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Look Out Whitey Black Powers Gon Get You
In June of 1966, during James Meredith's march on the highways of Mississippi, two words shouted by a SNCC organizer became imprinted on the American consciousness - Black Power. The term was new, Julius Lester points out, but the concept was old. As far back as 1829, David Walker, an ex-slave, had written in a widely circulated pamphlet: "Remember, Americans, that we must and shall be free and enlightened as you are. Will you wait until we shall, under God, obtain our liberty by the crushing arm of power?"
Something else emerged from the Meredith march - a radical shift in emphasis and tactics within the civil rights movement. It soon became clear that the young black leaders in SNCC and CORE had lost faith not only in the efficacy of nonviolent methods but in the integrationist goals they had been pursuing. Integration would be meaningless, they felt, if the economic and political realities of life in the United States remained unchanged: black people, however, would be unable to change these realities if they remained powerless within their own communities. A time of consolidation had come, a time when black people had to act and speak for themselves rather than be helped or interpreted by their "white friends".
There has been much outright condemnation of the Black Power position, and liberal critics have called it "spiritually bankrupt." Nonetheless, Julius Lester writes: "Black Power has become the microscope and telescope through which black people look at themselves and the world. It has enabled them to focus their energies on something while they prepare for the day of reckoning."
Here, by a SNCC Field Secretary, is a fiery and forthright exegesis of Black Power - its meaning, its historical roots in the ideas of Frederick Douglass, Martin J. Delaney, Marcus Garvey, and W.E.B. Du Bois, and the bitter criticism of American society that it embodies.
Something else emerged from the Meredith march - a radical shift in emphasis and tactics within the civil rights movement. It soon became clear that the young black leaders in SNCC and CORE had lost faith not only in the efficacy of nonviolent methods but in the integrationist goals they had been pursuing. Integration would be meaningless, they felt, if the economic and political realities of life in the United States remained unchanged: black people, however, would be unable to change these realities if they remained powerless within their own communities. A time of consolidation had come, a time when black people had to act and speak for themselves rather than be helped or interpreted by their "white friends".
There has been much outright condemnation of the Black Power position, and liberal critics have called it "spiritually bankrupt." Nonetheless, Julius Lester writes: "Black Power has become the microscope and telescope through which black people look at themselves and the world. It has enabled them to focus their energies on something while they prepare for the day of reckoning."
Here, by a SNCC Field Secretary, is a fiery and forthright exegesis of Black Power - its meaning, its historical roots in the ideas of Frederick Douglass, Martin J. Delaney, Marcus Garvey, and W.E.B. Du Bois, and the bitter criticism of American society that it embodies.
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1969
About the author
Julius Lester
122 books188 followersJulius Lester was an American writer of books for children and adults. He was an academic who taught for 32 years (1971–2003) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He was also a photographer, as well as a musician who recorded two albums of folk music and original songs.
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
June 7, 2012
This book is hilarious and informative. Imagine Samuel L. Jackson teaching you about the history of Black Power, Frederick Douglass, NAACP, Marcus Garvey, the issues within SNCC, and why everyone should get prepared for race-focused revolution. You would laugh and learn at the same time, right? Though this was published in 1968, it's amazing how much of this book still rings true. I'd recommend for those who enjoy essays on race and American history.
March 25, 2016
I moved to Manhattan in 1969, at a time of civil unrest and turbulence in this country. I felt safe in the Midtown area where I worked and in my neighborhood on West 73rd St, a block from Central Park. But I didn't always feel secure, especially when I watched the evening news with film from the war in Vietnam and film from confrontations with anti-war protesters and gay rights protesters and with black protesters. The last group made me nervous. Black Power had become a persistent drum beat across the country. A book published the year before I got to New York represented all that I feared most. The title was "Look Out Whitey! Black Power's Gon' Get Your Mama!" and it was written by Julius Lester, a Field Secretary for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (an organization whose actions led me to believe they were far from non-violent). I didn't read the book. But I couldn't forget the title. And the name of the author was distinct enough for me not to forget him either.
Times change. Society adjusts. Other issues become more prominent. Thirty years later I come across a children's book by an author named Julius Lester! The title was "Sam and the Tigers", a retelling of Little Black Sambo. Could it be the same Julius Lester? Now a writer of children's books? Nah. Not possible. Or was it?
