Black Power and the Effect of Community Control

Paper Summary:

This paper provides an insight into the Black Power movement, a potentially explosive force in late-60s and early-70s American politics and life. It seeks to illuminate both the positive and constructive, community-empowering aspects of the Black Power movement as well as the negative aspects which ultimately led to its demise (and in turn, the decline of the African American community in major cities across the U.S.). It reviews the works of famed civil rights leaders Stokely Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton, Ira Katznelson's eminent treatise on urban politics "City Trenches" and the work of more conservative political pundits Ricahard Piven and Frances Cloward.

From the Paper:

"It is clear from these goals that Black Power was not, for the most part, designed to play into normal patterns of the dominant political game, that of urban trenches. In fact, Carmichael and Hamilton specifically reiterate the sentiment that"[t]he price of going along with the "regulars" is too high to pay for the so-called benefits received" several times (175). And yet at the same time, the movement was surprisingly practical. Carmichael and Hamilton cite as an example of successful community control the white suburban neighborhood (171) " a concept that concurrently serves as a glaring example of almost all that is wrong with America according to black militants."

More papers on Black Power and the Effect of Community Control:

• Persuasive Essay # 141006 : "The Effect Of Gun Control Laws: An Analysis"
• Essay # 32008 : "Corporate Power and the Negation of Democracy"
• Book Review # 34559 : "The Black Death and the Transformation of the West"

APA Citation:

MLA Citation: