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Bigger Than Hip Hop

A look at the state of black political leadership

By Glen Ford

“It’s bigger!” roared T.J. Crawford. “It’s bigger!” the crowd shouted back, in traditional call-and-response fashion. “It’s bigger than hip hop!” Crawford, chairman of the National Hip Hop Political Convention (NHHPC), deployed the hook of a song by hip hop’s iconic “conscious” group, dead prez, to bring home the point: Members of what marketers have labeled the “hip-hop generation” are concerned… return to article

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    I mentioned this article in my August 25 blog (chicagoreader.com) on the 1966 Chicago Freedom Movement.  In a word:  bleak.

    United States Posted by hhenderson on Sep 6, 2006 at 12:35 PM

    I would add to this very fine article that the established Black organizations, especially the “big five” NAACP, SCLS, CORE, Urban League and SNCC, were all being challenged in the 60’s by the emergence of the new Black left.  These new formations pushed and forced these orgnizations to confront issues that they might have prefered to ignor.

    This included the various Balck nationalist organizations, the revolutionary black nationalists and a host of old Black left formations along with the newer Maoist or Trotskiest leaning formations.  While all these groups were small, they were also all vocal and constantly challenged the big five to deliver of thier promise of “freedom now”.
    They also were decidely internationalist in various ways and reminded American Blacks of there ideological as well as ethnic ties to African liberation and that thier work was part of a larger world movement.

    Today we have neither a strong left pole to push against the Black electoral establishment nor as strong an internationist movement as exsistd thirty years ago. Yet there are strong local progressive movements within the Black community locally as well as in broader progressive movements were Blacks have found an ideological home.

    Maybe the future lies not in trying (unsuccessfully) to build a national formation, but simply to support those local efforts that are already making a difference.  It may be that our legacy is to provide leadership and training to the work, more so than to a new organization.

    Victor Goode
    Professor of Law
    Former Natioanl Director of the National Conference of Black Lawyers

    United States Posted by drspock on Sep 28, 2006 at 8:22 PM
    Page 1 of 1 pages

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