The term “Black Consciousness” is one that is prevalent among men and women that travel in Afrocentric circles. But what is Black Consciousness and the Black Consciousness Movement? Where did the term come from? And what does the term mean for today’s Black Women and Men in America? Those are the questions that we will answer here.
The Origins of Black Consciousness
“…infuse the black community with a new-found pride in themselves, their efforts, their value systems, their culture, their religion and their outlook to life.” – Stephen Biko
The term “Black Consciousness” was first used by the legendary South African anti-apartheid leader Stephen Biko in 1971. Biko, inspired by the ideas of Du Bois, Marcus Garvey, Frantz Fanon, Amilcar Cabral, and the Black Panther Party, founded a South African Student’s Association closely linked to Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress, and in that organization he outlined plans for a new movement to be known as the Black Consciousness Movement.
“Black Consciousness is in essence the realization by the black man of the need to rally together with his brothers around the cause of their oppression” Biko wrote in a paper produced for a SASO Leadership Training Course. He goes on to write “[Black Consciousness] seeks to demonstrate the lie that black is an aberration from the ‘normal’ which is white. We have defined blacks as those who are by law or tradition politically, economically and socially discriminated against as a group in society and identifying themselves as a unit in the struggle towards the realization of their aspirations. Black scholars and contemporary heroes like Nelson Mandela, Assata Shakur, Kaba Hiawatha Kamene (Dr. Booker T. Coleman), and Dr. Chancellor Williams coupled with the dawn of the information age (self-publishing, Internet based radio, and information sharing portals) have revived and spread Black Consciousness. Every day, more Black Men and Women are re-learning what was forgotten about our race, our history, and our belief systems prior to the intervention of alien races.
