‘To understand UK Black Power, one must define what identity, community control, anti-colonialism and internationalism meant in the UK context. Of all of these, identity is the most important, and Black Power’s most significant and enduring achievements in the United Kingdom lay in this sphere’. Do you agree?
Module: Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration: Britain from the 1905 Aliens Act to Brexit
By Tania Bedi
As Commonwealth subjects of colour migrated to Britain during the immediate post-war period, their lives residing within the metropole were overcast with experiences of ‘institutional racism in housing, employment, and education,’ whilst they also faced the consequences of racist immigration laws, that ‘dramatically undermined the mythical notion of universal British subject-hood’.[1] A history of radical Black politics within Britain did exist, both during the inter-war period and in the aftermath of war, and were especially concerned with the ideals of Pan-Africanism and anti-colonialism.[2] However, by the late 1960s, Black communities began to recognise the necessity for a more uniform, wide-reaching civil rights movement within Britain, thus signalling the emergence of a British Black Power movement. Although it is often viewed as a derivative of the US movement, British Black Power had particular British accents that dealt with distinctly British concerns. Nonetheless, the study of the Black Power movement in Britain still remains vastly under-researched compared to its American counterparts. Therefore, there remains a limited collection of historiography that offers contemporary opinion on what the most important aspects or legacies of the British movement were. Rosie Wild is one of the few to offer this opinion, arguing: ‘to understand UK Black Power, one must define what identity, community control, anti-colonialism, and internationalism meant in the UK context. Of all of these, identity is the most important, and Black Power’s most significant and enduring achievements in the United Kingdom lay in this sphere.’[3]
This essay does not disagree. Identity did serve to be the most important, as the formation of a collective Black identity provided the foundations for the Black Power strategy, as well as the coherence that the movement needed. This identity included the reclaiming of culture, history and the formation of a ‘political blackness.’ Moreover, although Black Power ultimately failed in its transformative goals, this essay will demonstrate how the formation of a political identity, as stated by Wild, was the most prominent victory within defeat and its most ‘enduring achievement.’ Firstly, this essay will explore the origins of Black Power in Britain and determine what exactly the formation of an identity encompassed and why it was so crucial to the movement, focusing especially on the United Coloured People’s Association (UCPA). (Notably, it will ensure to distinguish that the UCPA was not solely representative of overall movement). Then, looking briefly at the three other aspects that Wild mentions, it will survey their significance but demonstrate why, ultimately, identity was most important. Lastly, it will argue that a political identity was the movement’s most significant and enduring achievement, despite recent contentions against the notion of a ‘political blackness’.
The formal beginning of the British Black Power movement can be pinpointed to Stokely Carmichael’s visit to London and his speech at the Dialects of Liberation Conference in July 1967.[4] At this moment there were examples of nascent Black Power groups in the Britain, namely: the Racial Action Adjustment Society (RAAS) (1965) and the UCPA (June 1967). However, the speech seemed to cause a surge of interest in Black Power as ‘within a week of Carmichael’s Roundhouse speech, the UCPA had expelled its white members and adopted the ideology of Black Power, and several other organisations soon mobilised under the header of Black Power,’ including (most prominently), the Black Panther Movement (1968), Black Unity and Freedom Party (1970), The Fasimba (1970) and the Black Liberation Front (1971).[5] These early years of British Black Power were overwhelmed with a lack of a coherent direction and ability to define exactly what the movement aimed to achieve and stood for. This exposed the manifold of factions within the movement and more crucially within individual organisations. Thus, Robin Bunce and Paul Field state that within these early years the movement was ‘yet to become a serious political force’ and was instead ‘a movement of dabblers dominated by nationalist rhetoric.’[6]
Due to the broadness of Black Power and the risk of the movement being dismantled on the grounds of mounting tensions and conflicts, (which were especially escalating within the UCPA), a unity of purpose was required. American civil-rights activists, Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton, offered advice to their British counterparts, stating that a Black Identity needed to be cultivated as a solution.[7] Although a ‘black identity’ is a notoriously difficult concept to define, within this context it essentially encapsulated the ‘recognition of a distinct culture through black solidarity, pride and history.’[8] The promotion of black history and the notion that African, Caribbean and Asian people had rich cultural heritages that Western education refused to acknowledge was particularly crucial and especially enabled Black communities to develop a ‘positive image’ of themselves.[9] This was achieved through separate educational campaigns for Black youth and adults, run by various Black Power organisations.[10]
The argument here was that Black Britons could not gain an equal footing within British society without embracing their own self, roots and traditions and therefore rejecting assimilation. Obi B. Egbuna, the leader of the UCPA, was especially vocal of the danger of assimilation, believing that it was a renouncement of Black cultures in a bid for acceptance, and thus the admittance that ‘White equalled Beautiful.’[11] He expanded on such thinking further during his imprisonment for inciting racial hatred (in 1968), stating that unless a Black identity was formed and underpinned a revolution, the Black man in England would continue to be exploited.[12] Although many did not agree with Egbuna’s more radical ideas (such as black separatism from White anti-racist activists) there was a consensus surrounding the necessity of a shared Black identity. The community structure necessary for achieving the transformative aims and ‘survival’ techniques of Black power (such as combating the likes of police brutality) required a united front within the movement.
