Black nationalism | Definition, History, & Facts | Britannica (original) (raw)
Marcus Garvey at a session of the Universal Negro Improvement Association Marcus Garvey chairing a session of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, 1924.
United States history
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External Websites
- Pressbooks at MSL - Charles Chesnutt in the Classroom - Black Nationalist Discourse and the Mixed-Race Experience
- Black History in America - Black Nationalism
- Digital History - Black Nationalism and Black Power
- Columbia University - Columbia Center for Contemporary Critical Thought - The Third Reconstruction: Black Nationalism and Race in a Revolutionary America
- Stanford University - The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute - Black Nationalism
- North Carolina State University - The State of History - Black Nationalism in Historical Context
Written by
J.E. Luebering J.E. Luebering is Vice President, Editorial at Encyclopaedia Britannica.
J.E. Luebering
Fact-checked by
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Last Updated: Jan 21, 2025• Article History
Quick Facts
Date:
1960 - 1975
Context:
Universal Negro Improvement Association
Key People:
News •
Marcus Garvey posthumously granted clemency by Joe Biden • Jan. 20, 2025, 10:09 PM ET (Trinidad Guardian)
Black nationalism, political and social movement prominent in the 1960s and early ’70s in the United States that gained popularity among Black Americans. The movement sought to acquire economic power and to infuse among Black people a sense of community and group feeling.
Stokely CarmichaelActivist Stokely Carmichael, 1968.
The roots of Black nationalism can be traced to Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association of the 1920s. Many adherents to Black nationalism assumed the eventual creation of a separate Black nation. As an alternative to being assimilated by a predominantly white America, Black nationalists sought to maintain and promote their separate identity as a people of Black ancestry. With such slogans as “Black power”—originated by the activist Stokely Carmichael—and “Black is beautiful,” they also sought to inculcate a sense of pride among Black people, particularly as the civil rights movement faced new challenges in the wake of the assassinations of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.