"The Myths of Coalition" from Black Power:T he Politics of Liberation in America

"The Myths of Coalition" from Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America" Stokely Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton ΠΓ1 ■here is a strongly held view in this society that the ■best—indeed, perhaps the only—way for black peoJL pie to win their political and economic rights is by forming coalitions with liberal, labor, church and other kinds of sympathetic organizations or forces, including the "liberal left" wing of the Democratic Party. With such allies, they could influence national legislation and national social patterns; racism could thus be ended. This school sees the "Black Power Movement " as basically separatist and unwilling to enter alliances. Bayard Rustin, a major spokesman for the coalition doctrine, has written: Southern Negroes, despite exhortations from SNCC to organize themselves into a Black Panther Party, are going to stay in the Democratic party—to them it is the party of progress, the New Deal, the New Frontier, and the Great Society—and they are right to stay.1 Aside from the fact that the name of the Lowndes County Freedom Party (which will be discussed in a later chapter) is not the "Black Panther Party," SNCC has often stated that it does not oppose the formation of political coalitions per se; obviously they are necessary in a pluralistic society. But coalitions with whom? On what terms? And for what objectives? All too frequently , coalitions involving black people have been only at the *"Ch. 3: The Myths of Coalition," from BLACK POWER: THE POLITICS OF LIBERATION IN AMERICA by Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton. Copyright © 1967 by Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton . Used by permission of Random House, Inc. This article is reprinted with original spelling and grammar intact. spring 2008 171 ©2008 The Ohio State University/Office of Minority Affairs/The Kirwan Institute STOKELY CARMICHAEL AND CHARLES V. HAMILTON leadership level; dictated by terms set by others; and for objectives not calculated to bring major improvement in the lives of the black masses. In this chapter, we propose to reexamine some of the assumptions of the coalition school, and to comment on some instances of supposed alliance between black people and other groups.2 In the process of this treatment, it should become clear that the advocates of Black Power do not eschew coalitions; rather, we want to establish the grounds on which we feel political coalitions can be viable. The coalitionists proceed on what we can identify as three myths or major fallacies. First, that in the context of present-day America, the interests of black people are identical with the interests of certain liberal, labor and other reform groups. Those groups accept the legitimacy of the basic values and institutions of the society, and fundamentally are not interested in a major reorientation of the society. Many adherents to the current coalition doctrine recognize this but nevertheless would have black people coalesce with such groups. The assumption— which is a myth—is this: what is good for America is automatically good for black people. The second myth is the fallacious assumption that a viable coalition can be effected between the politically and economically secure and the politically and economically insecure. The third myth assumes that political coalitions are or can be sustained on a moral, friendly, sentimental basis; by appeals to conscience. We will examine each of these three notions separately. The major mistake made by exponents of the coalition theory is that they advocate alliances with groups which have never had as their central goal the necessarily total revamping of the society. At bottom, those groups accept the American system and want only—if at all—to make peripheral, marginal reforms in it. Such reforms are inadequate to rid the society of racism. Here we come back to an important point made in the first chapter: the overriding sense of superiority that pervades white America. "Liberals," no less than others, are subjected and subject to it; the white liberal must view the racial scene through a drastically different lens from the black man's. Killian and Grigg were correct when they said in Racial Crisis in America: . . . most white Americans, even those white leaders who attempt to communicate and cooperate with their Negro...