The discussion led by American civil rights activist James Baldwin at the West Indian Student Centre in London in 1969, serves as an example, that although different ideas on the course of Black Power circulated within a room, (such as opinions over collations with white activists), the emphasis placed on the necessity of a ‘black identity’ remained prevalent. Baldwin articulated that whether a Black individual viewed their identity as a product of their ‘Roots’ (that being the direct origin of their heritage) or their ‘Routes’ (the historical journey of the Black individual that had led to the spread of a Black diaspora), there had to be a politics that allowed Black communities to extricate their own history and use Black Pride as a way of ‘striking off the chains’ (of white supremacy) within their minds.[13] In fact, Baldwin’s definition of Black Power as the ‘self-determination of people,’ in order to ‘control their own destiny,’ essentially placed identity or the ‘Black personality’ as the movement’s key route to transforming a racialised society.[14] It was an intellectual resistance, an essential precondition to any revolution. These notions were often built through the reading of Black literature produced by activists and intellectuals, including Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey and Franz Fanon. As Rob Waters explains, these books ‘were objects in, and ways into, new political campaigns and a wider political formation.’[15]
However, the formation of an ‘identity’ also encouraged an activism that was very much physically expressed by Black Power members. For instance, Tanisha Ford highlights the importance of the expression of cultural identity and ‘Soul Power’, particularly by Black youths. Within the British Black Panther movement especially, black youths noticed that the main battle was one for ‘dignity and identity’ in which their clothing was critical. [16] Moreover, these teens ‘boldly engaged in cultural practices such as buying and performing traditional black music and dance, forming their own black institutions, and exhibiting distinctive practices in a country that upheld whiteness…allowing them to establishing their own black cultural aesthetic in Britain.’[17] These political statements were key routes through which Black Power attempted to transform British society into accepting Black cultural norms and traditions. Black style cultures as a form of anti-racist activism were imperative to Black Power articulations, and increased in popularity within the metropole following this embracement of Blackness. As Paul Gilroy explored the transnational frame of Black Power, his analysis touched on the importance of music styles, such as Reggae and Soul music, and their use as political statements. He states: ‘the struggles for civil rights, black power, racial equality or freedom from police harassment which are celebrated and transmitted’ by these music’s generated ‘demands which could not be contained within the structures of the contemporary British political system as it stood…thus they provided a source of affinity with black cultures elsewhere.’[18]
Essential to a Black British identity was also the formation of a political Blackness. Although Black Power groups may have adopted different ideological routes, most were politically black. ‘Political blackness was a unifying reaction to the shared experience of the states racialisation of British society,’ uniting individuals from African, Caribbean and Asian migrant communities as Black peoples, allowing them to form ‘community-based’ responses to racial inequality.[19] Immigrants of colour, regardless of their background shared a common experience of institutional racist structures within British society, manifesting through informal colour bar in workplaces, racial discrimination in housing, policing, state produced immigration controls and violence against migrant communities.[20] This political meaning also derived from its anti-colonial provenance.’[21] Thus, the UCPA argued that history was now being driven by the formation of two ‘irreconcilable camps’ between those from ‘Asia, Africa, the Caribbean and the Americas’ and ‘Western imperialist’ nations.[22] The organisation stressed that the ‘black consciousness,’ provided by the comprehension and embracement of political blackness was essential to any physical acts of activism that could proceed.[23] A political identity held the upmost importance as it provided the foundations for members of the British Black Power to recognise, comprehend and deal with such racisms in the pursuit of racial equality and justice.
