vietnam War was more important to the US instead of the war on racism, how Samuel Woodard agrees with him in certain ways, also ideas with James H. Cone are different in opinion of black power.  I think this thesis could be broken into two sentences  - first stating the prioritization of the war over domestic justice and unequal treatment of the races. The second part of the thesis feels too confusing at this moment, since you have not yet identified Woodard and Cone. I would instead state the thing that is agreed upon – what is the focus of the essay? What is Carmichael proposing, and what have others said about the issue? 

In the 1960s and 1970s blacks and whites were just starting to desegregate and some people believe they were being treated equally. This topic sentence could work if the thesis is clarified and made more specific; right now it doesn’t seem to follow the thesis and I am a bit thrown off. The Civil Rights movement started in the mid-1950s and still today is a big issue with blacks and whites. The Civil Rights Act was established in 1964, officially desegregating whites and blacks, but to many people it was just a piece of paper. They still didn’t have to obey by it. During the Civil Rights movement, black people and white people lived a completely different lifestyle and it wasn’t strange. It had always been that whites were the first people that were cared for, then black people were next. Also, during this movement, the Vietnam War was offering with black and white people going over to Vietnam to fight for their country. The paragraph reads a bit jumpy in terms of time frames. If you want to give a brief history of the injustice at hand, I would stick to a linear timeline. Use a topic sentence that explains how blacks have been treated as subordinates over US history, and then proceed with the decades in order.

During the 1960s and 1970s, the Civil Rights movement was going on and the Vietnam War was also occurring. Carmichael talk about how he wanted to make a change in society on how blacks were being treated, but the United States was more focused on fighting a war that he believed that the US didn’t even need to bother fighting in. This is repetitive from earlier in the paper; find a way you can re-mention this idea without sounding redundant. Carmichael thought how can you fight a war overseas, when there is one going on in the homeland. The Vietnam War in his mind encapsulate the broken promise of democracy by sending black men who weren’t treated the same as a white man to war and not getting the proper rights for doing so. Good. you might refer to this as a contradiction or hypocrisy on the US government's part. “Any time a black man leaves this country, gets shot in Vietnam on foreign ground, and returns home and you won’t give him a burial in his own homeland, he’s a black mercenary, a black mercenary.” (Carmichael 320) This quote by Carmichael shows the anger and frustration he shows when talking about how black lives are treated nothing like a white man. The man gives his own life to his country and his country couldn’t even treat him with enough respect to give him a burial. This is how Carmichael shows the broken promises of an equal and fair life a black individual should get, but never got. They were promise to be treated the same as a white individual, but with how white people were raised, it never happened for black individuals during the Vietnam War. This is an effective paragraph, in its revealing of the controversy and hypocrisy Carmichael wants to reveal. I think you might present it as "contradiction" or a similar word in the topic sentence, to frame my understanding of the paragraph's aim. 

Samuel L. Woodard grew up a black orphan and became an activist in Civil Right Movement. if you want to introduce Woodard here, you should state why you have him in the paper. what ideas does he offer to Carmichael's argument? If you want to dive right in in this paragraph, you should introduce his ideas in the intro. either way, introduce his stance on the issue first.  He believes that any black man who achieves above average education, income, and occupational status must exemplify Black Power.  what is black power? Introduce this concept (maybe in the intro). Woodard believed this because if a black man doesn’t show these things, he will still be treated and looked at differently than if he was a white individual. Woodard then talks about how a black individual can show certain responses to dilemmas and conflicts such as racist comments and actions from white individuals. “The black individual can accept none of the values, he can accept virtually all the values, or he can accept only certain pivotal values.” (Woodard 72) The first response is one where the individual doesn’t accept something from anyone, if he doesn’t like it then he won’t go by it at all. It is a rebellion type of lifestyle. Woodard wants his audience to understand that black people can’t just sit around and wait for white people to start respecting them or treating them fairly. Black people must fight for that, Carmichael wanted the same thing. good comparison. Carmichael talked mostly about the racism in the United States, while Woodard talked about racism around the world. Woodard also believes that to survive racism one must know how to response to racism. In “Black Power” Carmichael talks about how if black people wanted their status in the economy to go up, they couldn’t because they weren’t “human beings”, but Woodard said that a black person who wants to change but still believes in some of things the Black Power group believes can still be well educated and achieve at something they want to do. Woodard’s best response that connected with Carmichael ideas of black power, was his first one, showing that blacks got tired of being treated as if they weren’t the same as everyone else in this country. They must fight for their right to be or do whatever they want. Woodard and Carmichael both believe that a black man must stand up for his right to be a human being and not allow the white man to believe they are better than them. Another one of Woodard responses was a black man can show some values of “Black Power”, but not all of them. Woodard believes this response means that the individual is getting an education to help understand what is wrong with how black people are treated and represented. Woodard talked about how a black individual can response to some of the things Carmichael stated in his work “Black Power”. This is a longer paragraph and I think it can be broken into two separate ideas. You might first introduce Woodard's beliefs, then set them in conversation with Carmichael in the following paragraph. 

James H. Cone is another Civil rights activist in the 1960s and 70s. Cone wasn’t like Carmichael in how he protested, but he was more like Martin Luther King Jr. Good! I like that you use one writer who's motives line up with Carmichael's, and one who's diverge. This is a good way to go about this type of paper. An Aftrican-American minister, he didn’t believe in angry riots, but in peaceful protest. ““Black Power” is an emotionally charged term which can evoke either angry rejection or passionate acceptance.” (Cone 1997) What Cone meant by this quote is that either some black individuals love black power and fighting for their right to be treated fairly like Carmichael believed, and other black men thought it just meant they hated white people. Carmichael wanted to blacks to take the dominant role in their relationship with whites and Cone believe some of that, but Cone wanted to do it in a completely different way than Carmichael. Instead of fighting like Carmichael and Malcom X for their rights, Cone would go through the force of God and religion. Good! Cone and Carmichael had different ways of showing “Black Power”, but they both wanted the same thing, equality between blacks and whites. 

Stokely Carmichael wanted black individuals to fight for equality with black people, while Samuel Woodard believe there are several ways to fight for that, and James Cone believe violence isn’t the answer. “Black Power” has been a big topic in the United States since the 1960s and it is still a big one today. There will always be someone fighting for “Black Power” and there will be someone protesting, but in a peaceful way until they believe black individuals are finally treated the same as white individuals. 
