MY BLACK POSITION PAPER

by Hon. Adam Clayton Powell Jr.

(Connections: In the late 1920's Minister Powell married my Mother to my Father; in the late 1950's, he was sending telegrams to me as this nation's First Black Flight Attendant: "...come speak at the Church!")_____Carol Taylor

From the Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the 89th Congress, Second Session:

1. We must give our children a sense of pride in being Black

2. Black organizations must be Black-led

3. The Black masses must be primarily responsible for their own organizations. Only with Black financial control can Black organizations retain their honesty, their independence and their full commitment to the urgency of immediate equality

4. The Black masses must demand and refuse to accept nothing less than that proportionate share of political jobs and appointments which are equal to their proportion in the electorate

5. Black people must support and push Black candidates for political office first

6. Black people must seek audacious power

7. Black leadership in the North and the South must shift emphasis to the two-pronged thrust of the Black Revolution: economic self-sufficiency and political power

8. Black masss must produce and contribute to the economy of this country in the proportionate strength of their population

9. Black communities of this country...must neither tolerate nor accept outside leadership, Black or white

10. The Black masses should follow only those leaders who have true power...These leaders will be chosen by the Black masses themselves

11. Demonstrations and all continuing protest activity must be non-violent

12. Black people must continue to defy the laws of man when such laws conflict with the law of God

13. Black people must discover a new and creative involvement with ourselves

14. The war on poverty must become a more productive crusade for jobs. The only thing that keeps a man impoverished is his incapacity to earn a living

15. The battle against segregation in America's public school system must become a national effort, instead of the present regional skirmish that now exists

16. We must put pressure on our predominantly Black colleges to shift their emphasis from teacher education to nuclear physics and aerodynamics

17. Every Black man who considers himself an American must become a registered voter... No Black person over 21 must be permitted to walk a picket line or participate in any demonstration unless a registered voter.

(Considering the massive corruption-theft-destruction-loss of Black votes, not only in Jeb Bush's Florida - Miami Herald newspaper report - and only God knows where else, this last item is not one with which I can agree)