There were of course, three other aspects of British Black Power that Wild presents as necessary to understanding the movement. Firstly this included ‘community control.’[24] This was primarily defined as self-sufficiency of Black communities, through the control of their own institutions. Black communities became committed to this notion of self-sufficiency and by the mid-1970s the likes of Brixton became ‘”Britain’s Black utopia” with a host of businesses that projected a powerful, black aesthetic.’[25] Black Power organisations also focused on creating ‘independent educational, welfare, and recreational facilities,’ whilst refusing government funding for such self-help programmes (including homeless hostels, legal advocacy services, and supplementary schools).’[26] There were also self-defence programmes offered to black communities, including training their individuals in martial arts, patrolling the streets and monitoring the behaviour of the police.[27]
Carmichael and Hamilton had made it explicit that Black Power rested ‘on a fundamental premise: before a group can enter the open society, it must first close its ranks…By this we mean that group solidarity is necessary before a group can operate effectively in a pluralistic society.’[28] Community control was emblematic of this ‘solidarity’ and was therefore a crucial element of Black Power. However, group solidarity would not have been possible without a shared Black identity that provided the understanding as to why a self-sufficient approach was necessary. Essentially ‘community control’ was the physical consequences and realities that emerged from intellectual conceptions of a Black identity and Black consciousness, thus the formation of an identity, as Wild states can be regarded as most important. Nonetheless, these aspects of Black Power were often recognised as part of the same process. As A. Sivanandan explained: ‘the measure of equality meted out to a people in such a society would depend on their strength as a group… pride in himself and his heritage and control of the institutions that governed his immediate life were, therefore, the prerequisites of the group persona that he would have to develop before he entered the ‘open society’- or in fact change society.’[29]
The traditions of anti-colonial politics were also imperative to the Black Power movement as it ‘was built in constant dialogue with anti-colonial liberation struggles.’[30] A majority of individuals involved within Black Power had either migrated from a ‘new’ Commonwealth nation or were second-generation immigrants. This Black Power anti-colonialism however, differed in comparison to its earlier forms. Thus, the movement initiated much effort and resources into supporting and campaigning for anti-colonial movements across Asia and Africa, drawing on ‘a strong tradition of metropolitan anti-colonialism.’[31] Although it was concerned with the liberation of remaining colonies, it was also occupied with activism surrounding the ‘secondary decolonisation’ of many former-colonies, who found their political, economic and cultural sectors under a continued colonial order.[32]
In addition, a more general international outlook was also an imperative aspect of British Black Power. As Egbuna had stated: “We do not dream for one moment that the Black people in Britain can organise themselves as a unit totally separate from other Black forces in the world. Black Power is an international concept,”[33] Internationalism was concerned with the ‘theoretical underpinnings for Black Power, distinct from anti-colonialism…by taking a global perspective, black people could see themselves as part of a world majority, rather than a national minority.’[34] These conceptual notions of a wider Black liberation struggle were crucial in the development of a ‘black consciousness,’ bolstering the notion of strength in numbers.’[35]
The notions of internationalism and anti-colonialism, which revolved around comprehensions of anti-imperialism, especially helped to create a uniquely Black British identity in the form of a political blackness. As John Narayan states: ‘British Black Power’s embrace of political blackness was not simply a reflection of the divisions of UK race relations but was also informed by a shared history of colonial exploitation and neo-imperialism in the Third World.’[36] Simultaneously, it was with this collective Black identity that allowed Black Power organisations to translate the activisms associated with secondary decolonisation campaigns and international fights for freedom into its British context. Political Blackness allowed nuanced understandings of the post-colonial world. This provided the movement with a rationality that enabled its members to situate different elements of oppression, faced both domestically and globally, within the same plane, resulting in the production of generally united strategies and modes of activism, such as the self-sufficient programmes (devoid of collaborations with white individuals) as mentioned above.
