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Comment by the_rosentotter | Hacker News Reader

Peter Norman's actions (as well as those of John Carlos and Tommie Smith) were even more impressive in light of the racist undercurrents in both white and black culture at the time.

The three basically took a stand against both the white majority establishment AND a strong trend in contemporary black counter-culture that opposed race equality and integration.

The picture of them carrying him to his grave honestly brought a tear to my eye.

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That's the first that I'd heard of this 'strong trend in contemporary black counter-culture that opposed race equality and integration' in the years around 1968.

Any references where I can read more on the subject? I looked up the black panther page on Wikipedia, and it referenced black nationalism undertones existing in its earlier phases (until around 1964). Still, I couldn't see that it was a trending force.

Perhaps the wikipedia article on Black Nationalism [1] or a more recent article on the alliance (!) between the black panthers and the American Nazi Party [2]. You're better off reading early 70s reportage books, though; I'm far too young to remember the 70s, but my parents had old Doonesbury strips around, but as I remember that their resident Black Panther character was wavering between wanting to be included and not wanting to associate with 'whitey'.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_nationalism#Malcolm_X

[2] http://www.vice.com/read/when-malcolm-x-met-the-nazis-000062...

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