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‘We're a Winner’: Popular Music and theBlack Power MovementGregory K. Freeland aa Center for Equality and Justice, California Lutheran University,Thousand Oaks, USAPublished online: 23 Jul 2009.

To cite this article: Gregory K. Freeland (2009) ‘We're a Winner’: Popular Music and the Black PowerMovement, Social Movement Studies: Journal of Social, Cultural and Political Protest, 8:3, 261-288,DOI: 10.1080/14742830903024358

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‘We’re a Winner’: Popular Music and theBlack Power Movement

GREGORY K. FREELANDCenter for Equality and Justice, California Lutheran University, Thousand Oaks, USA

ABSTRACT Ideological conviction and emotional courage are critical characteristics of successfulpolitical and social movements. The Black Power Movement (BPM), which rose out of the strugglefor political and social rights associated with the Civil Rights Movement (CRM), possessedcharacteristics of ideological conviction and emotional courage. In contrast to the CRM, the BPMcalled for a more active political challenge and cultural consciousness-based programs toaccompany the struggle for rights. The BPM, which called for blacks to unite and organize around apowerful sense of self and community, exemplifies influences that inspire and drive socialmovements, such as strong identification with cultural consciousness and political solidarity. Socialmovements are typically viewed through the lens of political systems and individual action, butculture is critical to movement analysis. This article links culture and politics by employing music torepresent culture and political opportunity structure to explore social movement. Utilizingliterature, musical forms and interviews this article examines the proposition that cultural forms andpolitical opportunities are critical to successful social movements.

KEY WORDS: Mobilization, political opportunity, music, Black Power, culture, social movements

Ideological conviction and emotional courage are critical characteristics of successful

political and social movements, and the addition of powerful music can enhance the

transmission of the ideologies and shape the social cohesion of a movement. Through the

lens of political opportunity structure and cultural practices this study reveals how music,

ideology, and political activism worked in a manner that facilitated the development,

mobilization, and realization of the Black Power Movement (BPM). Because the BPM

was an all-encompassing movement that called for political, economic and cultural

changes, popular music rhythms and lyrics played a central role not only in supporting the

BPM but also in providing a template for defining the movement. Popular music was

viewed as a vehicle for mobilization that could challenge the inequities of American

capitalism and racism to create an affirmative ideology while either responding to or

creating openings in the political system. Curtis Mayfield, who along with the Impressions

produced many of the songs that helped shape and define the BPM, exemplifies the

workings of music in the BPM and their 1967 song ‘We’re a Winner’ can be seen as one

defining element of the movement. Mayfield’s uncompromising look at racism and his

1474-2837 Print/1474-2829 Online/09/030261-28 q 2009 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/14742830903024358

Correspondence Address: Gregory K. Freeland, Center for Equality and Justice, California Lutheran University,

60 West Olsen Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91360, USA. Email: freeland@callutheran.edu

Social Movement Studies,Vol. 8, No. 3, 261–288, August 2009

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calls for black pride and economic determinism place him firmly within the BPM.

Significantly, when he and his friend Eddie Thomas founded the Curtom record label to

protect black artists from the exploitation that they often suffered with other record labels,

not only was the BPM ideal of black entrepreneurship realized but also the BPM had a

record label that was synonymous with Black Power. Empowered in part by the ownership

of his own label and in part by his affiliations with other artists, Mayfield presented a

crucial look at American racism in ‘This is My Country’ with lyrics that spoke of ‘three

hundred years of slave driving, sweat and welts on my back’ (Mayfield, 1968).1 But

‘We’re a Winner’ conveys the essential ideological message of the BPM:

We’re a winner

And never let anybody say

Boy, you can’t make it

’Cause a feeble mind is in your way

No more tears do we cry

And we have finally dried our eyes

And we’re movin’ on up

I don’t mind leavin’ here

To show the world we have no fear

’Cause we’re a winner

And everybody knows it too. (Mayfield, 1967)

The title itself is a strong statement against inferiority complexes historically propagated

among blacks by power brokers representing white social and cultural values, but the

lyrics offer more than a critique – they offer an affirmative view of black culture that could

foster mobilization and sustain political action under even threatening circumstances.

‘We’re a Winner’ also shows that the music of the BPM was powerful enough to lead

many radio stations to refuse to play it. WLS, the number one channel in Mayfield’s

hometown of Chicago, refused to play the song because it was too controversial, and many

channels in the South banned it out of fear of alienating white audiences (Thompson,

2001). Mayfield understood that the song represented the spirit of the movement, and he

felt it had been banned because of its ‘social conscience; it was about a mass of people

during the time of struggle, and when it broke out it was too much out of the

ordinary’(quoted in Werner, 1998). During a concert in New York City in May 1971

Mayfield said to the audience that ‘a whole lot of stations did not want to play that

particular recording, “We’re a Winner.” Can you imagine such a thing? Well I would say

the way most of you would say, “we don’t give a damn. We’re a winner anyway”’

(Mayfield, 1971). For Mayfield, ‘We’re a Winner’ was a means to express black pride and

to defy its critics, and as such it became a readily identifiable focal point of the BPM that

could be the foundation for not only an affirmative black ideology but also a larger sense of

belonging and identity.

By the time ‘We’re a Winner’ was recorded, the BPM was a powerful, complex

movement that incorporated politics, capitalism, internationalism and the arts that had its

roots in the social circumstances and political opportunities of the post-World War II era.

The interconnectedness, complexities and variations of the movement have been

examined by scholars such as James Smethurst, who notes that black arts had an influence

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on Black Power in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and he emphasizes the reciprocity that

informed the Black Arts Movement’s aesthetic and BPM political agendas (Smethurst,

2005). This study of music and the BPM highlights what Smethurst finds as a continual

enactment of the dialectical relationship between the black arts and Black Power. There

were some differences within the BPM ideology, but advocates of the 1960s, pluralists and

nationalists alike, agreed that African Americans had to, according to William Van

Deburg, ‘mobilize, close ranks, and move toward a position of community and of group

strength’, involving all aspects of black life – ‘political, economic, psychological, and

cultural’ (Van Deburg, 1993, pp. 25–26). Music, as exemplified by Curtis Mayfield and

‘We’re a Winner’, was to foster mobilization by presenting the political ideology of Black

Power that enforced notions of black pride, but it also offered a venue for the creation of

black culture that was not defined by the dominant white culture.

The Black Power Movement and the Political Opportunity Model

Music was a major component in the mobilization of the BPM in the late 1960s and early

1970s, even though during that period the US political system was resistant to widening

opportunities for African Americans beyond those granted by political legislation, such as

desegregation of restaurants/hotels and the enactment of the Voting Act of 1965 that

emerged out of the Southern Civil Rights Movement. While this article’s focus on the

years 1966–72 is because these appear to be the years of greatest intensity, definition,

mobilization and organization, it is not intended to imply that this was the beginning of

Black Power as a concept and ideal. For example, Peniel Joseph traces the BPM to the

1950s when Northern black activists formed relationships with Malcolm X and in 1962

when black college students in Ohio founded the Revolutionary Action Movement

(Joseph, 2006a). This suggests that the opportunities to address black political and cultural

issues were not totally closed as part of the general anti-communism and racism of the

period. Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar notes that

Post war black activism heralded new hopes for racial justice in every facet of

America life, though such hopes were offset by a presidential directive that

established a hard peace through the threat of global war . . . Remnants of the black

freedom struggle responded in different ways to the Cold War’s assault on the civil

liberties of black radicals. (Ogbar, 2004, p. 5)

One of the ways was the development of an ideology based on black nationalism that was

inspired by groups like the Nation of Islam (NOI) and individuals such as Malcolm

X. While some social gains and political opportunities were secured through openings in

the system like the 1948 Executive Order 9981 to integrate the armed forces and the 1954

Supreme Court decision in Brown v. The Board of Education to desegregate schools, in

addition to the activities of black radicals, blacks were still unable to penetrate the system

in any substantial political or cultural way in the 1950s. Ogbar points to Harold Cruse, who

settled on a vision of black nationalism, self-determinism, unity and the cultural politics of

race to exert influence on blacks as representative of the political strategies after World

War II when black Americans would enjoy new rights, but more freedoms remained to be

claimed, and, according to Ogbar, it was the space between new rights and unclaimed

freedoms that would fuel Black Power activists (Ogbar, 2004, p. 5). Black Power ideology and

Popular Music and the Black Power Movement 263

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consciousness proponents consistently demonstrated through their writings, speeches, art and

overall black-driven activities that this space was wide and channels into windows of political

opportunities were very narrow in the post-World War II through the 1950s period.

In the post-World War II years, a growing black interest in international politics and

culture aided in establishing stronger black consciousness and activism against

undemocratic American policies. For example, Malcolm X’s black nationalism influenced

black America’s interest in Africa during the late 1950s and early 1960s and with the

entrance of newly independent African countries onto the world stage black activists

began to look to Africa and the Third World in general as models and partners in efforts to

put pressure on the USA for rights and extended political opportunities (Ogbar, 2004,

p. 18). Peniel Joseph cites Patrice Lumumba’s political ascendance to the President of the

Republic of the Congo in June 1960 as stirring black militancy and his subsequent

assassination seven months later as further activating Black Power ideology and activism

(Joseph, 2006b). Lumumba’s ascendance and assassination also activated African

American artists. Joseph exemplifies links between music and activism in his description

of the UN demonstrations in February 1961 organized by African Americans in response

to Lumumba’s assassination. This demonstration was planned at the home of jazz singer

Abbey Lincoln and jazz drummer Max Roach, where, according to Joseph, Lincoln’s and

Roach’s artistic engagement and political commitment anticipated LeRoi Jones’s ‘Blues

People’ and Black Power activists’ contention that jazz was ‘black music’ as expressed in the

words of Malcolm X and the music of saxophonist John Coltrane (Joseph, 2006b, p. 40).