Overall, the Black Power movement ultimately failed to achieve its main goal, that being the ‘fundamental alteration of society, rather than reform.’[37] Admittedly, Its ambitious were vast, attempting to over turn colonial mind-sets and assert political demands of equality. Although there were multiple reasons for its ultimate downfall and failures, including the fact that membership of the most popular organisations never reached more than a few hundred, the legacies of the movement should not be overlooked.[38] The formation of a distinct Black British political identity became, much like Rosie Wild argues, the Black Power movement’s most enduring achievement. She explains that this identity was significant because it ‘could be used to overlay religious and ethnic divides at times when political unity was needed’ and was therefore British Black Power’s most important contribution to the ‘struggle for racial equality within the United Kingdom and also to the international canon of Black Power philosophy.’[39]
As the latter half of the twentieth century progressed, contentions arose against the idea of political blackness, as the usefulness of the notion became increasingly questioned. Most notably, Tariq Modood challenged the political term ‘black’ and argued that it did more harm for the struggle of racial equality than good. He suggests that the term looses sight of a successful multi-racial society, especially as it held cultural and historical distinctions that did not apply to South Asians.[40] This has been recently supported by Kehinde Andrews, who also faults the notion of political blackness for ‘being rooted in a connection to the African diaspora.[41] Such statements do hold water. For instance, Ford’s ‘Soul Power’ was ‘culturally black; it spoke to a set of experiences that were specific to people of African descent.’[42] However, As John Narayan crucially offers, ‘to simply narrate this as a debate between the unity of anti-racist struggle at home or homogenization of all British ethnic minorities is to actually miss the political sophistication of such an evocation of political solidarity.’[43] It was from this avoidance of ‘methodological nationalism’ that Black British Power’s notion of political blackness was able to bring attention to state and global racism (within a capitalist system), as a ‘sophisticated analysis of the neo-imperial divisions of the post-colonial world.’[44] It was from here that the disparities that Black communities faced could be understood and subsequently dealt with.
Moreover, Modood also states (which is echoed by Andrews) that blackness ‘is not an empty term that can be picked up and given a meaning such that any group other than those of African origins can be the core group.’[45] However, this implies that the depth of the term is only provided by the history and culture of the African diaspora. Whilst it’s true that political blackness is often shadowed with the blackness of those with an African heritage, this does not render the political term ‘thin’ otherwise, or useless beyond its unifying purpose. As Rob Waters states ‘to be politically black…could in fact work in just as fully, deep, embodied effective ways as those cultural practices,’ Political blackness was ‘far from being simply a hollowed-out political signifier, ill-harnessed to the fuller, more intimate terrains of black culture.’[46]
This is because, as Waters elaborates, it encapsulated the ‘embodied experience of the moment of racialisation’ and so was ‘not just something done, but ‘felt.’[47] This ‘felt’ process of political formation allowed blackness in Britain to ‘carve out new positions and meanings,’ including those articulated by Narayan above.[48] Therefore, in this sense, the activity of political blackness held equal weight for both South Asians and those with African heritage due to its modes of conception, which overlooked cultural and historical notions of Blackness. Here lies the explanation as to why political blackness was enduring. It offered substance to the anti-racist fight that was unique to the British plane. It proved that with a society with multiple ethnicities, resistance did not have to be ethnically divided, as the fundamental feeling of activism was universal, due to the common experience of racism. As Kalbir Shukra perfectly summarises, the overall point of ‘all forms of black identity was inclusion into the mainstream by means of exerting as much pressure as possible from the periphery to extract rights, policies and resources from the state.’[49]
