Integration is not begging - wasn't then, isn't now

Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement -- Integration is completely irrelevant to us.: "The one thing I learned from the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party was that you don't work for integration in this country -- what you've got to work for is power. The mistake we made was that we went to the National Democratic Party begging them to come into their party. If we're to do anything, we have to stop begging."

This is where I parted company with Stokely. Not because I disagreed about power, but because power lies in forging unity beyond divisions and community beyond distrust. I essentially gave up a career to work toward "power" in the late 1960s when integration was superseded by Black Power. I watched with sad comprehension as Black Power was used by the white establishment to create the environment of continued racism that ensued. I still feel I am right and that Stokely was wrong. When we have real power it will be because we attained real integration, not because we rejected it. What we have now is some power bought at the sacrifice of the bulk of the Black community along with the whites and Hispanics who are subsisting at 5 percent of the average income and worth of the diminishing white middle-mandarin class.

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