In time, the concept of black power changed. Instead of being a sentiment that united us, it became a source of deep division. Those who followed Martin Luther King and his nonviolent movement, for example, were not as black as those who followed, say, Malcolm X's philosophy or that of the fearless Black Panthers.
No longer bringing us together, black power had become a negative litmus test for one's degree of "blackness." We had entered the "Blacker than Thou" era. On campuses nationwide, black students separated themselves into enclaves.
Groups whose members adopted African-sounding names, perhaps wore dashikis and other African garb and spouted words by the likes of Huey Newton and Eldridge Cleaver were blacker than those who majored in business and talked of Wall Street.
If you could quote from Frantz Fanon's book The Wretched of the Earth: The Handbook for the Black Revolution That Is Changing the Shape of the World, you were one black brother or sister.
And if you had an African name, wore a dashiki, sported a huge Afro, followed the Socialist Workers Party, talked like a Trotskyite, peppered your speech with Marxist aphorisms, majored in black studies and planned a trip to Africa, you were the essence of blackness.
The ultimate blacker-than-thou paradox occurred on traditionally black campuses. Nearly all of these campuses had parallel student government organizations. One was the legitimate body elected by the entire student population and was usually called the Student Government Association. It had the blessings of the administration and faculty.
The other was a self-appointed organization, usually called the Black Student Union. Assorted radicals belonged to it. In other words, the BSU was blacker than its duly elected counterpart, the SGA. I was president of the BSU at Bethune-Cookman College and founder and editor of the BSU newspaper.
These divisions -- who is black enough and who is not -- were not isolated to college campuses. The phenomenon defined black life at all levels in black communities nationwide.***
The historian Gertrude Himmelfarb breaks it down this way: For Conservatives, it's all about the Culture. For Liberals, it's all about Politics. Well, I'd say that the Civil Rights movement has been pushing Politics for about 40 years and they don't have too much to show for it. Superintendent White is pushing Culture. We'll see if that works (I have no doubt).
Testify, neighbor, testify!