Stuart Hall recognises in his ‘New Ethnicities’ that it was only through an adoption of political blackness that a more complex way of thinking about ‘cultural’ difference could be carved out, as the presence of immigrants of colour, overall, first needed to be accepted.[50] Whilst the likes of Narayan would argue that need for this ‘form of anti-racist political solidarity appears greater than ever’ in the age of Brexit, this statement still reflects that for Hall (who may perceive its moment to have passed) the endurance of political blackness, through it being the foundation for anti-racist activism, is still acknowledged.[51] Although this concept of identity increasingly became less applicable to the British situation following a new politics of multiculturalism and government-induced funding that separated individuals into separate ethnic identities, its legacy remained.[52] For example, by the late 1970s, the Asian Youth Movements (AYM), ‘second generation British Asians of sub-continental descent…would openly embrace…a politically black identity directly linked to British Black Power,’ as a method of articulating their struggle.[53]
Whilst the likes of international anti-imperialist Black movement ceased to exist in its previous forms and self-sufficiency became less viable to sustain as the latter half of the twentieth century developed, a political Black identity resumed most prominently, even as it assumed different definitions and a lessened position within British anti-racist activism.[54] Meanwhile, as the history of the British Black Power movement continues to be unravelled, the importance of the movement’s formation of a Black British identity will surely receive more deserved attention. Not only did an identity provide the movement with much needed coherence and structure, it underpinned the comprehensions of other aspects of the movement such as anti-colonialism and internationalism, whilst inspiring ideals of community control. Moreover, it encouraged cultural styles to become political statements, and whilst Black Power did not transform British society all together, this made important strides in the attempts to allow Black culture to be given its rightful, permanent place in British society.
Footnotes
[1]Dawson Ashley, Mongrel Nation, (University of Michigan Press, 2013), p. 51. [2] Wild Rosie, ‘Black Was the Colour of Our Fight,’ in Robin D. G. Kelley and Stephen Tuck, eds, The Other Special Relationship, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), pp. 31-40. [3] Ibid., p. 27. [4] Waters Rob, Thinking Black, (University of California Press, 2018), p. 15. [5] Bunce Robin and Field Paul, Darcus Howe, (Bloomsbury, 2014), p. 28. [6] Ibid., p. 29. [7] Shukra Kalbir, The Changing Pattern of Black Politics in Britain, (Pluto Press, 1998), p. 32. [8] Ibid., p. 32. [9] Ibid., p. 33. [10] Wild, ‘Black Was the Colour of Our Fight,’ p. 28. [11] UCPA Pamphlet, ‘Black Power In Britain: A Special Statement’, (01-04-04-01-04-01-17), Black History Collection, Institute of Race Relations, London. [12] Egbuna Obi, ‘Destroy this Temple’, in Kwesi Owusu, Black British Culture and Society, (Taylor & Francis Group, 1999), p. 68-7. [13] Baldwin’s N[***], dir. by Horace Ové (1969), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zkWshZRm-M, [Accessed online: 05/03/2020]. [14] Ibid. [15] Waters, Thinking Black, p. 89. [16] Ford Tanisha, Liberated Threads, (University of North Carolina Press, 2015), p. 143. [17] Ibid., p. 142. [18] Gilroy, Paul, There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack, (Hutchinson, 1987), p. 267. [19] Narayan John, ‘British Black Power: The Anti-Imperialism of Political Blackness and the Problem of Nativist Socialism’, Sociological Review, 67.5, (2019), p. 964. [20] Ibid,, P. 948 [21] Bourne J., ‘When Black was a political colour’, Race & Class, 