What's the history of the source of the slogan "power to the people"?
score:9
SHORT ANSWER
The Black Panther Party (BPP), as suggested by the passage you cited, does seem to be the originator of this slogan in terms of the protests movements from the 1960s onwards, with 'all' originally preceding it. The earliest confirmed use I've found was on a March 1969 BPP poster (see below).
DETAILED ANSWER
In his autobiography, BPP Minister of Defense and co-founder Huey P. Newton writes:
Another expression that helped to raise Black people’s consciousness is “All Power to the People....it was coined by the Black Panther Party around the same time as “pig,”....the slogan “All Power to the People” sums up our goals for Black people, as well as our deep love and commitment to them. All power comes from the people, and all power must ultimately be vested in them.
Pinpointing the exact date it was first used is difficult; the BPP was founded in 1966 but the slogan does not appear in their original 10-point program. Bobby Seal, co-founder of the party says (in Power to the People: The World of the Black Panthers) that he used "All power to all the people" in the 1960s.
In the citation above, Newton mentions 'all power to the people' was coined 'around the same time as "pig"'. The use of 'pig' with reference to the police dates back to at least 1785, but seems to have fallen out of use in this sense until re-emerging in 1968 according to both this wordwizard post and the article When Cops Were Pigs (1968).
Looking at speeches by BPP members, the slogan 'All Power to the People' does not appear to have been used before 1969. There is more of a focus initially on 'Black Power'.In a 1968 speech at the Free Huey Rally in February 1968, Bobby Seale uses the word 'power' numerous times, but never the slogan. Rather he ends his speech with,
Black Power, and you are the power, the Black Power, to Free Huey.
BPP member Fred Hampton, in a speech he gave in 1969 at Olivet Church also doesn't use the slogan. Rather, he opens with
Power anywhere where there's people. Power anywhere where there's people.
but in a speech at Nothern Illinois University in November 1969, he does use it:
All power to the people. Northern Illinois power to the people that go here to Northern Illinois University.
In 1967, Emory Douglas became Minister of Culture for the BPP and was responsible for much of their artwork. In March 1969, he produced the poster below.
Image source: The revolutionary art of Emory Douglas, Black Panther
By May 1969, jazz saxophonist Joe Henderson had picked up on the slogan and recorded an album with the title Power to the People.
Also in May 1969, the Berkeley Liberation program was first made public with the words All Power to the People prominently displayed. This 13-point program was written by "various bay area radicals", among whom were Tom Hayden and local Yippie (Youth International Party) Stew Albert, and influenced by the BPP.
As to who exactly coined the phrase, Seale does not appear to make any claims while Newton is vague on this, though he seems to be the most likely candidate. In the citation above, he simply says 'the BPP'. In the Huey P. Newton Reader, a collection of his writings, he says (note the use of 'we' here):
When we coined the expression "All Power to the People," we had in mind emphasizing the word "Power," for we recognize that the will to power is the basic drive of man.
The use of 'will to power' here seems to be a strong clue as to at least part of the inspiration for 'All Power to the People' as Newton states in his autobiography Revolutionary Suicide that he read Nietzsche and was influenced by the Will to Power, saying,
I learned much from a number of his philosophical insights...
It is perhaps worth noting that the phrase 'Power to the People' has been used in other contexts since at least 1837; it was used in A General View of the Origin and Nature of the Constitution and Government of the United States by Henry Baldwin:
I have traced the right to property to and power to the people of each state...
However, there is no evidence that either Newton or any other Panther read this or, if they did, that it was the origin of 'All Power to the People'.
More post
- 📝 Is there any primary source for Mussolini being called "Juliet"?
- 📝 Did the Maya civilization recognize that it was into an ecological crisis?
- 📝 When did the Portuguese decide to extend their West African exploration to finding a sea passage to India?
- 📝 Was the house of representatives really as rowdy a place as it is portrayed in the 2012 film Lincoln?
- 📝 How was the Pandidakterion organised?
- 📝 When were weapons banned at the Thing assemblies in Norway?
- 📝 What was the largest warship sunk by a Motor Torpedo Boat in WW2?
