I originally felt that the task would involve developing a general
conception of Black Power from the serious versions of the ideology
and demonstrating how the movement was a natural response to the
various economic, social, and political challenges that blacks have
faced in the United States (see Chapters VII to X). However, as the
study progressed, it became clear that the Black Power Movement of
the 1960s had direct links to a past tradition of Black Nationalism that
had many of the same goals and used strikingly similar tactics. It was
also apparent that the Black Nationalist antecedents of the Black
Power Movement faced opposition similar to the movement's constant
competition with black groups that accepted the dominant American
creed in its entirety. Thus, to fully understand the Black Power Move-
ment, it is necessary to examine the history of black political thought
and to show that the Black Power-versus-Black Mainstream competi-
tion of the time was not at all unique in the history of African-Ameri-
cans in the United States (see Chapters II to VI). ⁹

Chapter I describes the many disparities between black and white
lives and analyzes a number of theories that have attempted to explain
those disparities. In all the chapters, including the historical ones, the
various forms of black protest, including the Black Power protests, are
treated as attempts to rectify the disparities, often by using strategies
and rationalizations based on one or more of the theories. Chapter XI
consists of a short critique of Black Power and speculation on the
movement's permanent contributions to life in the United States.

There is to date no definitive history of black political thought, so
a few comments about the method used here are necessary. While the
chapters that deal with the Black Power Movement itself exhaust all
available primary sources, the chapters on historical antecedents do
not. The literature on black protest before the rise of Black Power is so
vast that it was necessary to select from those movements and per-
sonages that best reflect the type of protest in question to illustrate the
ramifications of the manifestation as a whole. As a result, the reader
will find extensive treatment of Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Wash-
ington, Marcus Garvey, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Colonization
Movement in the historical chapters. By focusing on one major per-
sonage as a spokesperson for an ideology or movement, the discussion
takes on more life, and comparison becomes clearer. Therefore, the
biographical method is used in the chapters on Black Power as well.

One of the concerns of the African-American scholar when writing
an essay of this type is the evolution of terms. Historians Mary
Frances Berry and John W. Blasingame point out that African-Ameri-

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