Black Consciousness

Black Consciousness

The notion of black consciousness as a means of identity, pride and self-empowerment gradually developed into an enormously influential imperative in the cultural struggle of the 1970’s and 1980’s – yet it is exceedingly difficult to define and explain. Besides being a direct response to centuries’ long privations and frustrations and a rejection of hard-line white attitudes and actions, it clearly it derives from a wide range of sources. These include such diverse matters as Frantz Fanon’s analysis of the colonial mentality, Paolo Freire’s pedagogy of the oppressed, concepts of negritude as outlined by Léopold Senghor, Aimé Césaire and ***, the Africanist ideas of African leaders (such as Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana ) as well as the various concepts of black consciousness, black empowerment, black theology and black power generated by the American racial struggles. The names of Stokely Carmichael and Malcolm X are particularly significant of course, as are the writings of Ngugi wa Thiongo and ****.

The Black Consciousness Movement

As a movement in South Africa much of this was drawn together in a specific programme generally referred to as the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM), formed by Steve Biko as its charismatic leader and prominent spokesman in the 1960’s, and gaining concrete manifestation in such Organisations as the Black Community Programmes (late 1960’s), the Black People’s Convention (BPC – founded 1972) and the Black Allied Worker’s Union, which were all intended to co-ordinate the movement on the political, social and cultural fronts. Specific interpretation of the notions “black” and “the community” were defined by this movement, where Biko argued for an inclusive definition of “blackness”, based not on pigmentation so much as mental attitude and thus a defining characteristic of a large and widely spread “community” with shared needs and ideals. The BCM stressed black independence of white collusion and conscientization became a central tenet of their cultural political programme. Much of the more “radical” and influential theatre produced between 1976 and 1986 thus relied heavily on the ideas of such activist writers as Berthold Brecht, Paolo Freire and Augusto Boal, and appeared to respond to and/or be in accord with the tenets of the BCM. A great deal of the critical writing of the time also utilized the BCM ideology as a basis for its classification, analysis and criticism. The impact of the BCM and the intellectuals who articulated it on theatre was storngly felt in the late 1960’s and 1970’s with the founding of PET, TECON, MDALI, FUBA, SASO, Mihloti, the Soweto Ensemble, and other Organisations, as well as journals such as Black Review and S’ketsh. Among the influential cultural leaders and artists involved were Mafika Gwala, Lewis Nkosi, Sipho Sepamla, Mthuli Shezi, and Molefe Pheto. [Kruger, 1999: 129-142; Boonzaier and Sharp, 1988: 35]