The Black Power Movement

When "Raymond's Run" was published in 1971, the Black Power Movement was having a significant impact among African-American artists and writers. While the Black Power movement, which extended through the decade from 1965 to 1975, grew out of the Civil Rights movement, the Black Power movement opposed integration and demanded economic and political power as well as equality with whites. The movement was fueled by protest against such incidents as the shooting of Civil Rights leader James Meredith in 1966 while he led a protest march across Mississippi. Shortly after, Civil Rights leader Stokely Carmichael initiated the call for Black Power and the first National Conference on Black Power was held in Washington, D.C. in 1966. In the same year, the Black Panther Party was founded in Oakland, California by Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton, taking a militant stand against police brutality and the appalling conditions of...