Morris B. Abram, president of the American Jewish Committee, declared here last night that Black Power is a healthy concept for Negroes and whites alike but many of its advocates and detractors are often not clear what it means or what it is intended to achieve.
Mr. Abram, who is U.S. representative to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, addressed the Brotherhood of Central Synagogue on “the modern meaning of brotherhood.” He said that “Black Power, as a first step toward integration, may be more modern and more relevant than brotherhood in terms of Negro-white relations today. It will enable Negroes to act out their group interests in a pattern similar to that of other ethnic and racial groups in America.”
Mr. Abram, however, decried the ambiguity that often surrounds the term. “Sometimes it means nothing more than black people coming together as a political, economic and social force, forcing their representatives or electing their representatives to speak to their needs. If this is what Black Power means – the right, indeed the desirability of Negroes to organize to develop self-regard and exercise maximum political and economic pressure, surely it is welcome.”
But, Mr. Abram warned, “there is also a destructive aspect to Black Power, often deliberately concealed in ambiguity, which only occasionally discloses dreadful glimpses of racism, black separatism, violence. and a mystique of violence. This ambiguity makes Black Power appear dangerous, Black Power as a racist concept is Allen to our best tradition and is rejected by the overwhelming majority of Negroes.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
