Black Power in the Bluff City : African American Youth and Student Activism in Memphis, 1965–1975 / Shirletta J. Kinchen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kinchen, Shirletta J., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Student movements.

Race relations.

College students--Political activity.

Civil rights movements.

Black power.

African Americans--Civil rights.

College students--Political activity--Tennessee--Memphis--History--20th century.

College students.

Student movements--Tennessee--Memphis--History--20th century.

Civil rights movements--Tennessee--Memphis--History--20th century.

African Americans--Civil rights--Tennessee--Memphis--History--20th century.

African Americans.

Black power--Tennessee--Memphis--History--20th century.

Tennessee--Memphis.

Memphis (Tenn.)--Race relations--History--20th century.

Memphis (Tenn.).

Genre:

History.

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (296 pages): illustratons ;

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Knoxville : The University of Tennessee Press, [2016]

Summary:

This book examines how young Memphis activists, like Coby Smith and Charles Cabbage, dissatisfied by the pace of progress in a city emerging from the Jim Crow era, embraced Black Power ideology to confront such challenges as gross disparities in housing, education, and employment as well as police brutality and harassment. Two closely related Black Power organizations, the Black Organizing Project and the Invaders, became central to the local black youth movement in the late 1960s. Kinchen traces these groups' participation in the 1968 sanitation workers' strike--including the controversy over whether their activities precipitated events that culminated in Martin Luther King's assassination--and their subsequent involvement in War on Poverty programs. The book also shows how Black Power ideology drove activism at the historically black LeMoyne-Owen College, scene of a 1968 administration-building takeover, and at the predominately white Memphis State University, where African American students transformed the campus by creating parallel institutions that helped strengthen black student camaraderie and consciousness in the face of marginalization.

Contents:

Introduction: "We want what people generally refer to as Black power": Black student and youth activism in the era of Black power

"The city was on fire": the beginnings of a movement

"Damn the Army, join the invaders": the Black organizing project and the invaders

"Make the scene better": the neighborhood organizing project, the decline of the invaders, and the promise and limits of Black power in Memphis

"Why not at Lemoyne-Owen?": student activism and Black power at Lemoyne-Owen College

"We can't be isolated any longer": Memphis State University, the Black Student Association and the politics of racial identity

Epilogue: "Black Panther Party not needed": the legacy of youth and student activism and the Black power generation in Memphis.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9781621901877

1621901874

OCLC:

1498869061