The Black Peoples Unity Movement and Friends: The Brief Emergence of an Interracial Black Power Movement in Camden, New Jersey, 1968

Abstract

Abstract This article examines the interracial alliances forged in 1968 in Camden, New Jersey, between Black and white clergy, the urban Black Peoples Unity Movement (BPUM), and the suburban Friends of the Black Peoples Unity Movement (FBPUM). This coalition complicates the histories of Black Power militancy and Christian nonviolence by highlighting points of intersection and cooperation during the long civil rights movement in a secondary city. Even though militant rhetoric pervaded the movement in Camden, activists organized across race and despite ideology. This finding is compelling because the prevailing research demonstrates that other cities, even those nearby, could not sustain interracial cooperation after the widespread dissemination of Black Power politics in the mid-1960s. Camden’s story, while seemingly unique, is potentially suggestive of a larger, less visible aspect of the movement. In the wake of urban renewal, a shifting economy, and lack of adequate homes and schools, Black militants and nonmilitant Black and white Christians alternately compromised and reconfigured their own values to promote the shared goal of equality in their community.