Hip-Hop was born into the void of leadership caused by post civil rights neglect. To put it another way, hip-hop was born into the early 1970's during the transition from the black power movement of the sixties, to the integration of the seventies and eighties. Leaders were ****. The Black Panthers were taken out by the government. Malcolm X was gone. Dr. King was gone. And the Kennedy’s were gone. Our leaders, who had posed themselves as a legitimate threat to the power structure in America, had all been **** or neutered. So you had black folk saying, “I ain’t trying to have that type of leadership no more, cause I don’t want to get ****.”
Hip-Hop was born into that community, and that community wasn’t talking about black power on a broad level anymore. It was not actively pursuing social justice or civil disobedience either, nor struggling for liberation. Rather, this generation was looking for ways that it might “fit in.” Sadly, many of the economically disadvantaged were not a part of that integration movement. They were still stuck in the slums and the ghettos of urban America, and their children were forced to create a voice that had previously been illuminated by civil rights. And Hip-Hop was born...
Submitted by BET's Jeff Johnson