The black activism of the post-World War II through the early 1960s, as examples of the

roots of the BPM of the late 1960s and early 1970s, was primarily a political and cultural

reaction among Northern, urban blacks to urban problems and international affairs, but it

was also a response to the Southern Civil Rights Movement. Black nationalism’s emphasis

on shared cultural identity, for example that black people in the African Diaspora, by

virtue of African ancestry and a common historical experience of slavery, situates

Southern blacks into its overall ideology. In addition, black nationalism is rooted in the

thought that black people’s struggle is to overcome the white social, political, economic,

and cultural domination that was exemplified by the segregationist politics of the Southern

USA. This connection to the Southern situation is also illustrated in the music of the 1950s

and early 1960s, as illustrated by Max Roach’s We Insist! Max Roach’s Freedom Now

Suite, released in 1960 with a cover depicting lunch counter sit-ins of the CRM. Roach’s

suite is a musical historical representation of the black situation from slavery through the

cultural and spiritual links to Africa. Two of the ways in which Roach accomplishes this is

by utilizing Abby Lincoln’s emotional vocal rendition of ‘Freedom Day’ and Michael

Olatunji’s polyrhythmic African drumming on ‘All Africa’.

The year 1960 was also when student activists in the CRM organized into the Student

Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to formalize their belief in and adoption of a

more aggressive strategy to challenge the racist institutions of the South. Although the

SNCC was linked primarily to the Southern struggle for equality and justice, SNCC

founding delegates pledged that the SNCC would be in solidarity with the African struggle

as well. The SNCC focused its main strategy in 1961 on organizing voter registration

campaigns in the black majority rural areas in the southernmost states. For example, the

SNCC became very active in the rural counties of Mississippi. In 1964 the SNCC assisted

in creating Freedom Summer to expand black voter registration and establish freedom

schools to teach reading and mathematics to black children. In addition, the SNCC assisted

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in the formation of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party as a counter to the white-

dominated Mississippi state Democratic Party. The voter registration campaign was a

seminal event in the CRM that fueled the BPM, which began in earnest in 1965.

Subsequent efforts at securing black rights in the South attracted hundreds of young black

activists who began to diverge from the non-violent strategy of mainline civil rights groups

like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the

Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). One stated reason for the emergence

of the politics of the BPM was that the progress generated by these groups was too slow,

which can indicate that BPM adherents and activists were aware that there was a moment

of opportunity and that mobilization and collective action were strategies that had to be

captured at this time. After the summer of 1964, for instance, black activists began to

rethink their integrationist strategies and began to respond by questioning strategic and

doctrinal positions of integrationists and integrationist groups. SNCC began to change and

be influenced by individuals, such as Malcolm X, who traveled to the South and spoke at

an SNCC rally in early 1965. Malcolm X’s belief that all Africans shared a common

destiny and should be linked politically was appealing and led to a proposed internal

restructuring of the SNCC that called for a black-staffed, black-controlled, and black-

financed group in accordance with self-determination, self-identification, and liberation

in the USA.

In May 1966 Stokely Carmichael was elected chairman of the SNCC and began the

process of the transformation of the SNCC from an interracial organization committed to

non-violence and integration into an all-black organization committed to Black Power.

Carmichael signified the official split when he made an appeal for Black Power in a speech

in Greenwood, Mississippi, on 16 June 1966 and called for black people in the USA to

unite and to build a sense of community and lead their own organizations (Carmichael &

Hamilton, 1967).2 This strong call for black unity and an uplifting sense of self resonated

among black activists, particularly the young, and it became the theme of black progress

that continued into the ensuing years. Robert Allen observed ‘it had become painfully

obvious that the civil rights movement had not altered significantly the plight of the black

masses. The cry of “Black Power” articulated this awareness and presented a new

departure for the freedom movement’ (Allen, 1969, p. 113). Significantly, speakers at the

Greenwood rally engaged in a traditional musical technique of call and response with the

gathered assembly by leading with ‘what do you want’ and the crowd responding with

‘Black Power’. The resulting aggressive and confrontational stance taken by BPM

activists, especially in registering black voters to implement legislation flowing from the

Voting Rights Act of 1965, led to political opportunity openings within the US political

system that continue to exist. For example, hundreds of black legislators have been elected

with strong black votes to local, state, and federal levels of government. These legislators

help maintain a space for black concerns to enter and assist to counter efforts by anti-

black-interest legislators.

After June 1966, Black Power became a familiar term and/or concept. In a speech

delivered on 29 October 1966 in Berkeley, California, Carmichael addressed the term

‘Black Power’ by stating that

We’re never going to get caught up in questions about power. This country knows

what power is. It knows it very well. And it knows what Black Power is ’cause it

deprived black people of it for 400 years. So it knows what Black Power is . . . Why

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do white people in this country associate Black Power with violence? And the

question is because of their own inability to deal with ‘blackness.’ If we had said

‘Negro power’ nobody would get scared. Everybody would support it. Or if we said

power for colored people, everbody’d be for that, but it is the word ‘black’ – it is the

word ‘black’ that bothers people in this country, and that’s their problem, not mine.3

Carmichael’s quote points to the provocative and disturbing characteristic of the ‘Black

Power’ term for whites in particular. In one sense, because of this impact on whites, blacks

could feel the power that the use of the term ‘Black Power’ gave them as a slogan in the

sense that it alarmed those who felt a weakening in the narrow political opportunity

structure that favored the dominant white population. However, ‘Black Power’ was also

more than a slogan. It represented the determination of black people to liberate themselves

and become empowered in economic, political, social, and cultural realms and it was

interpreted from the perspective of several disciplines. One important disciplinary

influence on the BPM was psychology, most notably in the writings of Frantz Fanon,

whose experiences as a psychiatrist in Africa led him to see the psychological damage

done by racism and to advocate a type of separatism that would allow the ravages of

racism to heal. Fanon, who was active in the fight for Algerian independence, also saw the

colonial system as a system that was fueled by racism and repression (Fanon, 1963).4

By analogy, many in the USA felt they too were living under a colonial system, and began

to challenge the system itself. Revolution, though, for Black Power advocates meant

providing different types of communities that provided what the colonial white society did

not provide – a solid foundation for blacks to realize their own self-worth and power.

Black Power, in essence, was calling for the establishment of an independent political base

whereby blacks would set their own agenda and strategy. Thus, the BPM created a sense of

self, strength, and pride in African Americans, which are important components of

sustaining political action and mobilization, which indicates that mobilization theory and

especially resource mobilization theory needs to incorporate more than financial resources

and the role of logical decision making in their analyses of movements. The sense of a

strong racial connection was a frame that BPM activists effectively utilized to gain support

from the general African American population that had not taken an active role against

racist practices of the dominant population. When increasing black support for the BPM

worked in mobilizing more organized resistance, action was taken in areas such as

recruiting volunteers for voter registration activities in Southern states and activating

black students on college campuses to demand black studies curriculum.

The BPM was a diverse political movement that was unified in its calls for more voting

rights, fairer employment opportunities, black buying power directed at black businesses,

and a deeper appreciation of the black arts. Fed up with the movement of desegregation

during the 1960s, many black leaders, businessmen, and thinkers called for progress

grounded in concepts such as self-help and self-determination, and the Black Arts

Movement bests represents black self-determination in the arts. The Black Arts Movement

specifically rejected Western European aesthetic standards of writing poetry and

composing music and instead embraced African sensibilities and forms to create their own

distinctive style. According to Larry Neal, black art was ‘the aesthetic and spiritual sister

of the Black Power concept’ and that black art and music ‘relate broadly to the

Afro-American’s desire for self-determination and nationhood’ (Neal, 1968, p. 29).

Cultural aesthetics, with its strong music component, was a critical part of the BPM’s

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goals of self-determination, economic empowerment, social cohesion and psychological

liberation from white culture and its inherent prejudices and restrictions.

The BPM also fits Sidney Tarrow’s definition of a political movement as processes of

collective challenges, which are based on common purposes and social solidarities carried

out in sustained interaction with elites, opponents and authorities (Tarrow, 1996, p. 44).

In addition, the political opportunity structure provides a useful assist in understanding and

analyzing the emergence and development of the BPM, and mobilization techniques and

framing also help explain specific and group political mobilization of the BPM (see

McAdam et al., 1996, pp. 1–20).5 The problem with relying solely on the political

opportunity structure as laid out by political opportunity scholars is that the structure

creates a sense that without an opening in the system by the elites in charge, challenges are

less likely to materialize. The BPM, which called for blacks to unite and organize around a

powerful sense of self and community, provides a concrete model of political opportunity

that developed within the context of narrow openings, which illustrates that just because

the system is restricted does not mean that organized resistance is absent. However,

Carmichael’s initial view that Black Power possesses characteristics that fit into US

interest group politics and competitive pluralism does fit well into the framework of

a political opportunity model. In Carmichael and Hamilton’s book on Black Power they

note that:

The concept of Black Power rests on a fundamental premise: Before a group can

enter the open society, it must first close ranks. By this we mean that group solidarity

is necessary before a group can operate effectively from a bargaining position of

strength in a pluralistic society. (Carmichael & Hamilton, 1967, p. 44)

Donald McCormack notes that for Carmichael, in political terms, Black Power meant ‘the

coming-together of Black people to elect representatives and to force those representatives to

speak to their needs’, while calling on African Americans to utilize conventional group-theory

tactics to reach greater political and economic benefits (McCormack, 1973, p. 390). One

interpretation of Carmichael’s position on the US political system is that in order to change it

you have to utilize a dual strategy of attacking from the inside by using the current system to

affect change and from the outside with sustained attacks on the way it is structured. In Black

Power, for example, Carmichael and Hamilton note that Black Power is

a call for black people in this country to unite, to recognize their heritage, to build a

sense of community. It is a call for black people to begin to define their own goals, to

lead their own organizations and to support those organizations. It is a call to reject the

racist institutions and values of this society. (Carmichael & Hamilton, 1967, p. 44)

The statement calling for a rejection of the racist institutions and values of this society

appear to indicate that participation in the pluralist competitive political structure would

be synonymous to accepting it, but is more related to organizing around blackness and

black goals as an effective strategy to enter the system and begin making changes from

that location.