I set it aside. Went about my business. But it wouldn't quite leave me. The dawn of the Internet meant that answers awaited the patient searcher to all sorts of questions unanswered for decades. Sure enough. I did discover that it was the same Julius Lester. I bought many of his children's books and read them to my sons who were children at the time. Great stories, beautifully expressed. And I quickly ordered a couple copies of his autobiography, "On Writing for Children and Other People". I gave a copy of that book to my oldest son for Christmas one year. But I read it first. In the book he talked about his years in the movement in NYC in the 1960's. No further proof needed. But, of course, I still hadn't read "Look Out Whitey! Black Power's Gon' Get Your Mama!" I didn't even own the book, which I assumed to be long out of print.
Recently I read Ta-Nihisi Coates "Between the World and Me", a powerful memoir of growing up black in America. Toni Morrison says "This is required reading" and she is right. It reminded me that I still hadn't read Julius Lester's first book. So ordered the book from the guy who intends to own the world and got a battered and marked up copy from the second printing in 1969. And this week I read the book to relive and release the fears that had held me tight almost five decades ago.
"Look Out Whitey! Black Power's Gon' Get Your Mama!" is an amazing read. To Toni Morrison I say "This is required reading too!" Julius Lester's youth was not misspent. I had expected a fire brand tossing molotov cocktails. There is some of that in the book, but not a lot (at least it doesn't seem that way to me in 2016). What does come through is a well-documented, well-researched history of life in America for people of color, with a call to arms to promote change. All young people should read this book to get an understanding of the incredible, terrible history of this country and the persistence of the menace. Will we ever find the will and the way to change our attitudes and behavior and treat all people with the respect they deserve? It hasn't yet felt that way to me. But I can't allow myself to lose hope -- for myself and for others.
Julius Lester ended his book with an interesting statement: "In the new world, as in this one, I want to be known, not as a man who happens to be black, but as a black man. With that knowledge I can visit the graves of my slave foreparents and say, 'I didn't forget about you . . . those hot days you worked in the fields, those beatings, all that shit you took and just grew stronger on. I'm still singing those songs you sang and telling those tales and passing them on to the young ones so they will know you, also. We will never forget, for your lives were lived on a spider web stretched over the mouth of hell and yet, you walked that walk and talked that talk and told it like it t.i. is. You can rest easy now. Everything's up-tight.' "
Julius Lester has walked that walk too. In the years since he wrote the book I was very slow to read, he has published 40 or more books for young people (I don't know the exact number), singing those songs and passing on those tales to the young ones. Thank you Mr. Lester!
Times change. Society adjusts. Other issues become more prominent. Thirty years later I come across a children's book by an author named Julius Lester! The title was "Sam and the Tigers", a retelling of Little Black Sambo. Could it be the same Julius Lester? Now a writer of children's books? Nah. Not possible. Or was it?
I set it aside. Went about my business. But it wouldn't quite leave me. The dawn of the Internet meant that answers awaited the patient searcher to all sorts of questions unanswered for decades. Sure enough. I did discover that it was the same Julius Lester. I bought many of his children's books and read them to my sons who were children at the time. Great stories, beautifully expressed. And I quickly ordered a couple copies of his autobiography, "On Writing for Children and Other People". I gave a copy of that book to my oldest son for Christmas one year. But I read it first. In the book he talked about his years in the movement in NYC in the 1960's. No further proof needed. But, of course, I still hadn't read "Look Out Whitey! Black Power's Gon' Get Your Mama!" I didn't even own the book, which I assumed to be long out of print.
Recently I read Ta-Nihisi Coates "Between the World and Me", a powerful memoir of growing up black in America. Toni Morrison says "This is required reading" and she is right. It reminded me that I still hadn't read Julius Lester's first book. So ordered the book from the guy who intends to own the world and got a battered and marked up copy from the second printing in 1969. And this week I read the book to relive and release the fears that had held me tight almost five decades ago.
"Look Out Whitey! Black Power's Gon' Get Your Mama!" is an amazing read. To Toni Morrison I say "This is required reading too!" Julius Lester's youth was not misspent. I had expected a fire brand tossing molotov cocktails. There is some of that in the book, but not a lot (at least it doesn't seem that way to me in 2016). What does come through is a well-documented, well-researched history of life in America for people of color, with a call to arms to promote change. All young people should read this book to get an understanding of the incredible, terrible history of this country and the persistence of the menace. Will we ever find the will and the way to change our attitudes and behavior and treat all people with the respect they deserve? It hasn't yet felt that way to me. But I can't allow myself to lose hope -- for myself and for others.
