Black Power: Radical Politics
and African American Identity
March 9, 2005
Jeffrey Ogbonna Green Ogbar is from Los Angeles, California. Jeffrey received his BA in History and a minor in African studies from Morehouse College in Atlanta ('91). He earned his MA ('93) and Ph.D. ('97) in U.S. History with a minor in African studies from Indiana University in Bloomington. In 1993, the National Council for Black Studies awarded Jeffery the Ella Baker-W.E.B. Du Bois Essay Award for its graduate division contest.
Since 1997, he has taught at the University of Connecticut's Department of History. Dr. Ogbar studies black nationalism and radical social protest. He has developed courses, lectured and published articles on subjects as varied as Pan-Africanism, African American Catholics, civil rights struggles, black nationalism and hip-hop. Source: University of Connecticut
Black Power: Radical Politics and African American Identity In the 1960s, the Nation of Islam and the Black Panther Party gave voice to many economically disadvantaged and politically isolated African Americans, especially outside the South. Though vilified as extremist and marginal, they were formidable agents of influence and change during the civil rights era and ultimately shaped the Black Power movement. In this fresh study, drawing on deep archival research and interviews with key participants, Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar reconsiders the commingled stories of -- and popular reactions to -- the Nation of Islam, Black Panthers, and mainstream civil rights leaders. Ogbar finds that many African Americans embraced the seemingly contradictory political agenda of desegregation and nationalism. Indeed, black nationalism was far more favorably received among African Americans than historians have previously acknowledged. "Black Power" reveals a civil rights movement in which the ideals of desegregation through nonviolence and black nationalism marched side by side.
Ogbar concludes that Black Power had more lasting cultural consequences among African Americans and others than did the civil rights movement, engendering minority pride and influencing the political, cultural, and religious spheres of mainstream African American life for the next three decades.
Dr. Ogbar’s book is readily available through Connecticut’s Public Library system, Amazon.com and
Recommended Reading:
Associate Professor Peter Baldwin
University of Connecticut, History Department
Secondary Source
Ogbar, Black Power: Radical Politics and African American Identity Chapter 2 – “There Go My People” The Civil Righrs Movement, Black Nationalism, and Black Power
Primary Sources - Each document contains background information on the primary source as well as a number of essential questions.
Black Panther Party Platform and Program October, 1966
Full text available online at the following link
Elijah Muhammad: “Know Thyself” and “From A Program for Self-Development” [Chapters from Message to the Blackman in America by Elijah Muhammad, 1965]
Huey Newton: “In Defense of Self-Defense” June 20, 1967 Available online at the folling link
J. Edgar Hoover: “Memorandum to Special Agent in Charge” August, 1967
Malcolm X: “Message to the Grass Roots” November, 1963
Full text available online at the following link
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