Political opportunity and mobilization structures that are strengthened with the addition

of cultural forms, such as music, which are less rational, are as likely as logical indicators

to take advantage of and if necessary facilitate forced openings in the political system, and

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these forms should be included in the analysis of social movements. Political opportunity

theory needs, as David Meyer and Debra Minkoff observe, more tasks and mechanisms to

the overall theory (Meyer & Minkoff, 2004). For example, a new mechanism could

develop an aspect of the model that would analyze at what level oppression and restricted

opportunities lead to so much pressure being put on the system that political opportunities

are opened and sometimes very quickly. The BPM offers a model of creating opportunity,

as well as one of responding to openings in the political system, and an analysis of the role

of music in the BPM also shows how messages of resistance that are embedded in music

create a degree of celebratory energy that can facilitate both responding to openings and

creating them. The BPM was also able to create and respond to political opportunities

because it fostered a strong sense of black consciousness and unity for the collective group

of BPM supporters. Although several individuals such as Stokely Carmichael of the SNCC

and Huey Newton of the Black Panther Party (BPP) were the recognized leaders, because

the BPM emerged out of cultural, social, political and religious traditions among African

Americans there were numerous local and regional leaders who also played important

roles. Organizations and groups – the Brotherhood of Pullman Porters and the Universal

Negro Improvement Association, for example – historically served as channels for black

mobilization and advancing sociopolitical goals, and this network of responders to

decades of repression and segregation coalesced to become the essence of the BPM.

Between the years 1966 and 1972, there were many competing BPM organizations and

political groups, such as the SNCC, the BPP, and the NOI, which shared the objective of

elevating black consciousness and securing more black political rights. Minor differences,

like the BPP’s identification with the people which distinguished it from other black

nationalist organizations like the NOI, constituted divergence in practices (Ogbar, 2004,

p. 93). Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar, for example, writes that

the aim of cultural nationalism was, at its very basic level, to culturally regenerate

the mass of black people. Using NOI’s etymological interpretation of Negro,

cultural nationalists (and other Black Power advocates) argued that white oppressors

had made black people into Negroes who were enamored of everything white and

repulsed by blackness. Cultural nationalism was the thrust of the Black Power

Movement . . . Cultural nationalists . . . urged Negroes to become black people by

sloughing off western culture. African names, clothes, rituals and ‘sensibilities’

were promoted to facilitate the transition to cultural rebirth . . . Still, for the

Panthers, identification with the people did not endorse the separation from black

folk culture that cultural nationalism required. (Ogbar, 2004, pp. 93–94)

The complexities of the BPM indicate not only that the intangible components of music as

well as the ideological components of music can have an impact on the response to and

creation of political openings by creating unified consciousness but also that openings can

be successfully created by groups that are not entirely ideologically cohesive.

Adolph Reed, for example, insightfully points out that there was not even a normative

standard of blackness in which cultural nationalism, self-help concepts, and Pan-

Africanism represent the group interest of all blacks. Reed notes that ‘It is a notion of

black politics in which black people, as individuals and as groups organize, form

alliances, and enter coalitions freely on the basis of mutually constituted interests, criss-

crossing racial boundaries as they find it pragmatically appropriate’ (Reed, 1999, p. 50).

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The BPP advocated a revolutionary nationalism which viewed the black struggle within

the USA as part of a world movement to replace capitalism with socialism and was allied

with Third World peoples as well as white radicals such as the Students for a Democratic

Society (SDS) in order to free those who were oppressed by hegemonic, racist, and

repressive governments.6 White political groups such as the SDS that sought coalitions

with black groups played supportive roles in support of Black Power group interests. One

SDS member, Richard Parker, said the SDS joined forces with the BPP because both

groups had a number of things in common such as the fight against capitalism and racism

(Jeffries, 2002, p. 26). Although these groups possessed their own individualized goals,

those general shared objectives allowed them to accomplish joint and specific goals.

Political opportunity theory allows for divergences within a movement and political

opportunity structure does contribute to the understanding of the BPM through its

acknowledgement that certain conditions exist that allow for the emergence and growth of

political movements. Observers such as John McAdam, John McCarthy, and Mayer Zald,

find that political and social movements are formed within a broader set of political

constraints and opportunities that are unique to the situation from which any movement

emerges (McAdam et al., 1996, p. 3). Black activists of the 1950s took advantage of the

fact that systems set up like the USA are susceptible to social changes that render the

established political order more vulnerable or receptive to challenge.7 An important

example of this was the US Supreme Court decision in Brown v. The Board of Education

in 1954. This decision opened the doors not only for protests against segregated schools

but also for protests against segregation in every area of society. Black Power theorists and

activists recognized this and advocated taking advantage of the US political system by

agitating as a group. Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton note that Black Power

depended on the fundamental premise that before a group could enter open society it had

to first close ranks and by ‘this we mean that group solidarity is necessary before a group

can operate effectively from a bargaining position of strength in a pluralistic society’

(Carmichael & Hamilton, 1967, p. 44).

During the post-Brown period, the environment was open to collective action. For

example, in the years up to 1972, favorable legislation continued to flow from the US

Congress in the form of Affirmative Action, voting rights, equal employment opportunity

and community grants. The openness of the political system shifted significantly during

the period 1964–72. The year 1964 is significant because it was the year of the Civil

Rights Act, but some actors, like those of the BPM, felt there was a need for more

sweeping social change beginning with agitating for implementation of laws legislated by

the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The dialectical relationship

between movements and anti-movements whereby anti-African American groups

organized to counter gains by African Americans did originate under the conditions of

the 1970s. For example, by 1973 negative reactions by whites emerged in response to

perceived diminished political opportunities for themselves, which is illustrated by Alan

Bakke, a white man who was denied entrance to medical school at the University of

California, Irvine in 1972 and sued for reverse discrimination, which led to mobilization of

conservative political action designed to diminish and narrow the more expansive opening

in black social and political opportunity structures created by the CRM and the BPM.

In addition, the US government was involved in narrowing and reversing black

opportunities through programs like COINTELPRO, a counter-intelligence program

created to narrow or eliminate openings for ideologies and activities of groups and

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organizations considered threats to the US government, such as the BPP and black

nationalists groups in general.

Because of the strong resource capacity in its political and arts communities, the BPM

was able to optimize its moment of opportunity by mobilizing around the issue of Black

Power. Common values, such as beliefs in black culture and self-determination, united

them into a distinctive community. However, in order to take increased advantage of

expanded opportunities, BPM activists involved key partners in the process. The resource

mobilization perspective points to the importance of individuals and organizations outside

of the community or collective for forming a successful movement.8 As one example of

optimizing a moment of opportunity in addition to the SDS, the BPM benefited from

external actors such as white corporate executives that green-lighted BPM-influenced

music. This move was usually not in the interests of appreciation of black politics and/or

art, but a profit driven one. According to Brian Ward:

Whites historically owned and managed the vast majority of the radio stations and

record labels which serviced the black market. Few of these individuals or

corporations showed much inclination to use their power and influence to spearhead,

or even assist, the black struggle for freedom and equality of opportunity.

(Ward, 1998, p. 13)

While both white and black corporate executives in the music industry engaged in

exploitation of black culture and identity, the BPM did benefit from this practice. The BPM

provided white executives what they were looking for, and, as Ward goes on to explain,

‘for awhile in the late 1960s and 1970s a concerted effort to improve the number of blacks

in positions of financial power and executive influence within the world of black-oriented

entertainment formed an important part of the broader Black Power impulse’ (Ward, 1998,

p. 13). This effort was limited in success, because even the black executives preferred

profits over advancing social benefits. Al Bell, a black executive with Memphis,

Tennessee-based Stax Records, said that ‘Black Power was more than a slogan, but also a

business’.9 Black musicians who recorded music with a message included those who were

sympathetic to the movement as well as those who saw opportunities to join a popular

movement in terms of increasing their own sales and popularity. In one of the pivotal

aspects of music and the BPM cultural history, black and white radio embraced music with

black political and cultural themes in the late 1960s and early 1970s when corporate record

labels shifted to producing them. Industry researchers discovered that this music’s

consumer base was composed of a cohort that was drawn to these themes (Ward, 1998,

p. 419). Artists and recording executives put emphasis on music acts to become more

‘black’. The industry began manufacturing and distributing music geared primarily to

blacks caught up in the black cultural and political movement, particularly during the early

1970s. Black radio, which had a problem with artists such as Curtis Mayfield before

the corporate-led acceptance of it, excitedly got into playing music with a political

message, which in turn led to even more production and airplay on popular and rhythm and

blues themed radio stations (Ward, 1998, pp. 339–416). However, the strength and

commitment of the blacks in political and artistic groups vested in this movement

remained the overwhelming guiding force, and it was this resolve that sustained the

activism that responded to and also created openings within the hegemonic political

system.

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Several organizations that are considered core components of the BPM, like the BPP

and the SNCC, agitated to move blacks into a more racially conscious direction to improve

on how blacks viewed themselves as people and to demonstrate that blacks possessed the

power to substantially improve their condition. These objectives were appealing and

accessible to the sensibilities of a broad cross-section of black groups and individuals.

Political mobilization based on the idea of being black was enough to sustain a movement

like the BPM, as long as solidarity, group strength and ideology provided additional

motivation. A truly sustainable Black Power movement could emerge, according to

observers such as Warren Holmes, when people with a common identity and/or history

organized into fully mature local activist groups and cultural organizations (Holmes, 1999,

p. 87). And black culturally inspired music added to the maturity of the BPM by

emphasizing the relevance of communication and by creating a vehicle for emotionally

bonding with BPM ideals.

