Reflections on the Black Power Statement

May I ruminate, speculate, or highlight, some four decades after its publication, on the shrill message of the bishops of the still maturing Antilles Episcopal Conference in the exciting year of 1969. Chaired by Jamaican Archbishop Samuel Carter, SJ, one of those to whom this volume is dedicated, the Bishops’ Conference, far away in Montego Bay, Jamaica, felt the heat of the movement from violent groups in the United States rallying their Black brothers and sisters into revolutionary marches, passionate speeches, and sometimes bombings. They bravely faced the issue of possible contagion of the movement in their Caribbean homelands.