In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

251 “Beyond Rebellion” was published as an op-ed in the New York Times on September 23, 1972. Beyond Rebellion The black movement has gone through a number of stages in the last fifteen years. First, there was the civil rights movement, which reached a critical stage with the Birmingham confrontations of 1963 and finally collapsed with the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. Then, there has been the Black Power movement , which began to rise with Malcolm in 1963–64 and mushroomed into a national movement following the Watts uprising of 1965 and the Newark and Detroit rebellions of 1967. Today we are still in the stage of trying to clarify what Black Power means. At the present time most “movement” people are still in the purely nationalist stage of Black Power. That is to say, most of those who call themselves Black Power advocates are trying to find a solution for blacks separate from a solution for the contradictions of the entire United States. Actually, this is impossible. Therefore, many black nationalists are going off into all kinds of fantasies and dreams about what Black Power means— like heading for Africa, or isolating themselves in a few states, or whites just vanishing into thin air and leaving this country to blacks. We have yet to come face to face with our contradiction that just as it has been on the backs of the black masses that this country has advanced economically, so it is only under the revolutionary political leadership of black people that this country will be able to get out of its contradictions. We are hesitant to face up to this truth because it is too challenging. We have the fear that always haunts the revolutionary social forces, the fear of not knowing whether they can win, the lack of confidence in themselves and in their ability to create a better society. This is not a fear that is unique to blacks. All revolutionary social forces have this fear as they come face to face with their real conditions of life and the growing realization that they must assume the revolutionary responsibility of changing the whole society, so that their lives as well as those of others in the society can be fundamentally changed. Because the task is so great, it becomes much easier to evade the tremendous challenge of and responsibility for disciplined scientific thinking and disciplined political organization that are necessary to lead revolutionary struggle. Confronted with this political choice, many of those who have been frustrated by the failure of the civil rights movement and the succeeding rebellions to solve all our problems have begun to put forward all kinds of fantastic ideas as to what we should now do. Some say we should separate and return to Africa. Some say we should separate but should remain here and try to build a new black capitalist economy from Ward.indb 251 12/21/10 9:28 AM Part III 252 scratch inside the most advanced and powerful capitalist economy in the world! Some say we should join the Pan-African movement of the African peoples in Africa and build a military base in Africa from which we will eventually be able to attack the United States. Others say we should just struggle for survival from day to day, doing whatever has to be done for survival. And finally, others have just given up struggling for anything at all and have turned to astrology or drugs or religion in the old-time belief that some metaphysical force out there in the twilight zone will rescue us from our dilemma. We have to examine all these theories realistically and scientifically—whatever their origin and whosoever is proposing them—whether they are our friends or our relatives; whether or not they are old comrades with whom we have demonstrated and gone to jail in the past; whether or not we admire them for their past deeds or for their charismatic personalities or because they make us feel good when we hear them rapping against “the man.” All these personal considerations are irrelevant when measured against the real miseries of our present conditions in this country and the real future we must create for ourselves and our posterity in this country. We live in this country, our labors have laid the foundation for the growth of this country. Our contradictions are rooted in this country’s unique development and can only be resolved...

Share