Black Power Final Blog Data

Introduction

The Black Power movement was certainly the radical movement of the civil rights era, defining the ideals of civil disobedience and vast organization with groups such as the Black Panthers and the Muslim Brotherhood. Leaders such as Malcolm X promoted these radical ideals in order to achieve their goals, while also connecting back to a sense of African nationalism. Where the idea of violence seems to come into play is that the Black Power movement was particularly interested in Western African culture, mostly due it being the most heavily involved in the Atlantic slave trade. Due to this association with wanting to connect to African roots and a sense of African nationalism with western culture, the Black Power movement deeply connected their movement with the Zulu culture of Africa. This culture was dominating and conquering and Zulu warriors were considered to be some of the better trained fighters in history. Connection to this Zulu culture is what led to much of the attitude and tactics of the Black Power Movement and their sense of radicalism.

Method

To look at this connection to African nationalism and Zulu culture, much of the Black Power protest and African connection was shown through the clothing, practice, posters, and artwork. The Black Power Movement, while promoting racial justice, was strongly for creating a sense of black identity. Due to racial injustice from America, the movement looked to the origin land of the black race and wanted to seperate themselves from Americanism. By connecting to Zulu culture, this separated themselves from america and a sense of claiming an identity that was stripped from them, mostly being prevalent in the Muslim Brotherhood, as they reclaimed African names in order to resist against the “slave names” given to their ancestors. The strong sense of reclaiming and creating a black identity was done through this African nationalism, so to look at black identity, in this sense, is to look at the black power movement method.

Data and Analysis

So we have several pictures that are meant to depict the Black Power movements Zulu nationalism. We see that much of the photos and images have connections to the warrior based culture of the Zulu and the anti norm African wardrobe. Much of the protest, particularly by the black panthers, are organized into what looks like armies of soldiers. Although seen as violent, the desperate need to separate from injustice and wanting to find their own identity after continuously being rejected by white culture, black people were forced to find their own identity and looked to reclaim and integrate the culture of the “motherland.” This also shows a means in which to seek what has not rejected, as they are all Americans, yet yearn for a culture they have never experienced, but this particular culture had yet to wrong them. They were able to romanticize Zulu culture and apply this romanticism to their identity and movement as they tried to handle and attack injustice in white America.

Zulu Warrior

Black Panther “warriors”

Civil Rights leader in Western African clothing

Contemporary Data

We have seen a revitalization in the African nationalism movement with the recent release of Black Panther as many have looked to reclaim and appreciate black culture. Many of us walk around saying “Wakanda Forever” as a sense of acknowledging and appreciating heritage. We have seen this reclaim due to the recent new sparks of injustice with the killings of black people by cops. This is to show that when rejected by a culture, protesters will seek another to romanticize, in this case, the world of Wakanda, in order to promote their own identity and counter culture.

Conclusion

This form of counter culture is created not to integrate, but to form a separate culture. This is meant to show that the injustice creates a new culture. As a new culture is formed, it is meant to try to integrate into society, creating a even more radical movement with expectations of acceptance of this new culture. This is what is happening now and is strongly mimicking the method and tactics of the Black Power Movement.