Black Consciousness Movement

Overcoming Unconsciousness

The black consciousness movement cannot be fully appreciated without the understanding that South African people who were not white did not necessarily see themselves as black. Biko and others in the movement recognized that there were people in South Africa who had a nonwhite identity that would always frustrate them because the aspiration of the nonwhite is often to be white, which is really impossible. Nonwhites were [Page 122]those who sought to serve the interests of white racial domination by serving in the police force or by calling the whites by honorific titles. This was madness, according to the black consciousness movement.

The movement asserted that these people should stop being nonwhite, stop being people who hated blackness and who despised their own culture. Black people were capable of standing with their heads high in defiance of oppression rather than surrendering their souls to white people. These proud people were the new people that the black consciousness movement wanted to create. Therefore, it was possible to define black consciousness as the realization by Africans of the need to rally together around the cause of liberation from oppression and to operate as a group to rid themselves of the shackles that bound them to perpetual servitude. Furthermore, it was a corrective and sought to demonstrate that blackness was not an aberration and whiteness was not normal. The aim was to get whites off of the backs of blacks. This new realization was meant to infuse the black community with new pride in the African values, culture, religion, and general outlook on life. But the critical element that made this new vision a movement was the relationship between the consciousness of the self and the emancipatory program.

...