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The Black Power movement of the 1960s can be compared to the movement led by Marcus Garvey in the 1920s in two ways. First, both the Black Power Movement and and Marcus Garvey’s Association were movements directed towards Africans. The Black Power Movement was a movement that stated that blacks should fight black if attacked. The Marcus Garvey Movement created the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) which promoted a “Back to Africa” movement; this influenced the idea that Africans would be better off in Africa than in the segregated South. Second, both the Black Power Movement and Marcus Garvey’s movement were lead by leaders. One of the people that lead the Black Power Movement was Martin Luther King Jr., he lead the Black Power
The Universal Negro Improvement Association is an organization (UNIA) that was developed by a man named Marcus Garvey. Now Garvey was not the only one to have established this organization, however he was the face of it. His ideas, connections, work, and influences where all huge factors in establishing the UNIA. However, creating Garvey’s vision into a reality was not an easy road, the organization changed a lot through out the decades and has impacted many lives. The Universal Negro Improvement Association and Marcus Garvey did not just stop at singling out one object, but reached out in many different ways also.
If there was any one man who demonstrated the anger, the struggle, and the beliefs of African Americans in the 1960s, that man was Malcolm X. The African American cultural movement of the 1920s lost momentum in the 1930s because of worldwide economic depression. The Great Depression helped to divert attention from cultural to economic matters. Even before the stock market crash of 1929, unemployment and poverty among blacks was exceptionally high. It was under these difficult conditions that Malcolm X experienced his youth in the South. Malcolm X was a very controversial character in his time. He grew up in a very large family. His father hunted rabbits to sell to the white people for money, and his mother stayed home to take care of all the children. Several times when he was young, his family was forced to relocate due to the racist groups that would burn or run them out of their home like the Ku Klux Klan. One of these groups called the Black Legion killed his father by tying him to the railroad tracks. Malcolm’s father had life insurance but was not given to his family because they said that Earl Little had committed suicide. This was quite impossible because his head was bashed in and he tied himself to the railroad. Without his father’s income, Malcolm's family was forced to get government help and food. Applying for this type of assistance brought many white Social Workers into their home. They asked questions and interrogated the entire family. Malcolm’s mother always refused to talk or let them in.
At the time, the Washington/Du Bois dispute polarized African American leaders into two wings--the 'conservative ' supporters of Washington and his 'radical ' critics. The Du Bois philosophy of agitation and protest for civil rights flowed directly into the Civil Rights movement which began to develop in the 1950 's and exploded in the 1960 's. Booker T. today is associated, perhaps unfairly, with the self-help/colorblind/Republican/Clarence Thomas/Thomas Sowell wing of the black community and its leaders. The Nation of Islam and Maulana Karenga 's Afrocentrism derive too from this strand out of Booker T. 's philosophy. However, the latter advocated withdrawal from the mainstream in the name of economic
Marcus Garvey is known most as the founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), which was to get African American’s ready to leave. He wanted them all to return to their “mother land”. Garvey believed that everyone should be in their correct homeland. Garvey also believed in unity of all Negros as a whole, working together. He wanted to better all living and economical condition for the African American race. His views differed from many other African American leaders. Which caused his to be an outcast amongst them. His beliefs and acts is what made him so controversial.
Black Scare in the 1920’s was the movement of southern blacks into northern cities during the early 1920’s which caused fear in many whites. The Ku Klux Klan (or the KKK) was a secret society created by white southerners that used terror and violence to keep African Americans from obtaining their rights. Throughout history, this secret organization have used acts of terrorism including murder, rape, and bombing. They wore masks, white cardboard hats, and white sheets.
The 1920’s was a period of extremely economic growth and personal wealth. America was a striving nation and the American people had the potential to access products never manufactured before. Automobile were being made on an assembly line and were priced so that not just the rich had access to these vehicles, as well as, payment plans were made which gave the American people to purchase over time if they couldn't pay it all up front. Women during the First World War went to work in place of the men who went off to fight. When the men return the women did not give up their positions in the work force. Women being giving the responsibility outside the home gave them a more independent mindset, including the change of women's wardrobe, mainly in the shortening of their skirts.
The 1960’s comprised of many different movements that sought the same goal of achieving equality, equality in means of: political, economical, and social equality. Two similar movements emerged during this era that shared the same ideologies: the Chicano and the Black Power Movement. Both shared a similar ideology that outlined their movement, which was the call for self-determination. The similar experiences that they had undergone such as the maltreatment and the abuse of power that enacted was enacted by the dominant Anglo race helped to shape these ideologies. Despite their similar ideology, they differed in how they achieved this goal, by either obtaining political participation or going to the extreme as using force to achieve their goals and moving to literally governing their own selves. Although the Chicano and Black Power Movement sought for self-determination, they differed in the tactics they used to obtain this goal.
