The Black Communications Movement

This article argues that rethinking 1960s’ and ’70s’ black nationalist political, cultural and artistic work as black communications and as a Black Communications Movement offers a comprehensive view of black nationalist activity. Attention to communication aids our understanding of how relationship-making among black people was a primary objective of nationalists as they aimed to shape black identity and a black nation. To theorize black communications, I examine black nationalist activity in the San Francisco Bay Area in the spring of 1967, an extraordinary moment of intersection between the Black Panther Party and the Amiri Baraka-led Black Communications Project.