Background: The Role of Music in the BPM

Because the BPM was so invested in changing consciousness and culture it demonstrates

the many facets that scholars have attributed to the relationship between music and

resistance.10 Music assists in building strong group solidarity, which is a major component

for understanding political and social movements (Tilly et al., 1975, p. 260). As Michael

Balter points out in ‘Seeking the key to music’, music can evolve to enhance group

solidarity (Balter, 2004, p. 1120). Balter disagrees with some analysts, such as cognitive

scientist Steven Pinker, who argue that music ‘just happens to tickle strong adaptive

functions, like, the natural cadences of speech and the brain’s ability to make sense of a

cacophony of sounds’, but really has no useful functions or useful processing leading to

unconsciousness or spontaneous action (Balter, 2004, p. 1120). Instead, Balter points to

studies by Robert Foley and Isabelle Peretz, who argue that music is critical to maintaining

social cohesion and to mounting critical actions and that music essentially evolved to

facilitate a sense of belonging among a community of people (Balter, 2004, p. 1120). This

essay illustrates how music created a sense of belonging among Black Power activists,

which in turn led to tighter social cohesion and collective action. Social cohesion theorists

such as Robin Dunbar suggest that endorphins in individuals are heightened and released

by music, which may enhance the subjective feeling of bonding, thereby, creating stronger

social cohesion (Balter, 2004, p. 1121; see also Dunbar, 2003, p. 1160). In addition, lyrics

and melodies examined in this essay demonstrate that in order to create and maintain

social cohesion, music has to be relevant to the group and situation. For example, in

situations where individuals and organizations are moving against the discriminatory and

racist policies of the state, lyrics like ‘the revolution will not be televised’ and ‘we’re a

winner’ were able to effectively inspire and reinforce strategies and objectives. Michael

Torrance, a BPP member and one of the original members of Lumpen, a BPP rhythm and

blues group, said in 2006 that music inspired the work of the BPP and made the work come

through in the context of their overall goals and objectives. The music also lacks potency if

it is not affiliated with the ideological goals of the movement. Music is able to maximize

its ability to foster social cohesion and political action if its meaning fits with the ideology

of the movement.

Once a significant amount of social cohesion is achieved among group members,

mobilization into political action and a movement is enhanced, and since music often

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provides a background at demonstrations, repetitious refrains chanted at organizational

meetings, or is sung by participants in marches, the social cohesion can intensify. In the

BPM, social cohesion was achieved in many ways, but music as a critical part of the whole

provided a basis for emotional and ideological cohesion, and as such provided

mobilization for the movement and some of the courage and even euphoria that sustained

it. Portia Maultsby has argued that minority groups use their perceived meanings of

various musical forms to reinforce their group identity and express their resistance to

dominant value systems.11 Diminished courage due to negative factors, such as fear

brought on by increased police action or anti-movement zealots, can significantly

jeopardize the realization of movement ideals and goals. For example, Jeff Goodwin and

Steven Pfaff have found that activists, especially those undertaking risky actions, have to

manage their fear (Goodwin & Pfaff, 2001, pp. 282–300). Mismanagement of fear and/or

the weakening of social cohesion could have resulted in lost chances to capitalize on

political opportunities.

Music helped BPM activists develop a sense of shared goals, but it also helped foster not

only courage but also identification with the movement. In a 2006 interview, Michael

McCarty, former member of the Chicago BPP, recalled that during a meeting concerning

several members of the Illinois Panther chapter that had to go underground, ‘Someday

We’ll Be Together’, by the Supremes, was played in the background.12 McCarty also

remembered that in 1969, ‘BPP member Bobby Rush was giving a talk about members of

the Illinois Chapter having to go underground and during his talk he played this song.’13

More than thirty-five years later, McCarty could remember how the music created a

feeling of courage, closeness and belongingness with other members of the party.

McCarty’s memories not only exemplify music’s ability to enhance courage but they also

demonstrate that music’s metaphorical and emotional meanings can be as powerful as

clear political messages. Emotional power is particularly effective, because, as analysts

such as Ronald Aminzade and Doug McAdam point out, emotions are embedded in social

movements and play an important role in different points in a movement’s existence

(Aminzade & McAdam, 2001).

The music of the BPM years between 1966 and 1972 created metaphorical and

emotional meanings as well as ideological meanings through lyrics and rhythms that

helped to frame the BPM as more than an image of black urban unrest and anti-white

rhetoric, as it is sometimes characterized. Based on an analysis of the words of BPM

activists, the demands and objectives of the BPM, and the song lyrics of the music of the

BPM, the ideological unities and solidarity that existed between music and the BPM can

be revealed. Music output absorbed the characteristics typical of the BPM. For example,

the music themes of the BPM have sustained themselves over time as an inspiration for

twenty-first-century musical forms such as hip hop, rap, and spoken word that are positive

to black cultural pride and political activism. Although the contemporary forms such as

hip hop and rap do engage with issues related to black pride, they differ from the BPM in

that they lack a political movement and are not founded on the ideologies of political

action.

The Music of the BPM: Ideology and Motivation

With the application of the Black Power metaphor, as well as the representation of black

pride in the lyrics, the music, particularly as performed and produced by African

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Americans, connected political goals and artistic desires of progressive blacks, and forged

them into a more unified force for political change, cultural infusion and social justice.

The black cultural themes of jazz musicians such as John Coltrane and Archie Shepp aided

in their black political and cultural immersion. Their song titles, for example John

Coltrane’s ‘Afro Blue’ and Archie Shepp’s ‘Malcolm, Malcolm – Semper Malcolm’,

illustrate the black cultural themes that jazz musicians delved into.14 The importance of

non-lyrical musical forms and the lifestyles of its adherents are discussed by observers as

being important to deciphering the role of music (Miller & Skipper, 1972). Steven Isoardi,

for example, wrote that Horace Tapscott, jazz pianist and supporter of black arts, didn’t

want just the voice of the instrument but also the life of the player expressed in the music

he played (Isoardi, 2006, p. 295). Because Tapscott resided in the black community and

made the community the focus and inspiration for his work, listeners felt that the music he

was playing represented many of the trials and tribulations that came from living in

political, social and economic exclusion. Saxophonist Billie Harris described Tapscott’s

music as being like life, because it is full of different moods and timings, and closer to

how we are and how we live (Isoardi, 2006, p. 255). In this regard Tapscott is

quoted as saying: ‘That’s all I write about, is my neighborhood, consciously and

unconsciously. That’s what I play about. It’s not a thing I ever work on, it’s just what I do’

(Isoardi, 2006, p. 254).

And Tapscott’s use of instruments and musical themes was also a constant reminder to

his listeners of the African culture connections. In songs with African themes, such as

‘Lumumba’ and ‘Dar Es Salaam’, Tapscott employed polyrhythms characteristic of

African music and a heavy use of drums. Pianist Bobby West described Tapscott’s music

as incorporating the entire history of the black experience in his performances in that you

could hear everything from field hollers to tin roof church revivals, to the earliest origins of

the blues (Isoardi, 2006, p. 261).

Much of the music influenced by Black Power had an ascertainable ideological

content that reflected the historical consciousness of the BPM. For example, the Horace

Tapscott-led Underground Musicians Association (UGMA) recorded ‘Black Apostles’, a

tribute to Malcolm X, Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King, Jr, with a strong bottom

sound and the use of riffs and ostinati to create powerful, dark atmospheres (Isoardi, 2006,

p. 103). Elaine Brown used an explicitly lyrical form to evoke political and social

emotions as exemplified in these sample lyrics from ‘Seize the Time’:

You worry about liberty because you’ve been denied

Well I think that you’re mistaken or you must’ve lied.

Cuz you do not act like those who care; you’ve never even fought,

For the liberty you claim to lack; or have you even thought

To seize the time; the time is now, O seize the time,

And you know how. (E. Brown, 1969)

The album ‘Seize the Time’, recorded in 1969, included the aforementioned song and was

arranged and conducted by Tapscott and backed by the UGMA orchestra. The lyrics

represent a direct call for blacks to take advantage of the political opportunities, as well as

the creative and economic opportunities that opened up as a result of decades of activism.

However, at the same time, the lyrics also demand a critique of those who have desired

freedom but have not fought or thought about securing it.

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In addition to creating music to inspire action and consciousness, black pride also

empowered blacks to exercise more control over what they wrote, recorded and

performed. Control such as this in any political opportunity structure is vital to

maintaining institutional access, both already gained and sought after. Mayfield and

Thomas, as previously indicated, established the Curtom record label, and black theorists

and artists began to establish links between music and Black Power. LeRoi Jones, for

example, addressed the primary role that music had in the raising of black consciousness

and noted that black music constituted a place where black people lived and moved

in almost absolute openness and strength, in a way that would make white people

uncomfortable (Jones, 1967a, p. 187).15 Jones’s examples, ranging from John Coltrane’s

jazz harmonics to Sam and Dave’s rhythm and blues, found black music to be a place of

refuge for black people, and he saw spirituality and religion as another influence on the

BPM. According to Jones, jazz music and musicians emerging out of the mid-1960s were

seeking

the mystical God both emotionally and intellectually . . . John Coltrane, Albert

Ayler, Sun Ra, Pharoah Sanders, come to mind immediately as God-seekers. In the

name of energy sometimes, as with Ayler and Sonny Murray. Since God is, indeed,

energy . . . The music is a way to God. The absolute open expression of everything.

(Jones, 1967b, p. 193)

This religious metaphor, along with secular references, could presumably lead to a sense

of power that would elevate blacks out of a sense of powerlessness and place them

consciously and physically on par with whites. In Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams

and the Roots of Black Power, Timothy Tyson illustrates another more political influence

on the BPM in discussing how Robert Williams played political music and how it melded

in a balanced way with Black Power ideology (Tyson, 1999, pp. 285–289).16 Tyson also

describes how Mabel Williams, co-host of Radio Free Dixie, explained to listeners in 1966

that musicians were becoming the epic poets of the Afro-American revolt with their thinly

veiled appeals to unity, protest and resistance (Tyson, 1999, p. 286). To emphasize her

point, Williams played music such as Curtis Mayfield’s ‘Keep on Pushing’, Nina Simone’s

‘Mississippi Goddamn’, and Sam Cooke’s ‘A Change is Gonna Come’ (Tyson, 1999,

p. 286). Listeners of Radio Free Dixie could also hear jazz, such as Max Roach’s Freedom

Now Suite ‘whose evocations of African memory and African American struggle reflected

an emerging movement among jazz musicians seeking to test limits both artistic and

political’ (Tyson, 1999, p. 288). Williams and Radio Free Dixie exemplified the sense of

triumph over days of powerlessness that the music of the BPM called for.

