What happened to the Black Power movement?

See this post for further details:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=258x170

But yeah...wtf? Was it Reagan? Was it, as Cosby states, a failure to fulfill a destiny? What the bloody hell?

I was a wee kid then, and as such thought nothing of it at the time...but looking back...MAN were things different and so much cooler then.

And fwiw, I'm white (in theory, although my family was more like a blanca Huxtable/Klump mix that anything else). I just remember the potential of those times and wonder so much what the hell happened...makes me sad. :(

was pretty much massacred by the FBI and some state police. If by black power movement you mean groups such as the Black Panthers that advocated power and independence for the black community, as being different than the civil rights movement, it was effectively destroyed.
As I recall there was a terrific response to the black power movement from the black community. The murder of Fred Hampton and others in Chicago revealed how much the FBI and police agencies were at war with the movement. Their horrific acts also revealed how they would very easily murder the leaders of the movement.

If you are not familiar him, try google - Fred Hampton

Remember too that this incident and others followed the assassinations of JFK, RFK and MLK.

(barring assignations, of course) kinda what's going on now (with the Dem party?)? Assignation of ideas, speech, etc.?

It'd be a damn shame to let this happen twice. There are always more of us than them.

in both cases it is a force of change that confronts the power of the status quo.

As bad as things were back then I had the feeling that most of the country was thinking. Now I think most of the country is brainwashed.

Great answer to a very interesting and extremely important question. I would add that it is worth-while to go beyond googling, and to invest the time to read as many of the dozens of high-quality books about this subject as possible.

One might do well to start with any of the books that deal with the infamous Hoover memo from early 1968, which read , in part, that the FBI had to: "prevent the coalition of militant black nationalist groups .... prevent militant black nationalist groups and leaders from gaining respectability ... Prevent the rise of a black 'messiah' who would unify and electrify, the militant black nationalist movement. Malcomb X (sic) might have been such a 'messiah;' he is the martyr of the movement today. Martin Luther King, Stokely Carmichael and Elija Muhammed (sic) all aspire to this position. Elija Muhammed is less of a threat because of his age. King could be a very real contender for this position should he abandon his supposed 'obedience' to 'white, liberal doctrines' {nonviolence} and embrace nationalism. Carmichael has the necessay charisma to be a real threat in this way."

I think that it is important to first have an understanding of both Malcolm and Martin, and who they really were .... including how the black population viewed them, and the white population, and the international community.

One thing you'll find is that, much like in the days of the "Red Scare" and the McCarthy era, the FBI under Hoover was almost entirely focused on being the political police .... and a #1 tactic was to use informants to not only eport back on activities, but to disrupt. I'm tempted to add a segment on the use of sociopaths rather than mere "anti-social" informants, as anti-social people have a code of conduct they adhere to. While it is not the "main stream" code, it has a sense of honor. Sociopaths do not.

An interesting book that is used at Syracuse University is "Agents of Repression" by Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall. It covers the FBI's "secret wars" against the Black Panther Party and American Indian Movement. While there are many other extremely good books, this one is a good start. Also of interest is "Malcolm X : The FBI File" by C. Carson, with an introduction by Spike Lee that is worth the price of the book.

dolo amber brings up a good point. We are all due for some history lessons about now. This makes me remember days when there was so much hope.

That's what happened to the Black Power movement.

The FBI infiltrated black organizations and got them to fight amongst
themselves.

They shot down some in their home. I used to have some books on this topic, need to look them up.

about the same time blacks were really organizing. Some people suspect that the CIA did this to devestate black communities and to keep them docile.

Seems awfully close to proven:
http://gnn.tv/jump.php?id=V00001

See also the Kerry investigation of Iran/Contra & the drug connection.

using the word 'suspect' was an understatment, but it was an unintentional understatement on my part.

The neo- and old- cons won the day.