Julius Lester ended his book with an interesting statement: "In the new world, as in this one, I want to be known, not as a man who happens to be black, but as a black man. With that knowledge I can visit the graves of my slave foreparents and say, 'I didn't forget about you . . . those hot days you worked in the fields, those beatings, all that shit you took and just grew stronger on. I'm still singing those songs you sang and telling those tales and passing them on to the young ones so they will know you, also. We will never forget, for your lives were lived on a spider web stretched over the mouth of hell and yet, you walked that walk and talked that talk and told it like it t.i. is. You can rest easy now. Everything's up-tight.' "
Julius Lester has walked that walk too. In the years since he wrote the book I was very slow to read, he has published 40 or more books for young people (I don't know the exact number), singing those songs and passing on those tales to the young ones. Thank you Mr. Lester!
June 2, 2016
With a title like this one, I think I expected to encounter a book far more heavy on radicalism and lighter on the historical basis for it than the one I actually found. In fact, the heart of the book is Lester making a very good historical case for black radicalism, showing its growth through time alongside the ever-present white supremacy that is the bedrock of American society. That said, however, Lester and his book shine brightest in his radical, angry, sometimes funny riffs, whether he's tearing into the absurdity of nonviolence ("... waiting as you turned the corner singing about This Little Light of Mine and how you were going to let it shine as that cop's billy club went upside your head shine shine shining as you fell to the pavement with someone's knee crashing into your stomach and someone's foot into your back ... ") or reframing what it means to resist ("... a Cadillac is a symbol of resistance, because its proud owner is refusing to be what society wants him to be. His Cadillac is a weapon in his fight to tell himself that he is as much of a man as any white man. The hustler's bankroll is his weapon. ..."). A quick, smart, compelling read, and one that is just as relevant today as it was in 1968.
September 14, 2021
This reader is a reader of the classics and since 7 years of my education focused on the voices of white men, in 2014 I decided to start amending that independently. So happy to have read this one and it follows my reading of Hood Feminism quite nicely. I'd say with all the performative politics, soft-core-political- celebrities and activism-as-reality-television in the works, "white" people have a responsibility to revisit works like Lester's. The revolution will not be co-opted!
Want to Read
March 18, 2008Hands down the greatest title of any book ever.
But in all seriousness I do want to read this soon.
But in all seriousness I do want to read this soon.
November 27, 2013
What a title, how could any book live up to it? And this doesn't quite, but it is still full of some righteous humour and anger. Full of history, the fights between Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison, words of James Weldon Johnson and W.E.B. Dubois, asides that are tales told by SNCC organisers from the deep South and the people there with all the wisdom of age and the survival of oppression. Not as full of facts, not as conventionally argued as Ture and Hamilton's Black Power, so perhaps it hits you harder.
It starts with the civil rights movement, the non-violent movement of marches and sit-ins: ‘It was thought then that segregation was a moral issue, therefore a moral weapon – nonviolence, love, satyagraha – would bring the walls of the prison tumbling down’ (4). But it didn't. I've always hated the use of the word 'backlash' but not as much as Lester does:
And some things never change, like the relationship between law and anyone poor or trying to make any kind of change, but especially peoples of colour, and especially black people:
It has a great quote from The Saturday Evening Post 'We Are All Mississipians':
That's quoted in Black Power by Ture and Hamilton as well, and you can see why. I almost feel that it has to be made up, so sparkling is its honesty in the way it explains almost everything. It's also exactly everything that whites must most actively abjure. As he writes later:
At the end he gets down to economics: 'The essence of power in America is fantastically simple: money' (125). Yes it is, Mr. Lester. And this chapter will just fuel that anger that's been building, but the good, purposeful, in-good-company kind of anger. He quotes Malcom X:
And then a familiar philosophy from my organizing days
That he leaves black women out of this sentence is my principal critique...