58.1, (2016), p. 125. [22] Narayan, ‘British Black Power’, p. 949. [23] UCPA Pamphlet, ‘Black Power is Black Unity, (01-04-04-01-04-01-17), Black History Collection, Institute of Race Relations, London. [24] Wild, ‘Black Was the Colour of Our Fight’, p. 27. [25] Ford, Liberated Threads, p. 133. [26] Wild, ‘Black Was the Colour of Our Fight,’ p. 28. [27] Ibid., p. 28. [28] Sivanandan, A., A Different Hunger, (Pluto Press, 1982), p. 45. [29] Ibid., p. 45. [30] Waters, Thinking Black, p. 36. [31] Wild, ‘Black Was the Colour of Our Fight,’ p. 28. [32] Waters, Thinking Black, p. 36. [33] Angelo Anne-Marie, ‘The Black Panthers in London, 1967–1972’, Radical History Review 103 (2009), p. 30. [34] Wild, ‘Black Was the Colour of Our Fight’, p. 28. [35] Ibid., p. 27. [36] Narayan, ‘British Black Power’, p. 953. [37] Angelo, ‘The Black Panthers in London’, p. 19. [38] Wild, ‘Black Was the Colour of Our Fight’, p. 30. [39] Ibid., p. 42. [40] Modood Tariq, ‘“Black”, Racial Equality and Asian Identity’, New Community, 14.3 (1988), p. 399. [41] Andrews Kehinde, ‘The Problem of Political Blackness’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 39.11, (2016), p. 2061. [42] Ford, ‘We Were People of Soul’ p.124. [43] Narayan, ‘British Black Power’, p. [44] Ibid., p. [45] Modood Tariq, ‘Political Blackness and British Asians’, Sociology, 28.4, (1994), p. 863. [46] Waters, ‘Thinking Black’, p. 82. [47] Ibid., p. 83. [48] Ibid., p. 89. [49] Shukra, The Changing Pattern of Black Politics in Britain, p. 32. [50] Hall Stuart, ‘New Ethnicities’, in Kuan-Hsing Chen & David Morley (eds.), Stuart Hall, (Routledge, 2006), p. 444. [51] Narayan, ‘British Black Power’, p. 99. [52] Ibid., pp. 958-9. [53] Ibid., p. 952. [54] Ibid., pp. 960-1.
Bibliography
Primary Sources
Baldwin’s N[***], dir. by Horace Ové (1969), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zkWshZRm-M, [Accessed online: 05/03/2020].
UCPA Pamphlet, ‘Black Power In Britain: A Special Statement’, (01-04-04-01-04-01-17), Black History Collection, Institute of Race Relations, London.
UCPA Pamphlet, ‘Black Power is Black Unity, (01-04-04-01-04-01-17), Black History Collection, Institute of Race Relations, London.
Secondary Sources
Books
Kehinde Andrews, ‘The Problem of Political Blackness: Lessons from the Black Supplementary School Movement’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 39.11, (2016).
Anne-Marie Angelo, ‘The Black Panthers in London: A Diasporic Struggle Navigates the Black Atlantic, 1967–1972’, Radical History Review 103 (2009).
J. Bourne, ‘When Black was a Political Colour: a Guide to the Literature’, Race & Class, 58.1, (2016).
Robin Bunce and Paul Field, Darcus Howe: A Political Biography, (Bloomsbury, 2014).
Ashley Dawson, Mongrel Nation: Diasporic Culture and the Making of Postcolonial Britain, (University of Michigan Press, 2013).
Obi Egbuna, ‘Destroy this Temple’, in Kwesi Owusu, Black British Culture and Society: A Text Reader, (Taylor & Francis Group, 1999).
Tanisha Ford, Liberated Threads: Black Women, Style, and the Global Politics of Style, (University of North Carolina Press, 2015).
Paul Gilroy, There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack, (Hutchinson, 1987).
Stuart Hall, ‘New Ethnicities’, in Kuan-Hsing Chen & David Morley (eds.), Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies, (Routledge, 2006).
Shukra Kalbir, The Changing Pattern of Black Politics in Britain, (Pluto Press, 1998).
John Narayan, ‘British Black Power: The Anti-Imperialism of Political Blackness and the Problem of Nativist Socialism’, Sociological Review, 67.5, (2019).
Tariq Modood, ‘“Black”, Racial Equality and Asian Identity’, New Community, 14.3 (1988).
Tariq Modood, ‘Political Blackness and British Asians’, Sociology, 28.4, (1994).
A. Sivanandan,A Different Hunger: Writings on Black Resistance, (Pluto Press, 1982.
Rob Waters, Thinking Black: Britain 1964-1985, (University of California Press, 2018).
Rosie Wild, ‘Black Was the Colour of Our Fight,’ in Robin D. G. Kelley and Stephen Tuck, eds, The Other Special Relationship: Race, Riots and Rights in Britain, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).
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