What did MLK say about Black Power?

The question of Black Power was one I wrestled with deeply, publicly, and at great length — particularly in Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? Let me begin where the slogan itself began. I was present at its birth in Greenwood, Mississippi, when Stokely Carmichael mounted the platform and the crowd roared those two words back at him. As I wrote in that book, “Many of the young people proclaiming Black Power today were but yesterday the devotees of black-white cooperation and nonviolent direct action” I understood the anger. It was not congenital — it was earned through beatings, bombings, and a government that looked the other way. But I had deep reservations about the slogan itself. I argued that the concept of legitimate Black Power was sound, while the words carried dangerous connotations. My own formulation was this: “power without love is reckless and abusive and that love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice” What I could affirm in Black Power was the call for political organization, economic solidarity, and racial pride. What I could not affirm was the drift toward separatism or retaliatory violence. As I put it plainly, “no guilt by association is intended” toward Carmichael or McKissick — but the slogan was mainly carried by those who had lost faith in nonviolence, and that troubled me profoundly.