BLACK POWER

Carmichael, the hottest name among kids, comes up with a book that is less than incendiary but will likely catch on. It consists of three rather disparate sections. The first draws an important analogy between black Americans and colonized natives in terms of socioeconomic, political and psychic domination, then affirms the superiority of ""black power"" to phony coalition politics. The third section, which sounds more like Professor Hamilton than Carmichael, presents a history of the ghetto; its most radical hope is that some day Negroes will turn down federal funds. The second section mediates the shift with straightforward commentary on the weakness of the Mississippi Freedom Democrats, the potential strength of the Black Panther Party, and the servility of the Tuskegee Negro leadership. Carmichael's SNCC rhetoric and recent trip to Cuba notwithstanding, the book only flirts with leftist theory and the ""colonialism"" theme gets wiped out by the claim that black power means a ""legitimate and healthy"" demand for participation in traditional American bloc politics. Ironically, the very factors which will disappoint some readers, both black and white, make this safer for YA collections in conservative communities.