It starts with the civil rights movement, the non-violent movement of marches and sit-ins: ‘It was thought then that segregation was a moral issue, therefore a moral weapon – nonviolence, love, satyagraha – would bring the walls of the prison tumbling down’ (4). But it didn't. I've always hated the use of the word 'backlash' but not as much as Lester does:
The ‘white backlash’ was nothing new to the black community. They knew all about the backlash, the frontlash, the sidelash and all them other lashes…it simply meant that white folks were a little tired of picking up the papers and seeing niggers all over the front page… The average white person didn’t know what niggers wanted and didn’t much care. By now they should have gotten whatever the hell it was they said they didn’t have, and if they hadn’t gotten it, they either didn’t deserve it or didn’t need it.(16)
And some things never change, like the relationship between law and anyone poor or trying to make any kind of change, but especially peoples of colour, and especially black people:
'Law and order must prevail' has become the cliche of the 1960's and the biggest lie, because the American black man has never known law and order except as an instrument of oppression, and it has prevailed upside his head at every available opportunity. It exists for that purpose. The law has been written by white men and their property, to be enforced by white men against blacks in particular and poor folks in general (23)
It has a great quote from The Saturday Evening Post 'We Are All Mississipians':
We are all, let us face it, Mississippians. We all fervently wish that the Negro problem did not exist, or that, if it must exist, it could be ignored. Confronted with the howling need for decent school, jobs, housing, and all the minimum rights of the American system, we will do our best, in a half-hearted way, to correct old wrongs. The hand may be extended grudgingly and patronizingly, but anyone who rejects that hand rejects his own best interests. For minimum rights are the only rights that we are willing to guarantee, and above those minimum rights there is and will continue to be a vast area of discrimination and inequity and unfairness, the areas in which we claim the most basic right of all -- the right to be stupid and prejudiced, the right to make mistakes, the right to be less and worse than we pretend, the right to be ourselves. When this majority right is threatened, the majority will react accoridngly -- with results that could be disastrous to all of us.
That's quoted in Black Power by Ture and Hamilton as well, and you can see why. I almost feel that it has to be made up, so sparkling is its honesty in the way it explains almost everything. It's also exactly everything that whites must most actively abjure. As he writes later:
Black Power is not anti-white people, but it is anti anything and everything that serves to oppress. If whites align themselves on the side of oppression, then Black Power must be antiwhite. That, however, is not the decision of Black Power. (140)
At the end he gets down to economics: 'The essence of power in America is fantastically simple: money' (125). Yes it is, Mr. Lester. And this chapter will just fuel that anger that's been building, but the good, purposeful, in-good-company kind of anger. He quotes Malcom X:
You can't operate a capitalistic system unless you are vulturistic; you have to have someone else's blood to suck to be a capitalist. You show me a capitalist, I'll show you a bloodsucker... (131)
And then a familiar philosophy from my organizing days
One of the saving graces of SNCC, in particular, has been its unwillingness to dogmatically align itself with any doctrine... However there is agreement with Malcolm that justice, equality, and freedom are inconsistent with the principles of this country. Capitalism is congenitally unable to allow black men to be free. (132)
That he leaves black women out of this sentence is my principal critique...
June 7, 2021
we’d be a better people in the u.s. if this was required reading. damn shame its out of print. hopefully that omission is corrected. All Power To The People
October 17, 2012
Best.
Book title.
Ever.
While this book is decidedly from another era, I do hope it escapes my library's weeding process because of its "time capsule" quality, as well as the fact that the author is really a talented, funny man.
While all of the "whitey" and "cracker" stuff gets old quick, if you know the 1960s civil rights era only from history books (as I do), this rare title offers up a dynamic and challenging look from a perspective not often given the history book treatment. I learned quite a bit about the March on Washington and other iconic demonstrations of the time.
Book title.
Ever.
While this book is decidedly from another era, I do hope it escapes my library's weeding process because of its "time capsule" quality, as well as the fact that the author is really a talented, funny man.
While all of the "whitey" and "cracker" stuff gets old quick, if you know the 1960s civil rights era only from history books (as I do), this rare title offers up a dynamic and challenging look from a perspective not often given the history book treatment. I learned quite a bit about the March on Washington and other iconic demonstrations of the time.
February 12, 2010
I first picked this book up because of the title- it was hilarious! And for a dollar at my school's annual book sale, I couldn't pass it up!
I found this book to be very insightful, interesting, and thought provoking. The brazen humor made it enjoyable. This book not only gives you a sight into the tempers and tragedied of the past, but provides you with a unique view into what could come soon.
I found this book to be very insightful, interesting, and thought provoking. The brazen humor made it enjoyable. This book not only gives you a sight into the tempers and tragedied of the past, but provides you with a unique view into what could come soon.
June 3, 2019
Lester maintains the tone of the title throughout the short essays in here, all of which are very much of 1968. And yet, angry dismissals of "the liberal trick bag of love and morality" have a timeless quality even if all the examples in this book are from the 1960s and the SNCC experience. I had a personal "things that make you go hmmm" moment towards the end when Lester warns that the US will soon impose apartheid-style pass books on African Americans... I thought, "yeah, you used to hear that a lot, how they were going to build concentration camps..." and now that I write it, I realize that our enemies thought Obama was going to build "FEMA camps" but anyway... I started thinking, Lester couldn't have known about how the drugs and especially the war on drugs were going to play out, how we ended up with mass incarceration... and how that's maybe even worse than the passbooks he warns about.