- 📝 How multilingual would Canaanite citizens have been?
- 📝 Is there any documented criticism of the brutality of the Colosseum from citizens at the time?
- 📝 Was there a nation/state which conquered other ones to gather forces and fight against an even greater enemy?
- 📝 In what ways did the rise of a true middle class in Europe during the late 19th century become apparent?
- 📝 What happened to insurance companies after the 9/11 attacks?
- 📝 Will Hegelian or Dialectical historiography regain any relevance into the contemporary historical discourse?
- 📝 Was there ever any organization of thieves or pickpockets?
- 📝 When did the tilt of the tower of Pisa become seen as a feature instead of a defect?
- 📝 How would a WW1 pilot signal a request to surrender in-flight?
- 📝 Elevated walkway in background at 1980s Potsdamer Platz seen in Wim Wenders' film “Der Himmel über Berlin”
- 📝 What percentage of Jews were in "finance" (money-lenders) throughout Middle Ages?
- 📝 Was early Sumerian civilization wiped out by a flood?
- 📝 What is / are the specific reason(s) for Vyacheslav Molotov's fall from grace with Joseph Stalin?
- 📝 Was the Zimmerman Telegram a ruse on the US or a way of Germany to incite Mexico to declare war on the US?
- 📝 When did Russian carriages start to have suspensions?
- 📝 What happens to interned military personnel if war is declared post-internment?
- 📝 How large could king Arthur's kingdom have realistically been?
- 📝 Is there any book depicting British rule in India from the eyes of British?
- 📝 Was the UN critically involved in defusing the Cuban Missile Crisis?
- 📝 How much tax revenue did the British Empire receive from its colonies in a given year?
- 📝 Life in the middle ages for ordinary people?
- 📝 Did Averroes really try to bury light in an attempt to create gold, or was that invented by Victor Hugo?
- 📝 When did the socialist movement start becoming noteworthy in Russian history?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 What's the history of the source of the slogan "power to the people"?
- 📝 What is a good, authoritative source on the history of Tibet?
- 📝 What is the source and history of "green on blue attack" expression?
- 📝 What is the source of a half remembered art history quote possibly about Bruneleschi's Florence Cathedral?
- 📝 Is history always written by the victors?
- 📝 Which year in history had the highest ratio of non-natural deaths?
- 📝 What is the source of quote attributed to W.E.B. Du Bois: "When you have mastered numbers..."
- 📝 What is the date and original source of this medieval picture?
- 📝 What was the first battle in history fought by vast-majority-% "distance-shooting" non-mechanized force?
- 📝 Is black American history only about segregation, slavery, and the 3 people you get taught about in school?
- 📝 Japan is known for being isolationist, so what cultivated its history of interventionism in the 20th century?
- 📝 Does the Catholic church have a long history of child abuse, or is it something that started in our time?
- 📝 Where are the Native American primary source documents?
- 📝 What is the history of the popped collar?
- 📝 What is the primary source for this quote by Julius Caesar's on Celts and Germans?
- 📝 What is the history of the university asylum law?
- 📝 Is there a historical source that might explain why so many countries use 35 as a minimum age for the president / the highest office person?
- 📝 Does Chinese history really span the past 5000 years?
- 📝 What is the history of the check mark / tick mark?
- 📝 How is the discipline of History differentiated from other disciplines in social sciences or the humanities?
- 📝 Can history shed any light on the "secret arts" of the Egyptian magicians who turned their staffs into serpents as claimed by Exodus 7:11-12?
- 📝 How aware were the latter Greek-speaking Romans (ERE: Byzantines) of the early history of Rome?
- 📝 What do I need to know about Syria's history to understand the 2011-2012 uprising?
- 📝 How can I properly learn the history of a country whose language I don't speak or read?
- 📝 Which single-car accident in history caused the most deaths?
- 📝 What is the source for this Goering quote on radar?
- 📝 Why do all my history books divide Chinese history after the Han dynasty?
- 📝 Why has there only been one dynasty in the history of Japan?
- 📝 When was the first usage of the slogan "Wer hat uns verraten..."?
- 📝 What is the source for this Leonardo Da Vinci quote?