In the late 1950’s two events would vastly change the relationship between intellectuals and American society: one was the publishing of the book the Power Elite by C. Wright Mills and the other was Sputnik. Mill’s book basically established an image of an American elite/ status quo. Sputnik basically shifted power and influence to university intellectuals to organize the country so it could better compete against the Soviet Union during the cold war. This will all make sense later.

The Civil Rights movement was caught up in this zeitgeist and in fact one might say was seeking to control this zeitgeist that was prone to shake the very foundations of blackness in America. The black community, ranging all the way from the Revolutionary war was and had always been bonded together by the Church. The Church was primarily the source of education and politics, training in rhetoric, classics, even serving as a fraternity for many black folks. It had provided order and hope for freed black men and slaves. This was the logic behind the non-violence stage of civil rights, there were many young people who wanted to bear arms in the fight for integration and civil rights, but violent rebellions as MLK and others were fairly aware easily fell out of control and usually would lead to the self-destruction of by increasing the chances of providing a counter movement from the opposition. This isn’t very intelligent when you’re a minority in the nation, and the opposing side owns the police.

That being said, the forces of black power were in play. They were simply a part of their time; just like twerking seems to be everywhere, the desire to participate in a revolution was vogue of the day. Young adults had grown up fearing that they were going to get caught up in the mess of the wars of the cold war, as well as constantly having to duck under their desks in case a nuclear bomb ever hit the vicinity. There was a belief among the young that the powers in the Soviet Union and the U.S. were either corrupt or insane, and in order to save the world that there needed to be an overthrow of all governments. As Kurlansky shows in his book 1968, this desire for revolution was really a desire to overthrow the status quo, if the youth lived in communist societies, they wanted to overthrow communist regimes, and if they lived in capitalist societies they wanted more socialism. America was capitalists, so hey we need some Mao-Tse Tung and Che Guevara.

This desire for revolution was primarily driven by the well read and more specifically university kids. At the time, many people on the left who had generally been fighting for the working class in America, were disgusted by the fact that after all the efforts and events of WW2 that the blue collar workers and other middle class people in America, had taken advantage of their political advantages and were being blatantly materialistic. Journalists, philosophers, intellectuals of all kinds, wrote paper after paper trashing the working class and how selfish they were, how greedy, dumb and stupid they were, they referred to them as the “hive mind”, that they were nothing more than bees who couldn’t think for themselves. They had gotten this mentality from Freud, whose psychoanalysis and it’s pseudo-scientific theories, increased the confidence of many people in the humanities that their theories were just as valid as the natural scientists of their time. They realized that there time to seize power and guide the masses to nirvana had come, and they were ready, they just needed a spark or two.

The black power movement developed due to the fact that many young people increasingly desired for more radical means to achieving their goals of equality. Many were tired of seeing their mates get killed during the civil rights movement by police officers and Ku Klux Klan members, while the church leaders and older folks kept reminding them that they should remain calm. By the time MLK died in 1968, there time had finally come, and there was little to no opposition for them to deal with. These young boys who came to power, were pretty much pseudo-intellectuals, meaning they had the charisma to execute the ideas of intellectuals and simplify them for audiences, but they didn’t have the ability to come up with complex theories and ideas on their own.

The best exemplification of the Black Power movement was of course the Black Panthers. The Black Panthers were organized mostly as a combination of young black intellectuals and ex-gang members, in fact at the time there used to be whispering going around that the black power movement was a conspiracy by government officials to discredit and weaken the civil rights movement. The black panthers joined various forces in their communities to feed the communities and thus gained their trust and support. However, the primary motivations for the Black Panthers wasn’t feeding the young or building stronger communities, the primary purpose was to carry on the revolutionary spirit of the times, from the way they dressed, to the words they speak, to their open support for communist governments they lived and breathed revolution and preached the destruction of the American social order.

The Civil Rights Movement wasn’t that rash or arrogant. For a number of reasons, but most importantly, people knew the U.S. was involved in the Cold War, and basically was desperate to fight, with whatever means necessary, including disregarding many principles of the Constitution and Bill of Rights to destroy communism in any levels. The Soviet Union was purposely using the Achilles’ heel of American history to gain influence in America, since they had never been able to do it through the unions. Despite all the assistance, the leaders of the Civil Rights movement, never fully showed allegiance with the Communists and never swore loyalty to them (McCarthyism was still fresh in the minds of many), they had decided to use the Civil Rights movement primarily as a propaganda campaign to display the inequalities and barbarities that black people had been subjected to in order to shift public opinion to their side and force the hand of government to pass legislation in their favor.

