Black Power and the American People: The Cultural Legacy of Black Radicalism (Library of Modern American History)

"Its original leaders, Stokely Carmichael and Willie Ricks, were Black Nationalists, advocating a militant and extremist approach to tackle racism, while other leaders, such as Bobby Seale of the Black Panthers, believed that the struggle for Black Power was essentially a class struggle. Beginning with the folk-narratives told through song by slaves in the plantations, through the Harlem renaissance of the 1920s and 30s, the era of Malcolm X, the African-American art and fashion of the late sixties and 'soul music' and politics in the 1970s, Black Power and the American People will be the first comprehensive cultural history of the movement."--Bloomsbury Publishing. While the history of the non-violent Civil Rights Movement, from Rosa Parks to Martin Luther King, is one of the great American stories of the twentieth century, the related Black Power movement has taken a more complex path through the nation's history. Formed by a multitude of individuals, the long history of the Black Power movement stretches before and beyond its political manifestations. Beginning with the folk-narratives told on the plantation, Black Power and the American People charts a course through the iconoclasm of the Harlem Renaissance, the battleground of the American campus, the struggle and skill of the Negro Leagues, the drama of the boxing ring, the killing fields of Vietnam and the cold concrete of the penitentiary, right up to the Black Lives Matter movement of the present day. Tracing these connected cultural expressions through time, Black Power and the American People explores the profound legacy of Black Power from its earliest roots to its most futuristic manifestations, its long history in American culture and its profound influence on the American imagination. While the history of the Civil Rights Movement, from Rosa Parks to Martin Luther King, is one of the great American stories of the twentieth century, the related Black Power movement has left a more complex legacy. Its original leaders, Stokely Carmichael and Willie Ricks, were Black Nationalists, advocating a militant and extremist approach to tackle racism, while other leaders, such as Bobby Seale of the Black Panthers, believed that the struggle for Black Power was essentially a class struggle. Beginning with the folk-narratives told through song by slaves in the plantations, through the Harlem renaissance of the 1920s and 30s, the era of Malcolm X, the African-American art and fashion of the late sixties and 'soul music' and politics in the 1970s, "Black Power and the American People" will be the first comprehensive cultural history of the movement Eminent urban historian Bill Luckin re-introduces a body of work which marks the beginning of this important strand of historiography.