The Black Power Mixtape

The likes of Stokely Carmichael, Eldridge Cleaver, Bobby Seale and Angela Davis are inspirational individuals in the fight for justice for the Black community.

The Black Power activists were at the forefront in the the struggle for equality in 1960s America. Although their names may have been forgotten about over the years, they played a prominent role and epitomised that the community should not be forced to play a subordinate role in society, but to challenge oppression and the system.

The events and feelings of the Black Power Movement has been revisited and is the subject of a documentary which is one of the highlights at this year’s BFI London Film Festival 2011 taking place this month.

The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 has been put together by Swedish director Goran Olsson, who came across archive footage including speeches made by Carmichael in Stockholm and an intense interview with Davis in her jail cell as she awaited trial on kidnapping and first-degree murder charges, which she was acquitted of.

It is not meant as a definite documentary of events, described by its director as a “mash-up history of the Black Power movement” as seen through the eyes of Swedish news and documentary filmmakers.

But the film could go somewhere to empower a new generation, to appreciate those who have been part of the struggle in the past and also understand why without making a stand, things cannot change.