In order to fully understand the dynamics and the power of the music of the BPM and

how it contributed to the mobilization of political support it is necessary not only to

address the function of more of the intangible components of music, such as lyrics and

mood, but also to determine what interrelationships there are between specific music

genres, such as jazz and rhythm and blues, and whether any one of these genres of music

was more effective for specific mobilization strategies. The implication is that people who

listened to music with explicit lyrics with references to black awareness and black political

power elevated their understanding of cultural mobilization and political opportunities,

which influenced their decisions and choices in support of the BPM. As Richard Johnson

notes, producers (musicians in this case), encode their preferred meanings in cultural

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forms, like music, and if the resulting lyrics are read by an audience concordant with the

encoded meanings, those meanings are then incorporated into lived cultures and social

relations (Johnson, 1986). This is an important statement because the black politically and

culturally tinged lyrics and melodies fostered cultural awareness and political identity.

Michael McCarty, who joined the BPP in 1968, also remembered that a record player in

the party office that played thought-provoking music by John Coltrane and Archie Shepp

was also inspiring and comforting.17 In another interview, Elbert ‘Big Man’ Howard of the

Oakland BPP recalled that the abundance of music moving beyond strictly racial themes

revealed a society that was fostering economic and political progress for some while

simultaneously fostering poverty and depressed standards of life for those the party was

working with and for. According to Howard:

There was an abundance of music which was relevant to what was going on at the

time, which not only was important to the BPP but also related to the anti-capitalist

movement (‘Don’t Let Money Change You’ – the O’Jays) and the continuation of

the Civil Rights Movement (‘Alabama’ – John Coltrane) which was attempting to

change the government into an entity which truly represented the people.18

In addition, Howard indicated the impact of music, such as Marvin Gaye’s ‘Mercy Mercy

Me (The Ecology)’, which spoke to the environmental conditions of the black community

and to the emotions of many, including himself.19 According to Howard:

Marvin Gaye’s entire album jolted everyone with its brilliant lyrics and ‘What’s

Going On’ was heard everywhere for a long time. It spoke to the conditions of the

black community and to the emotions of many, including myself. It was played for a

couple of years around Panther offices everywhere – it was so timely.20

While the BPP and others in the BPM were actively engaged in black political and cultural

efforts, musicians were writing music to commemorate and encourage these efforts, and

BPP members responded to these efforts. Howard, for example, related how he and BPP

leader Bobby Seale took a group of young Panthers to the Monterey Jazz Festival to

expose them to jazz, and he also recalled how jazz saxophonist Joe Henderson recorded

‘You’re Either Part of the Problem or Part of the Solution’, which was an oft-used quote of

the BPP.21 A fundamental assumption here is that music can ignite repressed desires in

individuals to resist external barriers to political freedom and cultural expression. Much of

the music of the BPM had some reflection on blackness as a theme, often with cultural

references to Africa or the state of society for African Americans. For example, the Mtume

Umoja Ensemble released an album in 1972 entitled Alkebu-lan: Land of the Blacks, in

which the songs were African inspired,22 while Gil Scott-Heron dealt with the state of

society for black Americans in ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’.

You will not be able to stay home, brother

You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out.

You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip,

Skip out for beer during commercials,

Because the revolution will not be televised. (Scott-Heron, 1970)

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In these explicit lyrics Heron tells blacks that they will be swept up in the wind of social

and political change and that it will be impossible to remain passive. Scott-Heron’s music

expresses a defiant stance and lets listeners imagine how revolutionary political and social

changes will happen at an opportunistic time and under other circumstances that transcend

their abilities to ignore it through marketplace distractions.

Through music of the BPM, artists attempted to voice issues of race and politics as they

related to identity and power. Blackness as a theme became so widespread that the

Temptations, a mainstream/popular group, recorded ‘Message from a Black Man’ in 1969:

This is message, a message to y’all

Together we stand divided we fall

Black is a color just like white

Tell me how can a color determine whether

You’re wrong or right

Because of my color I struggle to be free

Sticks and stones may break my bones

But in the end you’re gonna see my friend

No matter how hard you try you can’t stop me now

No matter how hard you try you can’t stop me now. (Strong & Whitfield, 1969)

Here, the Temptations indicate the determination of blacks to overcome oppression and

repression, despite relatively closed opportunities, and the message is that coming together

as blacks constitutes a cohesive force for change. Although even some of the popular

music of the era was influenced by black consciousness ideologies, the celebratory nature

of some of the music was influential without being as directly ideological or political. For

example, ‘Dancing in the Streets’ by Martha and the Vandellas signified for activists the

action that occurred on the street from urban rebellions to protest marches:

Calling out around the world ‘are you ready for a brand new beat’

Summer’s here and the time is right for dancing in the streets.

They’re dancing in Chicago, Philadelphia, P.A.,

Down in New Orleans, Baltimore, D.C., now up in New York City. (Stevenson et al.,

1964)

The strength of these lyrics is that they can be interpreted to be both metaphorical and

literal.

Despite the fact that music was being produced for a mass audience that could uplift

black pride and power, it was also a fact that record producers were motivated by

economic expediency and were exploiting Black Power themes. Record producers could

bring out a black pride song by a group like the Temptations, but at the same time they also

produced recordings that were demeaning, stereotypical, or strictly dismissive of black

strengths, and most importantly could weaken the social cohesion needed to sustain

opportunistic action.23 Berry Gordy became a successful producer by following his

template of producing both prideful and demeaning songs, and according to Mark

Anthony Neal, this became a blueprint for corporate America’s annexation of the black

popular music industry (Neal, 1997, p. 117). African Americans with their buying power

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and keen interest in the Black Arts Movement and BPM became a desirable area for

corporate recording industries to tap into. This was not exclusively a negative occurrence:

While corporate America could produce numerous black-themed records based on their

self-interest in profits and markets, blacks benefited from and were uplifted by many of

these black-themed products. One example of this win-win dynamic is Hank Ballard’s

recording of ‘Blackenized’. Hank Ballard was a rhythm and blues singer known for

recording sexually charged music and was best known as the original writer and singer of

‘The Twist’. Hank Ballard, was not as well known as James Brown, his collaborator on

this song, but ‘Blackenized’ was one of the best examples of a popular Black Power song:

Now I don’t know whether you realize

Before you get some respect

You got to be blackenized

You been leanin’ on others to be your keeper

That’s why they call you negroes and colored peoples

You better change your strap and get into the swing

Find yourself and do your own thing

I don’t know whether you realize

Before you get some respect

You got to be blackenized

Blackenized is not in the dictionary

But today it is so necessary. (J. Brown, 1969)24

These lyrics capture the tenor of the BPM in clear and pointed terms. It also represents the

problem with mainstream mass-produced music. However, this song is also one of many

by an artist who only recorded one or two message songs, which set them apart from artists

like Curtis Mayfield and Gil Scott-Heron, who recorded numerous black-themed songs

and demonstrated deeper commitment to black advancement. The problem with

mass-produced popular music is that it is no longer produced once the profitability is

tapped out, particularly at the optimal levels of production to continuously inspire black

activism and promote black unity. In addition, corporate America did not provide

sufficient openings for blacks to manage their own financial resources in order to achieve

the economic security and independence that were critical components of the BPM.

In 1971 the Harvard University Graduate School of Business presented CBS Records

with a report that indicated that 30 percent of the nation’s pop top forty singles broke out

from a base in soul radio stations and solid sales in the black market. The report went on to

suggest that the right sort of access to the black retail market could provide CBS with

greater profits in the mainstream market. This report prompted CBS to set up a black music

division headed by a young black executive and embark on a coordinated effort to control

as much of the black market as possible. This report and the subsequent action by CBS also

created a desirable trend for other corporations such as Capitol and Atlantic (Ward, 1998,

p. 419). The rise of the BPM had led to questioning of the usefulness to the black

community of the numerous black radio stations that served their market. For example,

one of the issues was whether ‘soul’ music as played on black radio stations represented

the acceptance of the black man’s quest for self-determination or a superficial sales slogan

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(Ward, 1998, p. 430). In other words, there was concern that the black community’s new

capacity to feel good about itself could be merely a slogan that could degenerate into a sort

of souled-out complacency rather than as the catalyst for effective challenges to the black

predicament (Ward, 1998, p. 431). Brian Ward quotes Charles Hamilton as saying that if

blacks were to gain control of the electronic media it would be the most important single

breakthrough in the black struggle and would justify the time, talent and resources

expended towards its achievement (Ward, 1998, p. 432). Black activists and groups

understood that along with the music, radio stations needed to address issues important to

the black community like education, crime, housing and jobs. According to Kevern

Verney, the growth of black consciousness in the late 1960s resulted in the continued rise

of black-appeal radio, with some 310 stations adopting the format by 1970, but

broadcasting centered on providing entertainment rather than discussing controversial

issues (Verney, 2003, p. 76). The major corporations, heeding the recommendations of the

Harvard University Graduate School of Business study, bought up black radio stations,

maintained solid control over distribution, and settled into exploiting Black Bower as the

slogan rather than a movement. Most black-appeal stations were white owned and, for

example, in 1970 only 16 of 8,000 radio outlets in the USA were black owned (Verney,

2003, p. 76).25 Once Black Power became commercialized and consequently sanitized, its

intensity was diminished along with the strong lyrics of the popular rhythm and blues

music. Along with this came setbacks in the ability of the BPM to maintain the popular-

music-enhanced gains taken through the windows of opportunity that the movement

created in the political system. By 1972, it was essentially left up to the Black Arts

Movement, select jazz musicians, academic programs and other elements, such as leaders

and activists of the Black Power community, to keep the BPM going.

Many young activists who emerged in the black struggle for freedom during the BPM

were especially attracted to jazz, while in turn young jazz musicians were increasingly

inspired by the positive messages of the black community and black consciousness. Jazz

and jazz musicians did not have the same market-driven motivations of rhythm and blues

and mainstream popular music actors.26 In discussing the direction of some jazz artists,

Archie Shepp, a jazz saxophonist, pointed out that the new African American innovations

in music were an extension of the entire civil rights, black nationalist, and black Muslim

movement taking place in America (Kofsky, 1970b, p. 463). Frank Kofsky reported that

after interviewing African American jazz artists during the 1960s, he consistently found

that Malcolm X, as representative of the black movement, was the single non-musician to

whom the greatest number of musicians, including some whites, would dedicate a

composition (Kofsky, 1970a, p. 64). Max Roach’s Freedom Now Suite, a pre-1966 release,

indicates that a small number of jazz musicians were writing and playing music that

critiqued relations of race and power in which blacks were oppressed, exploited, and

disenfranchised and that formed an advance guard to the rapidly increasing music that

appeared in the post-1966 years.

