Significancce
"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek." - President Barack Obama
The Black Power Movement was extremely powerful and influential in many areas and left a resonating effect on America. The black power movement gave African Americans a sense of racial pride because Africans Americans found power in their culture and used it to fight racism in a different way. The growing sense of racial pride within African American communities gave rise to organizations like the Black Panther Party and the SNCC and created a strong cultural base for African Americans that went beyond civil rights to national liberties. The movement became a global phenomenon in the late 1960's when the Afro-Caribbean countries started a movement that encouraged blacks to fight for racial equality. The Black Power Movement gave rise to powerful and influential black awareness movements and political leaders like Malcolm X, Huey Newton, Stokely Carmichael. The shift away from the Civil Rights Movement and into the Black Power Movement created and idea of powerful blacks in America which was threatening to the white community.
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In the short term, the Black Power Movement gave blacks a sense of power and racial pride. This new sense of pride was able to help blacks advance faster that during the Civil Rights Movement because of the revolutionary and more aggressive stance blacks took. Even though the empowerment of blacks was a threat to white society, the movement gave blacks equality in society that is still present today.
In the long term, the sense of black empowerment that blacks received from the black power movement allowed blacks to fight off white oppression. Although African Americans are still oppressed, blacks are seen as equals under the law and have made progress that allows for more opportunities and freedom. |