ABSTRACT
Black nationalists of the 1960s were concerned with the Pan-Africanist concept of "home," which held, as articulated by Adolph Reed, that "the African continent is the ancestral and legitimate home territory of black people throughout the world". Perhaps no philosophy in African American political thought is as ambiguous as is black nationalism or yields as many "correct" definitions as does black nationalism. To clarify the ways in which 1960s nationalism differs from earlier manifestations, this chapter explores the question of ambiguity and the dilemma of African American identity and surveys the plethora of black nationalist variants. It focuses on the political climate of the period, with particular attention given to the effect of African American urban populations; the black arts community; the federal anti-poverty program of the 1960s; the black church's embracing of nationalist thinking; and the influence of Malcolm X on black nationalist philosophy.