The African roots of African American culture and music were a crucial link to the

development of black consciousness, and jazz especially paid homage to the African link,

as exemplified by Pharoah Sanders, who recorded ‘Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt’ in 1966

and Archie Shepp, who recorded ‘The Magic of Ju-Ju’ in 1967. Robin D. G. Kelly

confirms the African sources for the imagination of jazz musicians in his discussions on

Sun Ra and Abby Lincoln (Kelly, 2002, pp. 30–32).27 For Kelly, ‘Africa in the black

imagination is a window on black dreams of a place like Africa, for it is remembered and

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experienced as a world that kept us whole’ (Kelly, 2002, pp. 30–31). While Africa had

been the source of musical ideas for black musicians for decades there was a noticeable

surge in interest and influence during the zenith of the BPM. Some of the most powerful

black music of the years between 1966 and 1972 flowed from Black Power and black

consciousness influences that included reconnecting with African culture in thematic and

stylistic ways. Musicians were using traditional west African percussion and rhythms

using, for example, talking drums, rattles, bells, the mbira (thumb piano), and the

xylophone, along with other Western instruments. Jazz musicians such as John Carter and

Randy Weston studied and played the rhythmic structure of African music, and the Art

Ensemble of Chicago used many of these instruments while some members of the

ensemble dressed in traditional African clothing during their performances. Drummer

Max Roach had used African music and themes in his Freedom Now Suite, but by the

end of the 1960s African influences in jazz, primarily in response to the BPM, were

significantly more widespread.

For those who weren’t exposed to jazz, popular music did provide black consciousness

themes through traditional vehicles. For example, LeRoi Jones stated that the Impressions’

popular song ‘Keep on Pushing’ provided a legitimate social feeling through mainly

metaphorical and allegorical for black people (Jones, 1967a). This song was popular,

because the typical Mayfield gospel harmonies, coupled with the lyrically metaphorical

message of not giving up when life and/or situations get difficult, made this song widely

accessible and extremely appealing. While, as noted above, this type of popular music

could in part be the product of the forces of the market, Curtis Mayfield was also a skilled

businessman who could produce a successful project without compromising his intended

social messages. Both the Impressions’ 1967 song ‘We’re a Winner’ and James Brown’s

1968 production of ‘Say it Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud’ brought the ideology of black

pride to popular audiences, even though, as indicated, popular radio stations tried to limit

their play. In addition to Brown’s recording, 1968 was a pivotal year because black

consciousness advocates were strengthening in groups like the BPP and those associated

with black arts. With the development of the concepts of black pride and black self-

determination gaining momentum over the next few years more black musicians utilized

this for commentary in their songs and exemplified the way in which the music contains

didactic messages. Since the BPP addressed health concerns, such as offering free tests to

African Americans for sickle cell anemia, several musicians took an active role in

providing what the BPP was advocating for. At the fortieth anniversary gathering of the

BPP, Larry Little of the Winston Salem, North Carolina, branch of the BPP, described how

Marvin Gaye dedicated ‘What’s Going On’ to the party during a performance in Winston

Salem, and he described how James Brown donated £5,000 to the party’s ambulance

program and Eddie Kendricks stopped his show in Greensboro, North Carolina, in order to

give respect to the ambulance service and the BPP.28 Black pride fueled the willingness to

take an activist stand in overcoming racist obstacles, and the imagery and metaphors

produced by musicians of the BPM era gave blacks the feeling that change was possible.

This is a critical characteristic when a group of political and cultural activists are against a

political system that yields power and influence begrudgingly.

Black Power, often unfairly associated with angry voices and militant direct action,

inspired music that was not overtly angry or militant. Take, for example, the 1969

recording ‘To be Young, Gifted and Black’ by Nina Simone, which evokes emotion

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through the sound of her voice in an uplifting song that sees black pride as a path to

spiritual wholeness and transcendence:

To be young, gifted and black

Oh what a lovely precious dream

To be young, gifted and black

Open your heart to what I mean

When you feel really low

Yeah, there’s a great truth you should know

When you’re young, gifted and black

Your soul’s intact

Oh but my joy of today

Is that we can all be proud to say

To be young, gifted and black

Is where it’s at. (Simone & Irving, 1969)

These inspirational lyrics exemplify the motivational power of an affirmative definition of

what it means to be black. In terms of mobilization theory, this song’s affirmative lyrics

exemplify the impact that psychological and emotive causal mechanisms can have on

individual and collective identity development and on the surrounding cultural

environment.29 The lyrics also illustrate an empowered sense of black consciousness that

represents the desires of the BPM to create an essential identity that is complete and

sustainable, especially with the empowerment of black youth. Music that advocated for black

pride, though, often represented more than a desire for spiritual wholeness. When James

Brown, a popular rhythm and blues artist, recorded a black pride song with the lyrics ‘Say it

Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud’ in February 1968, he was immediately criticized by

conservative whites and blacks for recording such an angry and militant song, but the title

phrase became an often-used refrain for black activists. Brown blamed critical responses on

the lyrics ‘dying on your feet instead of living on you knees’ (Brown, 1986, p. 200):

We’d rather die on our feet

Than be livin’ on our knees

Say it loud, I’m black and I’m proud. (Brown & Ellis, 1968)

In fact, by 1969 the BPM had positively influenced every aspect of black life, from art to

politics. For example, black studies classes and programs were introduced into university

curriculums; the natural Afro hair style became popular with blacks; black politicians

included black issues in their political platforms, and black arts associations/societies

sprang up in communities throughout the USA. While there were pockets of blacks who

viewed the BPM as a militant threat or a slogan to fashionably keep up with while it was

popular, they could reap the benefits by no longer being dominated with negatives images

of blackness and African roots. This owes much to the successful realization of the

framing of the BPM’s goals and purposes by BPM proponents and activists.

It was musicians such as Pharoah Sanders and Archie Shepp who played the more

aggressive and spiritual music of Black Power themes and best represented the artists that

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retained focus on the real artistic and political purposes of the BPM. For example, Pharoah

Sanders released the album Black Unity in 1971 and Archie Shepp, ‘Blues for Brother

George Jackson’ in 1972. Shepp’s ‘Blues for Brother George Jackson’ was included on an

album entitled Attica Blues, which was a response to the brutal put down of a 1971

demonstration in New York’s Attica prison by armed authorities, and is an excellent

statement about the state of America’s prison system and its imprisonment of thousands of

black men, many of whom were black nationalists, black panthers, and black Muslims.

Shepp’s Attica Blues was an invocation:

Some people think that they are in their rights

When on command they take black people’s life

Well let me give a rundown on how I feel

If it ain’t natural then it ain’t real. (Harris, 1972)

The lyrics demand a critique of unequal relations of power and exploitation by referring to

a prison system’s willingness to authorize some individuals to kill black people, which is

an unnatural method of justice to humanity. Overall, Shepp’s album illustrates the real

consequences that an unjust court system can have on the daily lives of real people who

challenge what they believe is an unjust and exploitive legal system. In addition, Shepp’s

musical creation in Attica Blues, like much of the music of the BPM, is motivated by

aesthetic and political considerations that express a critical position towards the US

political system. This music attempts to voice issues of politics and race as they relate to

black identity and power.

Conclusion

Exploring the political and musical currents from the BPM reveals how intertwined and

symbiotic politics and art were in forming an African American movement to address the

inequalities of liberal democratic capitalism and the drawbacks of white aesthetic

standards. While the successes of the BPM have been under-appreciated and eclipsed by

black politically moderate aspirations, the overall influence of the BPM continues to exist

and is kept alive by scholars of politics, economics and culture. The BPM optimized the

political opportunities that began to open for black people in post-World War II America,

and it was also successful at creating some openings and solidifying organizational

operations. For example, as government attacks, such as arrests and harassment, on BPM

organizations increased, groups such as the BPP quickly elevated others into leadership

positions to replace arrested and deceased leaders. While demonstrating the strengths

of models like political opportunity and mobilization theory, the BPM and its music

component illustrate the need to expand these theories beyond assumptions of rational

actors and consider emotional conviction and cultural awareness as necessary components

of political opportunity. In addition, this analysis of the BPM illustrates that culture with

its attendant narratives and symbols is crucial for understanding political and social

movements. Music also illustrates what other observers, such as James Scott and Gary

Fine, have found when they identify movements as creators of their own culture and that

this creation can facilitate mobilization (Fine, 1985; Scott, 1990). For example, much of

the music of the BPM was written in response to BPM ideology and in turn ended up being

further inspiration for the BPM.

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The music of the BPM is divided into two areas: one, the more mainstream/commercial

music represented by rhythm and blues, such as the Temptations and James Brown; and

the other, artist/creative music represented by Archie Shepp, Horace Tapscott, and John

Coltrane.30 The fundamental difference between the popular mainstream black

consciousness music of musicians such as Brown and the Temptations, and the more

creative black consciousness music produced by jazz musicians such as Shepp, Tapscott,

and Coltrane is located in the area of black aesthetics. Unlike Brown and the Temptations,

Shepp, Tapscott, and Coltrane take black aesthetics out of the dominant assimilation of

Western aesthetics and places them more firmly within the African Diaspora, which offers

an alternative to European culture in articulating the black relationship to, for instance, the

culture and politics of the BPM. Musicians such as Shepp and Tapscott locate positions in

the music spectrum that make it possible to deconstruct Western European musical

boundaries and reconstruct black music methods and theories into forms that link better

with the ideology and goals of black culture and Black Power. Despite these differences,

both representations can combine as one form of music inspired by and for black culture,

politics, economics, and resistance. However, with the weakening of the former to the

forces of the marketplace, it was the latter that over time has proven to have the most

lasting affect by consistently producing music after 1972 that contains African American

and African themes. For example, from the jazz and artistic area, the Art Ensemble of

Chicago, whose motto was ‘Great Black Music: Ancient to the Future’, was a

representative force that continued to play music influenced by black themes, like its

Fanfare for the Warriors album of 1973. There are exceptions within the first area. For

example, several commercial musicians inconsistently continued to produce music that

contained aspects of racial pride and political rights, like the O’Jays’ ‘Give the People

What they Want’ and The Isley Brothers’ ‘Fight the Power’, both produced in 1975. Black

Power also represented a focused move in the economic system. For example,

businesspeople utilized it to advance black capitalism, with blacks as objects of marketing

and as consumers, especially in the retail and entertainment industries. In the area of music

Al Bell assumed ownership of Stax Records and transformed it from a focus on

mainstream music produced to appeal and sell to an integrated clientele to black

consumers, and by 1974 Stax Records was the fifth largest black-owned business in the

USA. Black consumers moved to purchase albums by Issac Hayes who assumed the

moniker ‘Black Moses’, and they attend the Shaft movies he composed the music for.

