📖 Key Terms

📖 Key Terms

Black Power

A movement and slogan emerging in 1966, demanding Black political control, economic self-sufficiency, cultural pride, and self-defence — a shift from King's strategy of non-violent integration. Coined by Stokely Carmichael during the Meredith March in Mississippi.

Nation of Islam

An African-American religious movement combining elements of Islam with Black nationalist ideas. Led by Elijah Muhammad. Advocated racial separation and economic self-sufficiency. Malcolm X was its most famous spokesperson until he left in 1964.

Black Panthers

The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, founded in Oakland, California (October 1966) by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. Combined revolutionary politics with community programmes (free breakfasts, medical clinics). Suppressed by FBI's COINTELPRO programme.

COINTELPRO

Counter Intelligence Program — a secret FBI programme (1956-1971) that used infiltration, disinformation, and provocation to disrupt organisations the FBI considered threats, including the Black Panthers, SCLC, and SNCC. Exposed by congressional investigations in 1975.

De facto segregation

Segregation that exists in practice through housing discrimination, poverty, and institutional racism — even without formal laws requiring it. Contrasts with de jure segregation (segregation imposed by law, like Jim Crow). De facto segregation was the reality in Northern cities and was much harder to legislate away.

Kerner Commission (1968)

Presidential commission investigating the causes of urban riots. Its report concluded that "our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white — separate and unequal." Blamed white racism, not Black militancy, for the riots. Its recommendations (massive investment in education, housing, and employment) were largely ignored.