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Black Power Exhibition Resource Guide: Organizations

Resources to complement the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture's "Black Power!' exhibition (2017). Guide by Amanda Belantara.

Black Power grew out of the political, economic, and racial reality of post-war America, when the possibilities of American democracy seemed unlimited. Black Power activists challenged American hegemony at home and abroad, demanded full citizenship, and vociferously criticized political reforms that at times substituted tokenism and style over substance.  

The movement’s multifaceted organizations, from SNCC to the National Welfare Rights Organization, triggered revolutions in knowledge, politics, consciousness, art, public policy, and foreign affairs along lines of race, class, gender, and sexuality. It forced a re-examination of race, war, human rights, and democracy and inspired millions of global citizens to reimagine a world free of poverty, racism, sexism, and economic exploitation.

-Peniel JosephThe University of Texas at Austin

Books

Watch

The Legacy of the Black Panthers.
Ex-members speak for themselves about the work of this great revolutionary party and why they are still so relevant today.

Eldridge Cleaver, Black Panther.  By William Klein

Eldridge Cleaver, Black Panther is an Algerian documentary film made in 1969, in which Black Panther activist Eldridge Cleaver speaks from exile in Algeria, where he had moved after the state of California tried to charge him with intent to murder.

Off the Pig

This is one of the first films made about the Panthers. It contains interviews with Party leaders Huey Newton and Eldridge Cleaver describing why the Party was formed and what its goals are. It also includes footage of Panther recruitment, training and the Party's original 10 Point Program laid out by Chairman Bobby Seale.

Videos in NYPL Collection