These endeavors became economically successful without overdependence on white

consumers.

Although there is a connection between the BPM and current black music, the question

is: why hasn’t the power of the political music in hip hop and rap resulted in more political

activism among listeners? In part it has, because there have been hip hop conventions31

and literature attesting to active politics surrounding the music (see, for example, Kitwana,

2003; Chang, 2005; Watkins, 2006). The remaining part is hindered by the constriction of

political opportunity openings and the lack of overwhelming injustices like segregation

and overt denials of civil rights that propelled the BPM. In addition, the overall political

conditions that existed during the BPM do not exist in twenty-first-century local, national,

or international politics. For example, locally blacks have assumed numerous political

offices, commission seats, and university positions. Nationally, African Americans have

assumed important positions in political and economic life leading to a typical left–right

continuum of political existence for the community. Internationally, Cold War politics has

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been replaced by a culture where terrorism is stressed as a danger that affects peoples of all

races and cultures. Generally, the multicultural and diversity discussions have neutralized

any serious organizations based on blackness. And corporate America has taken control of

the electronic media, which is centered on a few mega-conglomerates, thereby controlling

as never before the content of what reaches the general public. In addition, the Black

Power ideology that guided and inspired much of the music of the BPM does not exist in

an accessible way that music can ground itself in. This adds up to a system where the

political opportunities have changed to absorb the activists and their potential apprentices

in such a way as to prevent a movement to deal with current problems. In fact, the

extremism of many BPM advocates and positions assisted in opening political opportunities

wider for integrationist and moderate blacks. Except for the elimination of legalized

segregation, most of the same problems, such as high unemployment in African American

communities, low educational opportunities for young African Americans, a lack of decent

housing, and exploitation of African countries, particularly for natural resources such as oil

and uranium, continue to exist. Political elites are aware that when the tipping point is

reached moves have to be made to tilt society back in the direction of stability, which is a

lesson learned from the BPM. What pushes the needle to the tipping point is usually

opposition to the status quo, but this opposition is not focusing significantly on the enduring

problems.

The lack of an organized response can be responded to, for example, by further

investigations into the more complex and overlooked areas and influences on the BPM, like

the music. The current generation of activists and musicians can understand the intensity

that existed between 1966 and 1972, for instance, how opportunities were taken advantage

of and how mobilization served to increase and widen available opportunities. The fact that

a targeted system can initiate efforts to roll back political gains and tighten up political

openings, such as recent US Supreme Court decisions to limit desegregation policies

or Congressional attempts to threaten voting rights opportunities, indicates that once

opportunities are taken advantage of there has to be a sustained mobilization effort

along with political action to maintain previous gains and to seek additional payoffs.

As contemporary activists seek to regain intensity through hip hop music, for instance, they

may have to link their music concretely to political ideology and activism and again

confront the overly commercial nature of the music and musicians by record companies if

they are to have an impact with their culturally challenging music. As a result of the strong

role of commercialism, many hip hop and rap artists are successful at making money with

non-political themes, which limits the desire to engage the listeners at deeper levels of

cultural and political consciousness. The positive things a new generation could encounter

are a regenerated cultural and racial consciousness that comes to manifest itself in the

musical forms of the day, a strong sense of communion when participating in a collective

setting, and a commitment to cooperative efforts inspired by message music. The BPM

was strengthened in particular by one factor identified by Doug McAdams, who found

that a social movement thrives on the emergence of a collective consciousness among

challenging groups that encourages a belief that the movement is heading in a successful

direction (McAdam, 1982, p. 40). Since the political action of the BPM, the system has

responded by shrinking opportunity openings, which means that contemporary challenging

groups will have to achieve a high degree of intensity and new forms of political organizing

to compel the system to widen opportunities again.

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This analysis of the BPM in relation to the concept of political opportunity structure

can also show current activists that it takes organization, commitment and ideology to

effectively challenge an entrenched system of social and political inequalities. What the

evidence from political opportunity theory also indicates is that the intensity of emotion

and intellect expended by BPM activists would not have happened if the political system

did not flex and yield the opportunity as it did. The political opportunity model must allow

for opposition groups to create their own opportunities. Sidney Tarrow agrees and argues

that the characteristics and resources of a movement may determine which aspects of the

political opportunity structure most affect its development and success, with the point

being that movements create opportunities for themselves (Tarrow, 1996, p. 59). For

example, blacks in the USA have been resisting since the first days of slavery, when, for

example, the Underground Railroad created openings. And since the end of slavery, once a

political concession is made blacks have built on that small opportunity. The BPM was

able to push the political system to the point where it responded by making concessions

with moderate black agitators, but by doing so the system limited the ability of radicals to

fully take advantage of opportunities. Consider the BPM and voter registration. By helping

to acquire this right in Mississippi, black activist voter registrants increased their

opportunities for pressing their claim for registration throughout the South. The result is a

continuously changing political context affected by blacks being voted in and out of

political office and belonging to different parties. However, the system continues to

narrow and even close political opportunities, and political music, especially message

lyrics and African rhythms, can keep a threatened movement alive. Music’s role in the

development of a black collective consciousness cannot be overstated.

Resistance expressed through music worked as an effective means of mobilizing

activists and sending Black Power messages to the targets of resistance. Music has been a

useful tool for marginalized blacks to assert their dissatisfaction with their situation and

their resistance to the hegemonic nature of the dominant class. In this sense, music is a

form of symbolic resistance. The observations of current and former members of the BPP

attest to this fact. The BPM inspired numerous composers to write music on and about the

movement. For example, the Black Power philosophies from young movement activists,

who themselves were influenced by Malcolm X, and black consciousness voices, led many

jazz musicians to record songs based on that philosophy. In addition, a wide cross-section

of musicians actively participated in movement activities, such as fund raising and

speaking. Despite FBI crackdowns in 1972 on radical black activists like the BPP and a

slowing of active radical black political engagement, the political opportunities that were

taken advantage of have left a legacy of political openings and new opportunities. It should

also be stated that these attacks, along with the cooptation and takeover of black music by

corporate interests, combined to weaken the BPM and help to reestablish some of the

barriers to political opportunities for blacks. Because Black Power is more than a slogan

that signifies how many records are sold or what the clothing style is today but instead is a

coherent set of values that provides a strong sense of self and a belief in the power of

economic self-sufficiency and political representation, efforts at weakening the BPM were

not completely successful. Since the BPM reset the black experience into a communal

experience and restored history for African Americans, corporate attempts to

commercialize Black Power and political attempts to narrow political opportunities

have met resistance. Music is a critical part of this restoration of history and resistance to

negative images, and the links between political ideology, political action and music make

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it clear that ‘Black Power’ and ‘we’re a winner’ and ‘black is beautiful’ are statements of

an affirmative ideology that reflects the desire for black people to shape their own identity

and their own future. There is no easy way to homogenize and sanitize the BPM, just as

there is no way it can be reduced to the violent stereotypes also associated with it. Instead,

analysts and artists need to return to the BPM and observe more carefully how this

movement began, evolved, and sustained itself to become, decades later, a model of

significant continuance.

Notes

1. This was the first album released on Mayfield’s Curtom Records.

2. Carmichael also adopted the slogan ‘black is beautiful’, which was a call for blacks to reject t white values,

including their style of dress (pp. 44–45).

3. Stokely Carmichael speech on 29 October 1966 in Berkeley, California.

4. The concept of Black Power helped to deal with what Fanon describes as the subjective and psychological

process of the formation of black identity as a dual process defined by the corporeal schema and the historico-

racial schema that leads to a sense of having a split identity (Fanon, 1967, p. 111).

5. Political opportunity depends on how open or closed the target (government and/or leadership) is to

challenges and what opportunities and constraints these entities place on a movement.

6. For informative analyses of the BPP positions and alliances see, for example, Anderson (2005), Jones (1998),

and Pearson (1994).

7. Sidney Tarrow explains this phenomenon as ‘dynamic statism’, whereby states are understood to be fluid,

changeable bodies, and not rigid institutions. Tarrow states that entire political systems undergo changes that

modify the environment of social actors sufficiently to influence the initiation, forms, and outcomes of

collective action.

8. John McCarthy and Mayer Zald compare and contrast traditional and resource mobilization interpretations

(see McCarthy & Zald, 1987). There are areas of overlap where aspects of the BPM share characteristics of

the resource mobilization model, such as mobilizing supporters and/or transforming mass and elite publics

into sympathizers.

9. Al Bell quote from the documentary Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story (2007).

10. Examples of scholars relating music and resistance include Pratt (1994), Lipsitz (1994), and Sakolsky (1995).

11. Portia Maultsby, in ‘Soul music: its sociological and political significance in American pop culture’, presents

a useful discussion on how group identity is reinforced through music content (Maultsby, 1983).

12. Personal interview with Michael McCarty on 28 August 2006.

13. Ibid.

14. See Scott Saul’s Freedom Is, Freedom Ain’t in which he explores revolutionary jazz as it engaged with the

BPM through examples, such as John Coltrane and Max Roach (Saul, 2005). See also Carles and Comolli’s

view of jazz from a Marxist perspective in Free Jazz/Black Power (Carles & Comolli, 1971).

