Black Power, French Existentialism, and the Expansion of Cultural Democracy in the United States after 1945

Germain, Rosie Olga (2025) Black Power, French Existentialism, and the Expansion of Cultural Democracy in the United States after 1945. Journal of American Studies. pp. 1-33. ISSN 0021-8758

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Abstract

Black Power and existentialism were mutually reinforcing movements in the late 1960s. Stokely Carmichael used French existentialism to shape some Black Power principles, which demonstrated existentialism's continued relevance to racial equality. Existentialism reinforced values, such as moral purpose and self-definition, which supported positive appraisals of Black Power revolt on campuses. Carmichael's adoption of French existentialism illuminates transnational influences on Black Power dating to the 1940s, as well as how important French existentialist texts amplified Black perspectives. The meeting of French existentialism and Black Power assisted increased representation of Black perspectives on campuses, and popular awareness that representation was as important as desegregation to equality.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information and Comments:	Copyright © The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press in association with British Association for American Studies. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Faculty / Department:	Faculty of Education and Social Sciences > School of Education
SWORD Depositor:	eprints api
Depositing User:	eprints api
Date Deposited:	11 Feb 2025 11:53
Last Modified:	11 Feb 2025 11:53
URI:	https://hira.hope.ac.uk/id/eprint/4597

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