Examples Of Black Civil Rights Chants, Black Power Chants, & Black Protest Chants

Edited by Azizi Powell

[Latest Update: December 15, 2018. I've changed the title for this post- The previous title was "Examples of Black Civil Rights Chants and Black Power Chants". I also added more content under the 1990s sub-section.]

This pancocojams post provides examples of Black (African American) civil rights chants and Black (African American) nationalist chants for the 1960s.

Some Black protest chants from the 1990s and 2000s are also included in this post.

This post is part of an ongoing pancocojams series on protest chants. Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2012/03/chanting-at-trayvon-martin-march-rally.html and http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2014/01/more-protest-chants-from-north.html for two other posts in this series.

The content of this post is presented for historical and cultural purposes.

Thanks to all those who have worked and those who are now working for equality and justice for all.

****
LIST OF AFRICAN AMERICAN CHANTS
I compiled this list for this Mudcat discussion thread that I started in September 2007: http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=104999 "African American Protest Slogans & Songs".

Read that discussion thread for my explanations of most of these chants. That Mudcat thread also includes comments about African American civil rights/protest songs and chants, including my thoughts and others' thoughts about why group singing is no longer a part of African American protest marches any more.

These chants are presented by decades.

Mid 1960s

"Freedom Now!"

**
Caller- "What do we want?"
Group Response- "Freedom!"
Caller- "When do we want it?"
Group Response- "Now!"

**
Late 1960s/ 1970s
"Black Power!

**
Caller-"Say it loud!"
Group Response- "I'm Black And I'm Proud"

**
Caller-"Ungawa"
Response- "Black Powa"
-snip-
"Ungawa" ("umgawa") is a word that was created for Tarzan movies as a way for Tarzan to communicate with animals and with Black "natives". The word could mean anything the screen writers wanted it to.*

Source:
Transcript from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkRtsJtWVEU

Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2011/12/sources-of-movie-bigs-rap-shimmy-shimmy.html to read that my transcription of that video.

In the late 1960s & early 1970s, afro-centric African Americans took hold of that word and included it in a rhyme that both celebrated Black power and dared White people to challenge them for that pride. A common verse in those rhymes was "Ungawa!"/"Black power!" or "Ungawa/"We got the power" (with "power" in both examples pronounced like "po-wah").


"*This is a correction of what I wrote in the Mudcat discussion thread whose link is given above.

**
"Free The Panthers!

**
Caller- "What time is it?"
Group response- ["It's] "Nation Time"
-snip-
This was a Black cultural nationalist chant. This chant and many of the other Black power chants that I've listed here from my memory were chanted at cultural programs and not protests. They were chanted by members of the Newark, New Jersey Black cultural nationalist group that was led by Amiri Baraka (Le Roi Jones). The "nation" refers to furthering African American Black community ties, institutions, and businesses, and not to creating a separate Black nation within the territory of the United States or elsewhere. However, some Black nationalist did have that goal.

1970s
"Power To The People!"

1980s

I'm not sure what Black power or Black civil rights slogans were chanted during the 1980s.

The saying "Don't believe The hype" comes to mind. That saying comes from a late 1980s? recording by the rap group Public Enemy. Maybe this counts as a protest chant. I'm not sure.

1990s

"No justice, No peace"
-snip-
The first use of this slogan that I've been able to identify was in late 1992/ early 1993 in demonstrations regarding the death of Malice Green.
From http://www.larrynevers.com/nojustice.htm
quoting an editorial written by Jimmy Smith on the LETP (Law Enforcement Trainer's Page) www.lawenforcement-trainer.com
"The demonstrations in Detroit [Michigan] after the [Malice] Green incident, and the chants of "No Justice No Peace," rang out on every T.V. network in the nation. Anytime any human being dies, it is indeed a sad event. When that death occurs under circumstances such as was the case here, then of course it should be investigated to the fullest extent. That investigation should not be influenced by or for political considerations. Impartiality must by present, to protect all involved. The officers, the victim and indeed, the community."
-snip-
Quoting from the Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malice_Green
"Malice Green was a resident of Detroit, Michigan who died while in police custody after being arrested by Detroit police officers Walter Budzyn and Larry Nevers on November 5, 1992 during a traffic stop. Both officers were later convicted for Green's death...The incident occurred only months after the Los Angeles riots of 1992, which protested the acquittal of police officers in the video-taped beating of Rodney King."

****
[Added Decembe 15, 2018]
"Whose streets? Our streets!"*
-snip-
*hat tip to Me Me (December 15, 2018) for reminding me about this chant.

Here's an excerpt from an article about this chant:
From https://www.cnn.com/2017/09/19/us/whose-streets-our-streets-chant-trnd/index.html How the iconic 'Whose streets? Our streets!' chant has been co-opted"
By AJ Willingham, CNN; Updated 9:26 AM ET, Wed September 20, 2017
"As peaceful protests gave way to violence in St. Louis over the weekend, a group of police officers were heard repeating a familiar chant.

