A Generational Perspective
This exhibition, Legacy: Understanding Black Power Forty Years Later, is less about a historical period than a whole generation of people. That generation grew up during the period of Black Power and now grows old in a world changed by its ideas. To understand the impact of the movement today, look at the people Black Power shaped, how it affected them, and how, they now influence what we see each day.
Understanding Black Power Forty Years Later
From 1966 through 1975, a portion of the population came of age in America to be, in the words of the Nina Simone song of the time, To Be Young, Gifted, and Black. They encountered a world that ill appreciated their gifts, exploited their youth, and had no use at all for their Blackness.
The Black Power generation was bequeathed a legacy of civil rights inclusion. They were the first to integrate America's college campuses in large numbers. That distinction exposed them to a world of new possibilities, frustrated by a reality of White hostility — subtle and sometimes open — to what they had to offer creatively and intellectually.
The Black Power generation fought the war in Vietnam. They returned home from the violence of war to communities ravaged by conditions beyond their powerlessness to determine for themselves their own lives.
The prevailing injustice was not the mere unfairness of racial discrimination. It was the absence of power in Black people to define success on their own terms and make it happen. For Black Power, justice is the power to make self-assertion meaningful.
That generation is approaching retirement age today, having matured, in some instances, to positions of power and influence. Many discovered, in the passion of youth, the power of their identity as Black men and women. A few came to forget the impact of Black Power in the expediency of pursing mainstream success. As this generation bumps its head against the "glass ceiling" of America's limitations, a number are rediscovering now their early radicalism, tempered by the practicality of experience.
The legacy of Black Power forty years later reflects youth's radicalism tempered by experience. To understand that legacy is to see passion maturing into something more lasting. What more lasting influence can we discern today from this movement some forty years ago?
The Black Faculty and Staff Association of Johns Hopkins University presents this exhibition on Black Power. Many of its members lived the realities of the Black Power era. They offer this exhibition for those who did not.