New York lost 58% and, the well-known working class center, Detroit more than 50%. From the year 1967 until 1987 Philadelphia lost 64% of it’s industrial jobs, which had been traditionally occupied by blacks. The economic crisis that hit American capitalism in the seventies and the movement of industry out of the big cities devastated the living conditions for the black minority. Most of the Afro-Americans however, remained stuck in the lowest parts of the social ladder to this very day, living in the poorest neighborhoods of the big cities. The ultimate achievement of this reformist course over the years was the creation of a tiny layer of black petit-bourgeoisie through affirmative action (positive discrimination), which integrated itself into the American white middle class. The reformist current inside the movement eventually took over in the early seventies (mostly because of the typical Stalinist mixture of ultra-left and reformist policies of the Black Panther leadership) and directed the movement towards the Democratic Party. The famous Civil Rights movement, which began in the fifties with Martin Luther King and reached a climax in the late sixties with the spread of the Black Panther Party, in reality failed to bring a significant improvement in the living standard for the oppressed black minority within the United States. Public Enemy clearly expressed, and continue to express, a growing radical mood among blacks, but also among all the youth. He puts everything within the context of the struggles of the Afro-American community for their rights. Goran M, after interviewing the famous Black American hip hop band Public Enemy, wrote this analysis of their background, how they emerged as a band, how their lyrics evolved, and what they generally stand for.

Public enemy power to the people