BLACK POWER OR NON-VIOLENCE?
Acrylic, 1967, 72 x 48 inches
The civil rights
struggles of all people throughout all time have required that
the choice among contradictory philosophies and tactics be made.
For blacks in America, the polarization of conflicting views began
in the period before the Civil War, between those who favored
gradual manumission of slaves for colonization to Africa, and
those who demanded complete and immediate abolition by whatever
means, violent if need be. Early in this century the accommodating
views of a Booker T. Washington ran afoul of the clearly impatient
demands of a W.E.B. Du Bois, and this creative tension continued
through the twentieth century, and will continue.
Here, Templeton portrays this dilemma in an evocative study
from the late sixties, in which the extreme factions in the struggle
for civil rights are embodied in the placement and choice of images,
in the dramatic use of color, and in strong graphics and type.
On the left the black power impulse of such an activist as H.
Rap Brown called for an uncompromising, impatient, and aggressive
attitude toward injustice. Against this stands the non-violent
commitment of such a leader as Martin Luther King, Jr., favoring
a belief in passive protest and continuing communication and the
ultimate justice of the courts.