15. Jones asks the question: what would a white person do who finds himself inside the space of James Brown?

The implication being that they would not understand their situation or appreciate the space. LeRoi Jones

later changed his name to Amiri Baraka.

16. References to the music are minor in Tyson’s book, but the discussion of Williams’ politics is another good

example of crucial areas of the movement that can be lost when the focus is on memories of only one or two

aspects and/or individuals associated with the movement, because it was lesser known activists like Williams

and their contributions who were critical to the progress of black political, social, and cultural power. Robert

Williams’ Negroes with Guns (Williams, 1962), which called for armed black self-defense, influenced Huey

Newton’s draft of the Black Panther Party platform.

17. Interview with Michael McCarty on 28 August 2006.

18. Email interview with Elbert Howard, dated 31 October 2006.

19. Ibid.

20. Ibid.

21. Ibid.

22. Alkebu-lan starts with a four-minute narrative that describes the role of their music in the service of black

nationalism (Mtume, 1972).

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23. The cultural versus commercial motivations of the Temptations (and Motown’s Berry Gordy in particular)

can certainly be called into question since the year 1969 found them recording not only ‘Message to the Black

Man’ but also psychedelic rock-tinged songs like ‘Ball of Confusion’ and ‘Psychedelic Shack’. In addition,

their recording of ‘Papa was a Rolling Stone’ offered up a stereotypical image of black fatherhood.

24. James Brown, the writer and collaborator of this song, could have easily recorded it himself, as a companion

piece to follow up ‘Say it Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud’, but he did not, presumably as a result of his own

concerns about market share and some degree of exploitation of the black identity movement.

25. Verney reports that James Brown owned three stations that he used in order to fund his lifestyle rather than

further racial ideals.

26. There were exceptions to this rule. For example, jazz musicians such as Wes Montgomery, George Benson,

and Grover Washington, Jr released music that could be categorized as mainstream/popular in the 1960s.

Miles Davis is arguably in the middle of this area, and he did release African themed music, such as

‘Nefertiti’ and ‘Filles de Kilimanjaro’.

27. Kelly also refers readers to Graham Locke’s Blutopia: Visions of the Future and Revisions of the Past in the

Work of Sun Ra, Duke Ellington, and Anthony Braxton (Locke, 1999) and Norman Weinstein’s A Night in

Tunisia as further in-depth discussions of this point.

28. Larry Little lecture on 14 October 2006 at the fortieth anniversary meeting of the Black Panther Party in

Oakland, California.

29. For useful discussions on the emotive and cognitive effect on identity see Goodwin et al. (2000), and Swidler

and Brysk (1996).

30. Much of the music from this creative side was associated with the Black Arts Movement, which arose in the

mid-1960s and focused on the identification of the African contribution to US culture. The Art Ensemble of

Chicago and the Mtume Umoja Ensemble are examples of the movement.

31. The National Hip Hop Political Convention has met in Newark (June 2004) and Chicago (July 2006).

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Kelly, R. D. G. (2002) Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination (Boston: Beacon Press).

Kitwana, B. (2003) The Hip Hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African American Culture

(New York: Basic Civitas Books).

Kofsky, F. (1970a) Black Nationalism and the Revolution in Music (New York: Pathfinder Press).

Kofsky, F. (1970b) John Coltrane and the Jazz Revolution of the 1960s (New York: Pathfinder Press).

Lipsitz, G. (1994) Dangerous Crossroads: Popular Music, Postmodernism, and the Poetics of Place (New York:

Verso).

Locke, G. (1999) Blutopia: Visions of the Future and Revisions of the Past in the Work of Sun Ra, Duke Ellington,

and Anthony Braxton (Durham, NC: Duke University Press).

Maultsby, P. (1983) Soul music: its sociological and political significance in American pop culture, Journal of

Popular Culture, 17(2), pp. 51–60.

McAdam, D. (1982) Political Process and the Development of the Black Insurgency, 1930–1970 (Chicago:

University of Chicago Press).

McAdam, D., McCarthy, J. & Zald, M. (1996) Introduction: opportunities, mobilizing structures, and framing

processes – toward a synthetic, comparative perspective on social movements, in: D. McAdam, J. McCarthy

& M. Zald (Eds) Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements, pp. 1–22 (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press).

McCarthy, J. & Zald, M. (1987) Resource mobilization and social movements: a partial theory, in: M. Zald &

J. McCarthy (Eds) Social Movements in an Organizational Society, pp. 15–48 (New Brunswick, NJ:

Transaction).

McCormack, D. J. (1973) Stokely Carmichael and Pan-Africanism: back to Black Power, Journal of Politics,

35(2), pp. 386–409.

Meyer, D. & Minkoff, D. (2004) Conceptualizing political opportunity, Social Forces, 82(4), pp. 1457–1492.

Miller, L. & Skipper, J. (1972) Sounds of black protest in avant garde jazz, in: S. Denisoff & R. Peterson (Eds)

The Sounds of Social Change, pp. 26–37 (Chicago: Rand McNally).

Neal, L. (1968) The Black Arts Movement, The Drama Review, 12(4), pp. 29–39.

Neal, M. A. (1997) Sold out on soul: the corporate annexation of black popular music, Popular Music and Society,

21(3), pp. 117–135.

Ogbar, J. O. G. (2004) Radical Politics and African American Identity (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University

Press).

Pearson, H. (1994) The Shadow of the Panther: Huey Newton and the Price of Black Power in America

(New York: Addison-Wesley).

Pratt, R. (1994)RhythmandResistance: ThePoliticalUses of PopularMusic (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books).

Reed, A. Jr (1999) Stirrings in the Jug: Black Politics in the Post-segregation Era (Minneapolis: University of

Minnesota Press).

Sakolsky, R. (Ed.) (1995) Sounding Off: Music as Subversion, Resistance, Revolution (New York: Autonomedia).

Saul, S. (2005) Freedom Is, Freedom Ain’t: Jazz and the Making of the Sixties (Cambridge, MA: Harvard

University Press).

Scott, J. (1990) Domination and the Arts of Resistance (New Haven: Yale University Press).

Smethurst, J. E. (2005) The Black Arts Movement: Literary Nationalism in the 1960s and 1970s (Chapel Hill:

University of North Carolina Press).

Swidler, A. & Brysk, A. (1996) Culture in action: symbols and strategies, American Sociological Review, 51(2),

pp. 273–286.

Tarrow, S. (1996) States and opportunities: the political structuring of social movements, in: D. McAdam,

J. McCarthy & M. Zald (Eds) Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements, pp. 41–61 (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press).

Thompson, D. (2001) Funk (San Francisco: Backbeat Books).

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Tilly, C., Tilly, L. & Tilly, R. (1975) The Rebellious Century, 1830–1975 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University

Press).

Tyson, T. (1999) Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams and the Roots of Black Power (Chapel Hill: University of

North Carolina Press).

Van Deburg, W. L. (1993) New Day in Babylon: The Black Power Movement and American Culture, 1965–1975

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press).

Verney, K. (2003) African Americans and US Popular Culture (New York: Routledge).

Ward, B. (1998) Just My Soul Responding: Rhythm and Blues, Black Consciousness, and Race Relations

(Berkeley: University of California Press).

Watkins, S. C. (2006) Hip Hop Matters: Politics, Pop Culture, and the Struggle for the Soul of a Movement

(Boston: Beacon Press).

Weinstein, N. C. (1992) A Night in Tunisia: Imaginings of Africa in Jazz (New Jersey: Scarecrow Press).

Werner, C. (1998) A Change is Gonna Come: Music, Race and the Soul of America (New York: Plume Books).

Williams, R. (1962) Negroes with Guns (New York: Marzani & Munsell).

Music Lyrics

Brown, E. (1969) ‘Seize the Time’, Hollywood, Vault 131.

Brown, J. (1969) ‘Blackenized’, Performed by Hank Ballard, King 6246.

Brown, J. & Ellis, A. J. (1968) ‘Say it Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud’, King 1041.

Gaye, M. (1971) ‘Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)’, What’s Going On, Tamla 54201.

Harris, W., narrated by Knustler, W. (1972) ‘Invocation’, on Archie Shepp, Attica Blues, Impulse 9222.

Mayfield, C. (1967) ‘We’re a Winner’, Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions: The Anthology, 1961–1977,

MCAD2-10664, MCA Records.

Mayfield, C. (1968) ‘This is My Country’, This is My Country, CRS8001.

Mayfield, C. (1971) Curtis Live, Curtom 8008.

Mtume (1972) ‘Invocation’, Mtume Umoja Ensemble, Alkebu-lan, Strata-East SES 19724.

Scott-Heron, G. (1970) ‘The Revolution Will Not be Televised’, Bienstock, ASCAP.

Simone, N. & Irving, W. Jr (1969) ‘To be Young, Gifted and Black’, Performed by Nina Simone, RCA 47-0269.

Stevenson, W., Gaye, M. & Hunter, I. (1964) ‘Dancing in the Street’, Performed by Martha and the Vandellas,

Gordy 7033.

Strong, B. & Whitfield, N. (1969) ‘Message from a Black Man’, Performed by the Temptations, Gordy 949.

Interviews/Emails/Lectures

Email interview with Elbert Howard, 31 October 2006.

Little, L. (2006) Lecture at the fortieth anniversary meeting of the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California,

14 October.

Personal interview with Michael McCarty, 28 August 2006.

Michael Torrance interview on KPFA in Berkeley, California, 13 October 2006.

Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story (2007) (Beverly Hills: Concord Music Group).

Gregory K. Freeland has a PhD in Political Science, is Chair of the Department of

Political Science and Director of the Center for Equality and Justice, at California

Lutheran University. Professor Freeland teaches classes on music and the Civil Rights

Movement, multiculturalism, race, and politics. Professor Freeland has studied and written

on music and politics and culture of the Civil Rights Movement, and received several

study grants and fellowships from organizations, including the Haynes Foundation and the

National Endowment for the Humanities and the Council of Independent Colleges. He is a

member of the American Political Science Association and the Board of the African

American Leadership Commission.

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