Black Power and Radical Transformation: The Rhetoric of African American Men and Women during the Civil Rights Movement

by Mary Green
Student, University of Memphis

The rhetoric of African American men and women during the Civil Rights Era challenges the racial discrimination inherent in America’s political, social, and economic structures and demands the “complete dismantling of racial segregation in all aspects of American public life” (Marable and Mullings 343). Although the rhetoric reflects a variety of political ideologies, the influential speeches and texts of both African American men and women during this period protest the American government’s repression of African Americans and seek to revolutionize and transform American social and foreign policy. As African American men and women re-imagine a radically “new” America and express solidarity and unity as an African American community, the rhetoric of African American men is shaped by concepts of Black manhood/masculinity, signified by the use of gendered and exclusive language, and reveals problematic implications regarding the role in which African American women will play within the restructured American system.
During the Civil Rights Movement, both male and female African American activists demanded a “social and political restructuring of American life” and, hence, their rhetoric reflects the need to destroy and rebuild its political, social, and economic systems in order to eradicate political, social, and economic inequalities in American society (Marable and Mullings 343-48). In W.E.B. DuBois’s essay “The Salvation of American Negroes Lies in Socialism,” he expresses dillusionment with the American political system—a one-party system masquerading as two political parties although neither party represents the voices and/or concerns of the African American community: “Our last presidential election was a farce. We had no chance to vote for the questions in which we were really interested: Peace, Disarmament, the Draft, unfair taxation, race bias, education, social medicine, and flood control. On the contrary we had before use one ticket under two names and the nominees shadow-boxed with false fanfare and advertisement for the same policies...” (394-95). Expressing a similar response in a speech given at the University of California-Berkeley, activist and leader of the Students Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (S.N.C.C.) Stokely Carmichael calls for a new American political structure that meets and responds to the needs of the African American community. He asserts that the African American community must “fight to control the basic institutions which perpetuate racism by destroying them and building new ones.” He reiterates in his essay “What We Want” that in order “for racism to die, a totally different American must be born” (Carmichael 422). Refusing to assimilate and accept American society as is, their rhetoric acknowledges that the institutions and power structures that influence and define American life and society are innately flawed and therefore destroyed.
Like her male counterparts in the Civil Rights Movement, Black-feminist theorist and activist Angela Davis emphasizes the failure of American “democracy” and points to the role of American capitalism in hindering black liberation by perpetuating racial oppression. In her essay “I Am a Revolutionary Black Woman,” Davis expresses outrage at the American economic system that creates wealth for the small, [white] ruling class and, subsequently, forces the [non-white] working class into disproportionate levels of poverty. Moreover, Davis shatters the notion of American justice and exposes its hypocrisy: “We are the victims, not the recipients of justice. It is obvious that democracy in America is hopelessly deteriorated, when the courts, allegedly guardians of the rights of the people, have enlisted to play an active role in the genocidal war against black people” (461). Paralleling such sentiments in his 1964 speech “The Ballet or the Bullet,” revolutionary activist Malcom X also calls into question the notion of American “justice” and shatters the myth of the “American Dream”: “I’m speaking as a victim of this American system. And I see American through the eyes of the victim. I don’t see any American dream; I see an American nightmare” (406). Interestingly, the historical rhetoric of previous periods typically sought to appeal to such images (American “justice” and/or the “American Dream”) yet the rhetoric of Davis and Malcom X express a distain for them; their rhetoric emphasizes the fallacy of such imagery since it conflicts and in no way complies with the African American community’s realities as an exploited and marginalized people.
Another theme present in the rhetoric of both male and female African American Civil Rights leaders and activists affirms the critical need to unify—regardless of sex, religion, or economic class—, declares that oppression and racial discrimination affects all African Americans, and therefore the African American community must resist as a unified, collective group. S.N.N.C organizer and activist Fannie Lou Hamer remarks on the class division within the African American women’s community but confirms the linked struggles of all African Americans. Reminding her audience of the similar realities of all African American women, she states: “A few years ago throughout the country the middle-class black woman—I used to say not really black women, but the middle-class colored woman, didn’t even respect the kind of work that I was doing. But you see now, baby, whether you have a Ph.D., D.D., or no D, we’re in this bag together. And whether you’re from Morehouse or Nohouse, we’re still in this bag together” (398). Also, Malcom X addresses class and religious differences, and, like Hamer, notes the similar subjected position of all African Americans: “It’s time for us to submerge our differences and realize that it is best for us to first see that we have the same problem, a common problem—a problem that will make you catch hell whether you’re a Baptist, or a Methodist, or a Muslim, or a nationalist. Whether you’re educated or illiterate, whether you live on the boulevard or in the alley, you’re going to catch hell just like I am [...] Whether we are Christians or Muslims or nationalists or agnostics or atheists, we must first learn to forget our differences” (405). Thus, the shared struggles African Americans transcends religious, class, or educational differences, binds them together, and strengthens their fight for black liberation.
Nonetheless, a significant difference between the rhetoric of African American men and women during this period is their response to American militarism and warfare, particularly the American invasion of Vietnam. The speeches and essays of Ella Baker, Davis, and Hamer lack a condemning response to American militarism, whereas the rhetoric of Carmichael, King, and Malcom X emphasizes the blatant hypocrisy and immorality of the Vietnam War. In “The Ballot or the Bullet,” Malcom X stresses America’s “moral bankruptcy” and, highlighting the hypocrisy of the American government, declares to his audience: “The same government that you go abroad to fight for and die for is the government that is in a conspiracy to deprive you of your voting rights, deprive you of your economic opportunities, deprive you of decent housing, deprive you of decent education” (407-408). Moreover in Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “To Atone for Our Sins and Errors in Vietnam,” King exposes the American government’s hypocrisy and calls into question America’s financial and public support for French colonialism in Vietnam and its alliance with and support for Ngo Dinh Dien, South Vietnam’s oppressive and authoritative leader (441).
Yet, the Civil Rights rhetoric of African American men and women seeks to express and further the goals of the Civil Rights Movement, possesses a revolutionary spirit, and aims to obtain black liberation, the most startling and problematic contrast concerns the use of gendered language. In the eight assigned speeches and essays by African American men, the terms “man”, “mankind”, and “brotherhood” as connotations for “human being(s)”, “humankind”, and/or “unity” were used approximately 88 times ; out of the four speeches and essays by African American women, the term “mankind” (implying “humankind”) was used only once (in Angela Davis’s “I Am a Revolutionary Black Woman”). The problematic implications of using such language suggest an obvious (though perhaps unintentional) exclusion of African American women. The rhetoric of African American women during this period, however, is overwhelmingly more inclusive and illustrates an understanding of the important roles in which African American men and women collectively play in challenging political, social, and economic inequalities as Hamer and Davis both address the need for African American women to work with African American men, as equals, in their fight against oppression and their struggle for liberation (Davis 461-62, Hamer 397-98). The use of gendered language is problematic in the rhetoric of this period because it exclusively focuses on the significance of African American men, rather than the entire African American community, in reshaping American society and consequently suggests that the creation of “a new black establishment” will still maintain hierarchal divisions between men and women—paralleling the “old” patriarchal power structure of white America.