As the black panthers displayed themselves with guns and dressing up in their leather jackets, like many young people who are too ill experienced they fell into the pit of hubris. Their antics, bombings and fights with the police began to shift public opinion away from the support of black people in the 70’s. This provided J.Edgar Hoover with the rationale to go and use the FBI to bring them down, when initially the executive branch was highly against taking such measures to take them down.

However, the true problem that the Black Power movement created, the problem that would ultimately defeat them was the women’s problem. The Civil Rights movement had inspired a lot of other groups, including women to fight for their rights to vote; in academic circles at the same time, postmodernism was in development. The major thesis of postmodernism was the repudiation of truth as nothing more than a narrative passed down from the powerful to the powerless, in this case being European men. If everything in culture and society that one had been taught to be true was simply another myth used to control you, then it was the obligation of anyone who was oppressed to criticize and expose these lies for what they really were. The black women who were part of the black power movement were far more entrenched in this powerful philosophy, whereas the black power movement really didn’t have one, which would ultimately lead to it’s destruction.

As the black power movement continued on, there was questions about their being so many women in the movement, why so many of the executive positions weren’t being filled by women. Most of these inquiries were ignored; in fact one famous leader basically said that the only position for women in the movement was “prone”. This attitude enflamed many women in the movement and they began to exit the movement and work towards establishing black feminism. The foundation of it being that black women could not find sufficient representation in any movement, because the feminists were primarily concerned with white women, and the black men were primarily concerned with black men, thus they were oppressed on all levels and could only take care of their situations by themselves.

The lost of the black women, who were far more entrenched in a much more solid ideology than the leaders of the black panthers who as said before were pseudo-intellectual, as well as covet attacks from the FBI trying to set-up the leaders as well as used divide and conquer tactics it was only a short time before the black panther and eventually the entire black power movement were completely destroyed. There was a spirit of nihilism that replaced the revolutionary spirit that had bonded many people together during that time period. Many of the men who had been in crime before the movement returned to crime and turned the guns that had been initially used to war on police against one another. As nihilism came and overtook the spirits of the black power movement, the black feminists were left without challenge to lead whatever was left of the black community to it’s own unique destination.

Black Feminism, which is simply my generic term for the number of black women movements, including womanism that developed in the 70’s and afterwards was a full blown intellectual movement, one might even call it an age of romanticism or enlightenment. The philosophy of the movement was much more systematic and much more integrated than those of either civil rights or the black power movement. Unlike movements that were simply reactions to their times, many black intellectual women developed philosophical systems that created a new reality. Unlike white feminism where the issue was primarily of power, black feminism was aimed at creating a new identity for black women. Black women didn’t view themselves as simply female versions of black men, but completely different human beings. One of the major concepts that served as the foundation of this new outlook was Intersectionality. Intersectionality basically states that no other group of people can understand what it means to be a black woman, because all levels of society and culture are designed to oppress them, and no other group had to deal with as much of a burden to deal with. This explains two things: one the origins of the idea of the “Strong Black Woman”: I mean if every single element of society/culture is against you, simply existing and not committing suicide must be some sort of a revolutionary act worthy of praise and benevolence. B. It also explains why a simple argument with black women about relationships can end up being a heated argument about rape…everything in society is a cause of the black woman’s plight. In retrospect, it might also explain why black women tend to be very relativistic in their morality as well…just saying.

These ideas and concepts are extremely complex though and most black women in particular who don’t have a degree in women’s studies or something similar, would probably be unaware of these ideas, but that’s not how their ideas reached the mass number of black women. It was actually through literature and especially fiction that these ideas were best expressed and absorbed by black women who don’t even subscribe to feminism. Whether it’s fiction like the Color Purple, For Colored Girls, Tyler Perry films, Push, Waiting to Exhale etc, all these various forms of fiction reinforce the black feminist philosophy that developed in the decline of the black power movement.

In conclusion, I think that the major accomplishment of black feminism was to attach meaning in life to oppression, specifically that suffered at the hands of black men. I think this is the driving force of the bad decision-making in relationships and child rearing decisions. I’m sure there are some biological and psychological reasons of course, but having an ideological rationale that one can almost say is subconscious to further drive such urges is definitely a major plus. I think this is also why they have a love-hate relationship with hip-hop; yes it degrades them and turns them into sexual objects, but at the same time it gives them meaning. Baby-mama drama gives them meaning and the list goes on. I think the reason why normal men who are generally interested in peace, quiet or even legacy building aren’t being chosen at most elements in life, is because they do not feel that need to be oppressed in many black women. Until that issue is addressed, likely on an intellectual level, I do not think that there will be a change in the development or direction of the black community.

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