I'm Jonathan K. Parton, welcome to K-Part.

The big dates of the Civil Rights Movement are 1963 for the March on Washington, 1965 for

the Voting Rights Act, 1968 for the assassination of Martin Luther King.

But in a new book, former Newsweek Editor and former NBC News Washington Bureau Chief

Mark Whitaker zeroes in on 1966 in saying it loud, 1966, the year Black Power challenged

the Civil Rights Movement.

In the fall of 1966, the Black Panther Party is formed in Oakland, California, led by

Huey Newton and Bobby Seale.

It was the year that Martin Luther King tried to take his version of the Civil Rights Movement

north to Chicago and met fierce resistance there.

And on the cultural front, it was the year that Afros became popular, Dishikis.

And finally, in December, at the very end of the year, the first Kwanza was celebrated

in Los Angeles.

So just an amazing amount of things happened in that one year and that's the story I tell

in the book.

In this encore presentation of a conversation, first recorded for Washington Post Live

on February 8, Whitaker argues that 1966 not only forever changed history, but it also

changed the way in which Black Americans viewed their lives, their beauty, and their power.

You specifically zero in on 1966.

What was it about that year that inspired you to write this book?

Well, I started writing this book about the Black Power Movement and initially I thought

it was going to, the book would span six, seven years, maybe even a decade.

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