While Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael) is largely credited and associated with popularizing the call for Black Power, Malcolm X is truly the foundational figure for who gave voice and representation to concept and practice of Black Power.  Building on the philosophy of Marcus Garvey and teaching of the Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm outlined contours of...
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The influence and impact of Malcolm X on the 1960s Freedom Struggle and America in general is beyond category and measure. Any lack appreciation of Malcolm X’s contribution to advancement of the Black Freedom Struggle and the radicalization of America is due in large measure to his powerful anti-establishment message and the instructiveness of...
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Here—at this final hour, in this quiet place—Harlem has come to bid farewell to one of its brightest hopes… Did you ever talk to Brother Malcolm? Did you ever touch him or have him smile at you? Did you ever really listen to him? Did he ever do a mean thing? Was he ever...
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Surely, Martin Luther King had the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in mind when he asserted: “I am convinced that the student movement that was taking place all over the South in 1960 was one of the most significant developments in the whole civil rights struggle. It was no overstatement to characterize these events...
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The freedom songs, lifted from the African American spirituals songs, helped to inspire and transform ordinary black people and their multiracial allies into a moral and social force, commonly known as the Civil Rights Movement. This movement, aided by the freedom songs, changed the structure and character of American society that may never be...
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The freedom songs, lifted from the African American spirituals songs, helped to inspire and transform ordinary black people and their multiracial allies into a moral and social force, commonly known as the Civil Rights Movement. This movement, aided by the freedom songs, changed the structure and character of American society that may never be...
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The role and contribution of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) to development and cultivation of the Harlem Renaissance has been mainly confined to the political sphere.  Yet, Garvey and the UNIA gave impetus and expanded the cultural atmosphere of the Harlem Renaissance movement which produced a flowering of African American...
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The Harlem Renaissance was truly a milestone and high point in African American history. Viewed as a flowering of music, literature, poetry and visual arts, the Renaissance period paralleled and reinforced the emergence of a new African personality, expressed in the “New Negro” anthology, edited by Alain Locke. The impetus for this new personality...
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As has been well documented, in the second decade of the twentieth century, a section of New York City called Harlem became the Mecca and magnet for the coming of age of African Americans. The synergistic and cross-pollination of literature, art and music, informed by a general aesthetic ethos, produced the foundation for America’s...
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Surely, Anna Julia Cooper fits the criteria of Maya Angelou’s phenomenal woman which reads in part: Now you understand Just why my head’s not bowed. I don’t shout or jump about Or have to talk real loud. When you see me passing It ought to make you proud ‘Cause I’m a woman Phenomenally Cooper...
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