Is Black Nationalism Still Relevant?
by David Valentine Bernard 7 September 2007 When Marcus Garvey began espousing Black Nationalism as a means for black empowerment in the early 1900s, the logic of the movement was clear. Wherever blacks lived in the world, they were excluded from power. With the exception of Ethiopia, even blacks in Africa were victims of colonialism: second-class citizens in their own countries. Therefore, black liberation not only logically demanded black unity, but a mobilization of the black masses. At its height, Black Nationalism triggered the revolutionary movement that brought independence to Ghana in the 1950s; in the 1960s, the Black Panthers reached their apex by providing community programs and free meals in the slums of Oaklandbut what are Black Nationalisms achievements today? Just as logic made Black Nationalism viable in the face of the overt racial segregation of the 1900s, it has made it irrelevant after the Civil Rights gains of the 1960s and 70s. In the same manner that communism an
