We’re gonna take a look at the moment the Black Power movement was born, in 1966 on a hot summer day in Greenwood, Mississippi, in order to get a sense of the forces that intersected at that moment amid tensions within the Civil Rights Movement. The reason we’re starting here is to set the stage for understanding the Civil Rights Movements response to Black Power, in order to better appreciate the sociopolitical context in which the Gary Project arose.

Partial list of works consulted: 

Down to the crossroads: Civil Rights, Black power, and the Meredith March Against Fear by Aram Goudsouzian 

In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s by Clayborne Carson

Waiting ‘Til the Midnight Hour by Peniel Joseph

Stokely: A Life by Peniel Joseph

Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference by David Garrow

At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965–1968 by Taylor Branch

Bloody Lowndes: Civil RIghts and Black Power in Alabama’s Black Belt by Hasan Jefferies

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