Reading the Black Manifesto: Black Power Militancy and the Washtenaw County Black Economic Development League

This poster explores the ways that Black Power ideologies manifested outside of national organizations, and shows that by focusing on these large organizations much of the impact and legacies of this era are lost. By exploring "The Black Manifesto," a revolutionary but largely unexplored document penned and presented by James Forman to the National Black Economic Development Conference in 1969, and how it was used to galvanize organizing in Washtenaw county this poster shows how the core tenets of Black Power manifested themselves in vasty divergent praxes with differing scales and scopes. Instead of fighting against the police and agents of the state or working to build a Black nation, the Washtenaw County Black Economic Development League (WCBEDL) engaged in direct action against White churches, demanding direct cash reparations for their role in constructing and upholding anti-Black institutions — including slavery and segregation — that would be used to improve the material conditions of Black working class people in the county. Furthermore, the Washtenaw county demonstrates the ways that these Black Power organizations with differing ideological programs and praxes existed in the same spaces and times — highlighting the minute intricacies of this period. In order to visually demonstrate the complexities and diversities of the Black Power movement this poster will feature photographs of Church occupations and meetings between various Black Power organizations, as well as highlight the Black Manifesto and some of its contemporary ideological statements.