Black Power, Survival Programs & Research Strategies

Students noted the striking closing credits of the documentary and the pervasive theme of political assassination in the 1960s.
Angela Davis’ jailhouse interview highlighted the question: “Violence for whom?”—she reframed violence as ever-present against Black people, shifting the debate to self-defence.
Stokely Carmichael (later Kwame Ture) impressed students with his rhetorical power and the generational contrast he drew with earlier civil-rights leaders.
Conspiracy theories surfaced repeatedly in the film; scholars now see credible (though still circumstantial) evidence that the Nation of Islam had prior knowledge of Malcolm X’s assassination.

Not a single, unified organisation—better understood as an umbrella for many groups, ideologies and local realities.
Contrast with the classical 1955-65 “Civil-Rights Movement”:
- Civil rights often sought federal enforcement of existing laws.
- Black Power more openly embraced self-determination, community control and, when necessary, armed self-defence.
Williams’ Monroe, NC armed-defence groups and the Black Panther Party exemplify the shift from “petitioning the state” to “supplementing or replacing” it.

Stokely Carmichael (SNCC chair; popularised the slogan “Black Power” during the 1966 March Against Fear).
Martin Luther King Jr.—initially wary of the slogan, fearing it would be painted as violent or separatist.
Black Panther Party (BPP):
- Founded 1966 in Oakland by Huey P. Newton & Bobby Seale.
- Ten-Point Program stressed survival and community self-help.
Angela Davis—interview from jail became emblematic of intellectual clarity on systemic violence.
Robert F. Williams—earlier armed-defence advocate in Monroe, NC.
Fred Hampton & Mark Clark—Chicago Panther leaders killed in police/FBI raid (1969), illustrating state repression.

Free Breakfast for Children, free medical & legal clinics, patrols against police brutality.
Direct inspiration for California’s—and later the federal—school meal mandates.
→ Concrete long-term policy impact far beyond radical image.
Approach: “If the state fails, we provide.” This challenged the legitimacy of government services.

FBI’s Counter-Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) targeted Black radicals, New Left, anti-war activists.
Tactics: infiltration, wire-taps, forged letters, instigating intra-movement violence (e.g., UCLA shoot-out, provocations leading to armed clashes).
Panthers ultimately removed “Self-Defence” from their name to blunt media/FBI framing, though practices remained.

Late-60s/early-70s proliferation: Chicano, Red Power/American-Indian, Women’s Liberation, anti-war, global anti-imperialist struggles (Vietnam, Algeria, etc.).
Shared vocabulary: “Power,” “Liberation,” “Self-Determination.”
→ Demonstrates how Black Power provided a template and rhetorical toolkit.

Goal: Produce a focused narrative inquiry on ONE aspect of a social movement.
Deliverables this week:
1. Clear “narrowed” object of inquiry (person, event, policy, local chapter, etc.).
2. Preliminary claim (expected to evolve).
3. Intro + first body paragraph draft by Friday night.
Emphasis on specificity: broad generalisations distort; drill down on who did what, why, and with what consequences.

Personal Librarian (PL): every Yale student is randomly assigned one; invaluable for database tutorials, field-specialist referrals, and “where do I start?” emails.
- Find via Yale Library → Resources → Students → Personal Librarian.
Use call-numbers as geography: once a standard monograph is located, browse adjacent shelves for related titles.
Electronic vs. physical: even if PDFs exist, visit the stacks at least once to survey what else sits nearby.
Stacks request service: place holds, but summer staffing can delay retrieval; balance convenience vs. speed.
BorrowDirect & Inter-Library Loan: 72-hour turnaround regionally; west-coast items slower—use only if essential under FSY’s tight timeline.

Prioritise single-volume scholarly monographs & heavily cited journal articles.
→ Google Scholar’s citation count = quick proxy for influence.
If topic is ultra-current (e.g. 2024 Gaza campus encampments), older analogues (e.g. earlier Palestine Solidarity or anti-apartheid campaigns) may frame your inquiry, but shelves will be sparse; piece together via specialised databases, news archives, oral histories.

Primary: produced at the time/by participants (e.g., 1960s Panther newspapers, speeches, 1970 TV Guide article on Black Power’s foreign reception).
Secondary: later scholarly analysis (books, peer-reviewed articles).
Rule-of-thumb: author + publication date in the historical moment → primary; retrospective academic study → secondary.

No full “literature-review” section required; weave scholarship into argument as needed.
Introduce heavily used or argumentative sources with minimal identification:
“Historian Angela Davis, author of If They Come in the Morning, argues …”
Balance depth: some sources may only supply data; others will be interlocutors you critique or extend.
Minimum scholarly sources: $\ge 6$ ; mix of primary & secondary is expected.
Non-scholarly items (news clips, organisational pamphlets, interviews) allowed but do NOT count toward the 6-source floor.

Between now and Friday:
• Identify 1–2 canonical works; locate them physically.
• Start annotated bibliography skeleton.
• Draft introduction + first body paragraph.
Email instructor with source-type uncertainties; guidance is formative, not punitive.
Friday class will cover: integrating quotations, assessing credibility on the fly, and refining claims.