Black Power

English

Alternative forms

• black power

Etymology

From Richard Wright's book Black Power (1954), describing his travels to the Gold Coast and the rise of Pan-Africanism. In a US context later popularized by Stokely Carmichael.

Noun

Black Power (uncountable)

1. A slogan and movement supporting Black self-determination and sometimes separatism, especially in the US in the 1960s and 1970s.

   Coordinate term: Red Power

   • 1970 June 8, Tom Wolfe, “Radical Chic: That Party at Lenny's”, in New York Magazine‎^[1]:

     Meanwhile, Black Power groups such as SNCC and the Black Panthers were voicing support for the Arabs against Israel. This sometimes looked like a mere matter of black nationalism; after all, Egypt was a part of Africa, and black nationalist literature sometimes seemed to identify the Arabs as blacks fighting the white Israelis.

   • 1975, Fela Kuti (lyrics and music), “Water No Get Enemy”, in Expensive Shit:

     I dey talk of Black power, I say (Water, him no get enemy!)

   • 2006 June 19, Peniel E. Joseph, “Black Power's Quiet Side”, in The New York Times‎^[2], →ISSN:

     “Black Power” quickly became the controversial slogan for a movement that was largely perceived as rejecting the civil rights movement's nonviolent tactics and goals of integration in favor of a new ethos of black identity, self-defense and separatism.

See also

• Black Panthers
• civil rights
• Black liberation

Further reading

• Black Power on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “Black Power”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “Black Power”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.

Swedish

Etymology

Borrowed from English Black Power.

Noun

Black Power

1. Black Power

   Synonym: (less common) svart makt