Letter to the Editor By Na’im Fakradeen Shabazz a.k.a. Reginald Prather
The “Clench Fist” salutation & mantra, historically, was not a slogan symbolizing “Black Power!” The salutation, originally was a slogan symbolizing, the unity of the American “Working Class” i.e. The Proletarian Class and the Labor Union Movement of the American “Working Class.” The meaning of the gesture was, “POWER TO THE PEOPLE!”
As the first social group to ever exhibit this salutation and mantra, they raised their “Clenched Fist” (to the American Power Structure, opposing the Labor Union Movement) while invoking the mantra “POWER TO THE PEOPLE!” And thereby, calling Government’s attention to the expression in the Constitution, citing, “a government for the people, by the people.” That “WE THE PEOPLE” means “POWER TO THE PEOPLE! To imply that always, there is more power in the people, than there are people in power.
Subsequent to the events of the 1968 OLYMPIC GAMES, that the original Meaning of the salutation in question, erroneously came to mean “Black Power!” When athletes TOMMIE SMITH & JOHN CARLOS, whom during their winner’s celebration: in a show of Black solidarity with the Black Power Movement of the 1960s, with their hand covered with a black glove, they, in a salute fashion, raised the clenched Fist. And there afterward, the salutation and its mantra, was symbolized to mean just that.
However, Dr. Angela Davis & The Black Panther Party, returned it, to its original “Political” Definition. Their Salute, with the raising of the clench fist, was to always, simultaneously, invoke the mantra “POWER TO THE PEOPLE!”
Read ‘The People’s History of the United States’ by Howard Zinn.
