AJ Johnson on Black Power

AH: I want to ask, what does Black Power mean to you? because everybody has their own definition of Black Power, so what does it mean?

AJ: As of now?

AH: Well

AJ: I can definitely say that back in the day, I didn’t really know, I was trying to figure it out because again, I was trying to understand my identity, I was trying to understand who I was, because I was told that I was so-and-so on one side and then so-and-so on another and all I could find was that I wanted to be like Martin Luther King [Jr.] one day, that was all I had in my mind, “hey, I want to be like Martin Luther King [Jr.] one day, that is what it means to be Black to be able to create this peace, this happiness” that is what I felt and what I wanted to aim for

AH: What does it mean now for you, today?

AJ: Just Black Power in general?

AH: Do you still believe in Black Power?

AJ: Black Power for me is about the uplift of a race, of the culture, of the consciousness of the people within a culture. That is Black Power, that is the Black power we strive for, within that consciousness we are building up of the race, everything will come whether it is economically, intellectually, that is what we are aiming for in the Black Power Movement or a Black Power Movement instead of more aggressiveness or self-destructive, any destructive power is, the power of intellectual building because knowledge is power and through that consciousness we will be able to raise ourselves and build ourselves, back to where we should be and even greater heights past that, but Black Power is inherently nationalistic and I do not believe in pure nationalism anymore, I believe that every culture has something to offer every other culture and that only by understanding other cultures can we be able to understand our own, but we do have to have a certain amount of understanding of our cultural identity before we even gain anything from other cultures and that is something that we need to build up right now because by being told who we are from other cultures, specifically Anglo-Saxon cultures, we are being diluted and not even we know where we stand out most of the time anyhow.

AH: And so your evolvement in think about this idea came from college classes or from outside reading material?

AJ: Well, I guess, that I always had a passion for it, I always had this kind passion, and so when you have a passion like that, it kind of, I am not going to say that it comes to you, but you go places to learn that kind of thing and it comes to you to you in to an extent. And in doing so, I have done a lot of outside reading, classes, I have done a few, but again a teacher can only teach you so much and you really have to have that drive and passion yourself to be willing to go and learn further. Because it is only through that critical learning that you are going to learn and it is going to stick. You are going to be able to expand on it on your own mind and in your own consciousness. And so I have had to my own outside reading and my own outside study. And that is the study I am most proud of and what I have learned the most from and a teacher can tell me one thing and if I can argue with a teacher on a point, I feel like I have gained something, that, I didn’t just gain what the teacher told me, I have been able to go back and learn on my own, teach myself and that is something really powerful.