smash-pacifism-zine

King returned to the city, he threatened that the Cicero
march hadn't been cancelled, but only 'postponed.'
King and the SCLC departed Chicago in defeat.
They returned to the South, where King would eventually
launch a 'Poor Peoples' movement oriented largely around
the 'War on Poverty.' Later, he would begin speaking out
against the US war in Vietnam in an effort to revive the
civil rights movement by linking it to the emerging anti-war
movement. He would be assassinated in 1968 by a white
racist gunman in Texas.
1966: Black Power
While King and the SCLC
attempted to establish themselves in
Chicago, Black militancy had begun to
crystallize with the rallying cry of
“Black Power.” In 1966, during a
march in Mississippi, Stokely
Carmichael, now chairman of the
SNCC, popularized the term Black
Power and urged armed self-defence
for Black communities.
Black militants challenged the
doctrines of nonviolence and integration, as well as the
middle-class Blacks, such as King, that championed them.
In a 1967 article entitled “The Dialectics of Revolution,”
Carmichael stated:
“As you know, the Black Power movement that
SNCC initiated moved away from the integration
movement. Because of the integration movement's middleclass
orientation, because of its subconscious racism, and
because of its nonviolent approach, it has never been able
to involve the black proletariat [working class]. It could
never attract and hold the young bloods...”
(Stokely Speaks, p. 88)
Another contributing factor to the rise of Black
militancy were the ongoing anti-colonial rebellions in the
'Third World' at the time, including Algeria, Cuba, the
Congo, Vietnam, etc. Along with Malcolm X, Frantz Fanon,
who participated in the Algerian revolution, was celebrated
as a leading intellectual who advocated anti-colonial
revolutionary violence. His book, The Wretched of the
Earth, had a large influence on Black radicals in the US,
and internationally.
The slogan Black Power as a form of selfdetermination
meant Black control over their organizations
and communities, including political institutions, policing,
business, education, and culture. It helped spawn a renewed
pride in African culture, greater self-confidence, and
morale. It was also co-opted by middle-class Blacks to
mean 'Black capitalism,' and this version was promoted by
the US ruling class. In 1968, President Nixon referred to
Black Power in a televised speech in which he was
Stokely Carmichael, 1966, then chairman of
SNCC.
promoting private investment in ghettos and black
capitalism. Despite this, Black Power was predominantly a
frightening bogeyman to white America.
What was in part so disturbing about Black Power
were the ongoing violent eruptions of rioting, which
seemed to further embolden advocates of Black Power. In
1966 and '67, major riots occurred in Atlanta, San
Francisco, Oakland, Baltimore, Seattle, Cleveland,
Cincinnati, Columbus, Chicago, New York, and Detroit:
“The summer of 1967 surpassed all the others in
the frequency and severity of rioting. When it was over, the
Senate Permanent Committee on
Investigation determined that there
had been 75 'major' riots, in which
83 persons lost their lives, 1,897
were injured, and 16,389 were
arrested. Property damage was
estimated at a record $664.5 million,
almost seventeen times greater than
in the 1965 wave of violence... The
worst of the 1967 riots occurred in
Newark and Detroit. The rioting in
Newark lasted for three days:
twenty-five persons were killed, all
but two of them black; about 1,200
were injured, and over 1,300 arrests were made. Property
damage was estimated... at $10.25 million... with over a
thousand businesses damaged or destroyed. Soon after the
violence in Newark and a number of lesser disorders, the
worst riot to date broke out in Detroit, smashing records in
every category: 43 deaths, over 2,000 known injuries, over
3,800 arrests, and property damage estimated at $85
million. In both numbers and range, the law enforcement
personnel called in also reached new peaks: 4,300 local
police officers, 370 state troopers, 1,100 National
Guardsmen, and 4,700 Army paratroopers were involved;
another 8,000 National Guardsmen were placed on alert.
“The last of the long, hot summers proved to be
1968 and then the violence was concentrated in the late
spring and early summer. In April, while in Memphis to
lend support to striking sanitation
workers, Martin Luther King was shot and killed by a white
assassin. Black people, some of whom had never felt a
close identification with King, set out to avenge his death.
During the first eight months of the year, 313 riots and
disorders occurred, a large percentage of which took place
in the immediate aftermath of the assassination, and 78
lives were lost.”
(Black Radicals and the Civil Rights Mainstream,
p. 67)
In the aftermath of King's assassination on April 4,
1968, Black people throughout the US responded not only
with prayer and vigils, but with angry rebellion. Along
with the previous 4 years of rioting, this showed that,
despite widespread sympathy for the King, large sectors of
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