The Progressive movement of the 1900’s was the most important event to occur in the United States during the twentieth century. Progressives at first concentrated on improving the lives of those living in slums and in getting rid of corruption in government. The goal was to make working conditions better for the workers. True reform needed to happen. The workers of America believed this to be the best nation with opportunities for all people. Reform started with industrialization. Workers needed healthy and safe places to work, especially for women and children who were considered vulnerable and weak during that time period. Women and children over 14 worked at meat trimming sausage making and canning. “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair in one example in which the appalling working conditions in the meat-packing industry was exposed. His description of the filth that was so apparent which shocked the public and led to new federal food safety laws now known as the Food and Drug Administration. Progressives had started to attack huge corporations like the Armour meat-packing company for their unjust practices such as workers treated as “wage slaves”. Workers earned just pennies on the hour and worked ten hour days, six days a week. The unskilled workers are the ones who made and worked these long laborious hours. Therefore, unskilled immigrant men did the backbreaking and dangerous work, often in dark, unventilated rooms which were hot in summer and cold in with no heat in the winter. Many stood for hours on floors which were covered with blood and scraps of meat.
King and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (the NAACP) -. The NAACP was founded in 1909, with King becoming the “face”. of the society in 1955 during the bus boycott. The NAACP wanted integration between the black and white communities. Black power is a term usually linked with Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam (NOI).
After the death of Malcolm X the movement started to get funky. It seemed as though after the assinaition of Malcom X, the revolution’s focal point began to change. The movement began to head towards a more intense, and nitty gritty level. It seemed as though all the non-violent organizations such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Congress of Racial Equality, as well as the Christian Leadership Conference had little hold on what was about to happen to the movement. The death of Malcolm X brought a new direction in the movement. In a society of a violent system it was hard for young blacks to take charge in an non-violent organization, it seemed to be a hypocrisy. And the idea of tolerance was wearing thin for the whole generation.
Marcus Garvey and his organization, the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), represent the largest mass movement in African-American history. Proclaiming a black nationalist "Back to Africa" message, Garvey and the UNIA established 700 branches in thirty-eight states by the early 1920s. While chapters existed in the larger urban areas such as New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, Garvey's message also reached into small towns across the country. His philosophy and organization had a rich religious component that he blended with the political and economic aspects.
In the nineteenth century African-Americans were not treated as people. The white men and women treated them as pieces of property rather than people. Throughout this time those men and women fought for their own independence and freedoms. However none of these freedoms happened until the late 1800’s. The black men and women of this time never got the opportunities to earn money or have property of their own.
“Black Power”, the word alone raises an abundance of controversial issues. Black power was a civil rights movement led by the black panthers which addressed several issues including segregation and racism. Black power had a different meaning to every member of the Mc Bride family, Ruth and James both looked at black power from a different angle. In “The Color of Water”, The author James Mc Bride admired the black panthers at first, but slowly he grew afraid of them after fearing the consequences his mother might face for being a white woman in a black community influenced by black power. James’ worries were baseless, black power’s motive was to educate and improve African American communities not to create havoc or to harm members of the white community.
When talking about the history of African-Americans at the turn of the twentieth century, two notable names cannot be left out; Booker T. Washington and W.E.B Du Bois. They were both African-American leaders in the late 1800’s to early 1900’s, fighting for social justice, education and civil rights for slaves, and both stressed education. This was a time when blacks were segregated and discriminated against. Both these men had a vision to free blacks from this oppression. While they came from different backgrounds, Washington coming from a plantation in Virginia where he was a slave, and Du Bois coming from a free home in Massachusetts, they both experienced the heavy oppression blacks were under in this Post-Civil War society. Booker T. Washington and W.E.B Du Bois were both pioneers in striving to obtain equality for blacks, yet their ways of achieving this equality were completely different. W.E.B Du Bois is the more celebrated figure today since he had the better method because it didn’t give the whites any power, and his method was intended to achieve a more noble goal than Washington’s.
The beginning of the early twentieth century saw the rise of two important men into the realm of black pride and the start of what would later become the movement towards civil rights. Both Marcus Garvey and W.E.B. Du Bois influenced these two aforementioned movements, but the question is, to what extent?