Paul Vierkant James Brown and the Black Power Movement or Was America.s Soul Brother Number One a Black Nationalist.

Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject American Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 1,7, Free University of Berlin (John F. Kennedy-Institut für Nordamerikastudien), course: The Sixties and the U.S., 39 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: "The Godfather of soul", "the hardest working man in show business" or "Soul Brother Number One", are the various different images of a persona who made a very important contribution to the Black Power Movement. James Brown reached his audience in concert halls and via radio and television. As a musician, performer, and role model, he touched the soul of nearly every black American at a time when Afro-Americans sought to re-define themselves. The time had come to create a black Aesthetic that would reshape the Western cultural sphere. Beside James Brown, Black America saw the rise of other cultural heroes like Muhammad Ali and Shaft. They all contributed in their own way to the black liberation struggle. However, the Black Power Movement did not only consist of a cultural branch but also of political and religious organizations. Figures like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King jr. were charismatic leaders whose importance can not be overstressed. Still, the basis of the Black Power Movement (hereafter BPM) was the individual, the group and the community. The black experience, together with black everyday life was the origin and source of the black struggle. Since James Brown gre...