A New Kind of Democracy? Political and Cultural Developments in the 1960s 421Programs. Musicians, actors and athletes reflected this cultural ideology too,
with even mainstream artists like Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye eventually
incorporating political themes into their songs, black writers like James Baldwin
being read more widely; sports figures Cassius Clay and Lew Alcindor con-
verting to Islam and become internationally famous as Muhammad Ali and
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar; Arthur Ashe becoming the first African American to win
the U.S. Open in tennis in 1968 and becoming a political activist thereafter;
and medalists Tommie Smith and John Carlos being removed from the 1968 U.S.
Olympic team because they had raised their gloved fists in a Black Power
salute on the victory stand at the National Anthem played.
Race and Class
Martin Luther King was deeply conflicted by the emergence of black power
and cultural nationalism. In April 1967, his sermon “A Time to Break the
Silence” shocked both Black and White Americans as he harshly criticized the
Vietnam War, pointing out that soldiers of all races were fighting and dying
in Vietnam though could not even sit at the same table in the U.S. and infu-
riating many, especially White liberals, by calling America “the greatest pur-
veyor of violence in the world today.” Still, King could not support the
extremism of the radicals, no matter the legitimacy of their grievances.
But many blacks looked to the Panthers and other radicals for examples of
African American resistance. King was not unsympathetic to the militants–
“Black Power, in its broad and positive meaning,” he wrote, “is a call to black
people to amass the political and economic strength to achieve their legitimate
goals. No one can deny that the Negro is in dire need of this kind of legiti-
mate power.” Black Power was also “ a call for the pooling of black financial
resources to achieve economic security.” While the federal government held
primary responsibility to help the poor, to develop “a kind of Marshall Plan
for the disadvantaged,” the Black community itself had an annual income of
$30 billion, and King, still arguing for an inclusive Capitalist movement,
believed it could use such buying power as an instrument for social change.
King, however, still fought to make common cause with White allies and his
biggest difference with younger blacks was on the question of aggression and
violence. The Panthers, quoting Mao, believed that “all power flows from the
barrel of a gun.” King, as his associate Jesse Jackson noted, “talked about the