MARTIN DUBERMAN
view that the line between black power and black racism is a fine
one easily erased, that, as always, means and ends tend to get
confused, that a tactic of racial solidarity can turn into a goal of
racial purity.
The philosophy of Black Power is thus a blend of varied, in part
contending, elements, and it cannot be predicted with any certainty
which will assume dominance. But a comparison between the Black
Power movement and the personnel, programs and fates of earlier
radical movements in this country can make some contribution to–
ward understanding its dilemmas and its likely directions.
Any argument based on historical analogy can, of course, become
oversimplified and irresponsible. Historical events do not repeat them–
selves with anything like regularity, for every event
is
to a large degree
embedded in its own special context. An additional danger in rea–
soning from historical analogy is that in the process we will limit
rather than expand our options; by arguing that certain consequences
seem always to follow from certain actions and that therefore only a
set number of alternatives ever exist, we can prevent ourselves from
seeing new possibilities or from utilizing old ones in creative ways. We
must be careful, when attempting to predict the future from the past,
that in the process we do not straitjacket the present. Bearing these
cautions and limitations in mind, some insight can still be gained from
a historical perspective. For if there are large variances through time
between roughly analogous events, there are also some similarities, and
it is these which make comparative study possible and profitable. In
regard to Black Power, I thiILlc we gain particular insight by com–
paring it with the two earlier radical movements of Abolitionism
and Anarchism.
The Abolitionists represented the left wing of the antislavery
movement (a position comparable to the one SNCC and CORE
occupy today in the civil rights movement) because they called for
an
immediate
end to slavery everywhere in the United States. Most
Northerners who disapproved of slavery were not willing to go as far
or as fast as the Abolitionists, preferring instead a more ameliorative
approach. The tactic which increasingly won the approval of the
Northern majority was the doctrine of "nonextension": no further
