ABSTRACT
Social movements have a complex history, but there are sometimes defining, datable moments. The immediate context of the Black Power speech was the shooting of James Meredith on the day after he began his Freedom March through Mississippi. The 1950s were decisive years for race relations in America. In Washington in 1954 the Supreme Court outlawed segregated education. In the following year in Montgomery, Alabama, Mrs Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man. It is surely no coincidence that living and working in Detroit, the headquarters of the Nation of Islam, the most central concept in Albert Cleage's position is the Nation. By comparison, Cleage's response to Martin Luther King is more ambiguous. Of his personal integrity there is no question. Whilst Cleage claimed that love should be limited to the Nation, James H. Cone simply claims that love has no place until justice and power are established.
