Black Power Persuasive Speech
Thank you very much. It’s a privilege and an honor to be in the white intellectual ghetto of the West.
We wanted to say that this is a student conference, as it should be, held on a campus, and that
we’re not ever to be caught up in the intellectual question of Black Power. That’s a function of
people who are advertisers that call themselves reporters.
The question then becomes, what is Black Power? It is not just a slogan. It is a call for black people
to organize themselves, to define their own needs, and to develop the political and economic
strength necessary to determine their own future.
We are now engaged in a psychological struggle in this country about whether or not black people
have the right to use the words they want to use without white people giving their sanction. We
maintain the use of the words Black Power. We are not going to wait for white people to sanction
Black Power.
We have to understand the lies this country has spoken about black people and we have to set the
record straight. No one else can do that but black people. We have to stop being ashamed of being
black. We have to build pride amongst ourselves.
We have to define how we are going to move, not how they say we can move. We have never been
able to do that before. Everybody in this country jumps up and says, “I’m a friend of the civil rights
movement.” We haven’t had the chance to say whether or not that man is stabbing us in the back or
not.
The only protection we are going to have is from each other. We have to build a strong base to let
them know that if they touch one black man, we are going to disrupt this whole country.
We have to talk about nonviolence among us, so that we don’t cut each other on Friday nights and
don’t destroy each other but move to a point where we appreciate and love each other. That’s the
nonviolence that has to be talked about.
We have to study black history. You have to know these people yourselves because you can’t read
about them in a book or in the press. That responsibility is ours.
We must build strength and pride amongst ourselves. We must think politically and get power
because we are the only people in this country that are powerless. We have to build a movement so
we can see political machines and say what must be changed—and by the time we turn around, it is
changed. That’s Black Power.
Everybody in this country is for “Freedom Now” but not everybody is for Black Power because we
have got to get rid of some of the people who have white power. We have got to get us some Black
Power. We have to be able to smash any political machine in the country that’s oppressing us and
bring it to its knees.
