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"Black Power", as a political technique stems from several basic assumptions about America's ability to speedily solve her problems.

Lerone Bennet, writing in The Negro Mood, outlined three major and four minor points upon which the more militant members of the movement must agree::

1. that the social system, as organized, is no longer capable of solving, through normal channels, the urgent problems presented to it by history. The second is allied to the first;

2. that the social system, as organized, is part of the problem and cannot be appealed to or relied upon as an independent arbiter in power conflicts of which it is a part.

3. that white Americans, generally speaking, lack the will, courage and the intelligence to voluntarily grant Negroes their civil rights and that they must be forced to it by pressure.

In addition, the militant movement assumes
- that people do not discriminate for the fun of it, that the function of predjudice is to defend social, economic, political or psychological interests and that appeals to the fair play of predjudiced people are prayers said to the wind;
- that communities will change discriminatory patterns if they are forced to do make a clear-cut choice between bias and another highly developed value - economic gain, education or civic peace.
- that conflicts and struggles are necessary for social change
- that the rights (and lives) of real human beings are at stake, and that these rights are neither ballotable or negotiable.

Coupled with these are certain political assumptions, spelled out by Atlanta University's Dr. Samuel DuBois Cook:

1. since Negroes are in a minority in most parts of the United States, we must make alliances based on their ability to promote racial goals. In