Lester's "Black Power" is definitely more socialist than Stokely's.
Lester's "Black Power" is definitely more socialist than Stokely's.
February 26, 2020
Brilliantly accessible. Enraging to witness how black people have tried for so long to dance with the racist capitalist establishment. It was published in 1967 but it is incredibly relevant to today’s political climate, and the things people say about inclusion and intersectionality. I’m not good at discourse, but it really makes me wonder where we’d be if black power had been recognized as politically legitimate in the 60’s, and how things would have changed had they been allowed to implement policies and societal changes against white power capitalism.
It’s a classic case of “the more things change, the more they stay the same” and I think that’s the most enraging part of reading and understanding black history in America.
“White is not in the color of the skin. It is a condition of the mind: a condition which will be destroyed” and thank god!!!!
It’s a classic case of “the more things change, the more they stay the same” and I think that’s the most enraging part of reading and understanding black history in America.
“White is not in the color of the skin. It is a condition of the mind: a condition which will be destroyed” and thank god!!!!
October 2, 2023
I've searched for copies of this book at least two decades before finally locating a copy-- and wow, what a incredible, incendiary and essential collection of essays. Lester's book is a furiously impassioned look at racism, the Black Power movement, and White supremacy. Intensely composed and often scathingly funny, Lester's book was worth my long search and deftly earns its eye-catching title.
October 28, 2025
Reflective, historical and very often funny look at how Black civil rights activists turned into militants in the Sixties, scaring uptight folks, Black and white, along the way. Lester later converted to Judaism, and published some moving thoughts on his new found faith.
June 21, 2017
Extremely timely, in 1969, and again today.
July 5, 2021
Powerful.
December 30, 2022
old school at its best
good luck
good luck
January 15, 2023
Quite an eye-opener! Although the copyright is 1968, history is unchanging, and the story continues. This book has started my search for knowledge anew.
Want to Read
April 9, 2024I read this as a kid, really in about 1985. I want to read it again...
September 20, 2026
This book contains the answer to solving a white created issue within America - racism. No one else has the answer to solving racism besides this book. That’s all.
March 14, 2017
Having interest in the Black Power movement of the civil rights years, I was intrigued by the title... my initial reaction was that of literally "LOL". Getting past the title , this ended up being a decent read... I only intended on skimming through it, but ended up finishing it.
June 22, 2021
Basically a 140 page version of the lyrics of Gil Scott Heron's "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised." Which is a very good thing. Sad to see how very little has changed regarding racism in America these last 50+ years. A very clever and succinct read on that depressing topic though.
December 29, 2009
I wanted to read this because I thought the title of the book was hilarious and I've always enjoyed reading black nationalist literature. The more radical and extreme the better. So I had high hopes for Look Out Whitey! He does come up with some funny terms while trash talking white people like "Niggeritis" and SPONGE: Society for Prevention of Niggers Fucking Everything Up. He writes in a fairly entertaining ranting style, full of parody, satire and sarcasm but this was pretty mediocre as far as stuff like this goes. Overall a disappointment. Its also too dated to be relevant now and judging by a lot of what he wrote and the title he seemed like he wrote this book as a means to thumb his nose at white people more than for any kind of serious black nationalists. Besides who the hell is Julius Lester anyway? I've read my share of stuff by and about black radicals from the 60s and 70s but I have never heard of him.
November 4, 2009
Black Power Revolutionaries....what nostalgia...
Like most Black Power books, it has some information that might be shocking for liberal whiggers. But for the racial insenstive persons like me, it isn't it a big deal.
I have a Dutch translation from the sixties, published by some leftwing publisher, they really slaughtered the slurs in the book, they even didn't use "Your momma" in the title. It stated "your broad"
Like most Black Power books, it has some information that might be shocking for liberal whiggers. But for the racial insenstive persons like me, it isn't it a big deal.
I have a Dutch translation from the sixties, published by some leftwing publisher, they really slaughtered the slurs in the book, they even didn't use "Your momma" in the title. It stated "your broad"
August 3, 2015
A moment frozen in time. Real application of dependency theory (Fanon) concerning race relations, but it raises a lot of questions about the "racial/cultural" journey we, as a Nation, have been on for the last 50 years.
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews