No Name in the Street

Baldwin describes his own experience within the civil rights struggle of the 1950s and the 1960s. The civil rights movement emerged in the 1950s when Black Americans organized to battle racial discrimination, segregation, and disenfranchisement. Even though enslavement was officially abolished after the American Civil War, Black people continued to face racism and racial violence, especially under the Jim Crow legislation in the South. By the 1950s, Black people throughout the country mobilized to demand equality in jobs, voting rights, and desegregation. The movement developed a strategy of nonviolent resistance, with practices like marches, sit-ins, and boycotts. The 1963 March on Washington is a pivotal event in the history of this movement. During the demonstration, Americans of all races gathered in the capital to protest inequality and Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. Black nationalism advocacy was also part of the movement, represented by Muslim minister and civil rights activist Malcolm X. Black nationalism promoted the empowerment of the Black community and emphasized Black identity and independence. As a leader, Malcolm X advocated for the right of Black Americans to resist and fight against racial violence by any means.

The American government authorized a series of legislation in response to the struggle. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 banned segregation and discrimination based on race, gender, or ethnicity. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibited discriminatory practices in the voting process and secured Black Americans’ right to vote. However, widespread racial violence continued. By the late 1960s, Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, the most prominent leaders of the civil rights struggle, had been assassinated. Days after King’s assassination in 1968, the government issued the Fair Housing Act, the last act of the civil rights era, to prevent discriminatory practices in housing.

Upon the publication of No Name in the Street in 1972, the Black Power movement had risen to prominence. The movement emerged in the late 1960s and spanned through the 1970s. New scholarship blurs the distinction between the civil rights and the Black Power Movement and highlights their common ground. As Peniel E. Joseph notes, new studies characterize “the civil rights and Black Power era as a complex mosaic rather than mutually exclusive and antagonistic movements” (Joseph, Peniel E. The Black Power Movement: Rethinking the Civil Rights-Black Power Era. Routledge, 2006). The Black Power movement demanded immediate action and militancy against white supremacy and police violence, and sought to empower African American communities. The movement adopted the strategy of social programs that focused on the communities’ self-determination and education to reinforce Black identity. Ideologically, Black Power was influenced by Black nationalism, pan-Africanism, and socialism, while Malcolm X was an important inspiration to the movement’s activists. The Black Panther Party was a prominent organization within the movement that galvanized the community and supported Black people’s right to carry guns for self-defense against police brutality. Prominent figures of the era include Angela Davis, Huey P. Newton, Eldridge Cleaver, and Bobby Seale. Even though the Black Panthers conveyed a masculinist image, Black women within the movement developed their own Black feminist politics. The movement declined during the late 1970s, but its legacy remains. The Black Lives Matter movement, which focuses primarily on legal system reform, is inspired by the politics and strategies of the civil rights and Black Power movements to battle institutional racism.