Whose streets? Our streets! Whose streets? Our streets!

[...]

The phrase has been used by LGBTQ activists, immigration activists, and most pertinently, black activists at intense junctions of racial tension.

While its history stretches back decades, the chant has experienced a groundswell in the last few years as more and more people took to protesting police violence, racial inequality and other injustices.
"From the time I was photographing demonstrations in the early '90s, that was a chant that was pretty much ongoing," said Meg Handler, a photographer who also was a co-curator of the "Whose Streets?" exhibition. It was used in labor demonstrations and at rallies for reproductive rights and advocacy for AIDS victims, she said.

To say it is a "Black Lives Matter" chant isn't wrong. The group is definitely associated with the phrase and it's central to many of their messages.

It was heard in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014 after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, and was so crystallized during those protests that it inspired the title of a documentary about the community's reaction to Brown's death.

It appeared again that year in New York City after the killing of Eric Garner. It was heard in Washington on President Trump's Inauguration Day and the day after at women's marches around the world.

[...]

But lately the chant has made its way to groups on the other side of the sociopolitical spectrum. It was barked by white nationalists as they marched, tiki torches in hand and Nazi regalia on display, down the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia, last month. A Vice documentary on the Charlottesville protests features ample footage of the chant.

"It's never, to my knowledge, been tied to a single social movement," said Carroll, the historian. "That's why it makes it possible to be appropriated by a counter movement."
It's unclear whether the St. Louis officers who chanted it were doing so to mock protesters or appropriating it for their own message.
CNN has reached out to the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department for comment but hasn't heard back.

Sunday night's unrest was prompted by the acquittal of a former St. Louis police officer who was charged with first-degree murder after shooting and killing Anthony Lamar Smith, a black man, in 2011."...

****
JENA SIX CHANTS (2007)
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jena_Six
"The Jena Six were six black teenagers convicted in the beating of Justin Barker, a white student at Jena High School in Jena, Louisiana, on December 4, 2006. Barker was injured in the assault by the members of the Jena Six, and received treatment for his injuries at an emergency room. While the case was pending, it was often cited by some media commentators as an example of racial injustice in the United States, due to a belief that the defendants had initially been charged with too-serious offenses and had been treated unfairly...

The Jena Six case sparked protests by those viewing the arrests and subsequent charges, initially attempted second-degree murder (though later reduced), as excessive and racially discriminatory. The protesters asserted that white Jena youths involved in other incidents were treated leniently. On September 20, 2007, between 15,000 and 20,000 protesters marched on Jena in what was described as the "largest civil rights demonstration in years".[2][3] Related protests were held in other US cities on the same day.[4] Subsequent reactions included songs alluding to the Jena Six, a considerable number of editorials and opinion columns, and Congressional hearings."
-snip-
These are the slogans that reporters indicated the Jena 6 marchers chanted or that I noticed on photographs and videos were written on signs carried by the marchers or were written on their tee shirts from the Jena Six marches {In Louisiana and elsewhere} on September 21, 2007:

"Free Jena 6" or "Free The Jena 6" [These were by far the most widely used slogans.]

**
"No Justice. No Peace" [This slogan was next in prominence to "Free Jena Six"]

**
"No justice no peace no racist police"

**
"Blacks Protests N'Justice"
-snip-
"N'Justice = injustice

**
"They stood for us now we stand for them.
Free Jena 6"

**
"non-violence or non-existence"

****
ADDITIONAL CHANTS
From African American Protest Slogans & Songs
From: Neil D
Date: 11 Oct 07 - 12:03 AM

...I spent some time at work today reading through the interesting thread that you started regarding African American slogan and songs. I thought about posting a chant we used to do at May 4th memorials at Kent State in the '70's: Two, Four, Six, Eight, Remember Kent and Jackson State. The May 4th coalition always made a point of including a contingent from Jackson State to memorialize the much less publicized, but just as tragic, killing of African American students at Jackson State when police fired indescriminantly into a dormitory. This event happened just a few weeks after the Kent State shootings, but never drew the attention of the media like the white students at Kent State. Thus, the chant...."

****
From African American Protest Slogans & Songs
From: Azizi
Date: 25 Mar 12 - 07:50 AM
[summarized] A documented chant from the Million Hoodies march (as per Internet articles) was - "Whose street?/ Our streets."
-snip-
From http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/million-hoodie-march-takes-union-square-protest-trayvon-martin-murder-article-1.1048522

'Million Hoodie' march takes Union Square in protest of Trayvon Martin's fatal shooting

The demonstrators burst into a chant of “Justice for Trayvon!” as slain Florida teen's parents joined protest
BY Edgar Sandoval , Helen Kennedy / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS ; Wednesday, March 21, 2012, 8:41 PM
-snip-
A link to one of three pancocojams posts about chants that were used in Trayvon Martin marches is given above.

****
Thanks for visiting pancocojams.

Visitor comments are welcome.