The Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) was a grassroots anti-Apartheid activist movement that emerged in South Africa in the mid-1960s out of the political vacuum created by the jailing and banning of the African National Congress and Pan Africanist Congress leadership after the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960. The BCM represented a social movement for political consciousness.

"Black Consciousness origins were deeply rooted in Christianity. In 1966, the Anglican Church under the incumbent, Archbishop Robert Selby Taylor, convened a meeting which later on led to the foundation of the University Christian Movement (UCM). This was to become the vehicle for Black Consciousness."

The BCM attacked what they saw as traditional white values, especially the 'condescending' values of white people of liberal opinion. They refused to engage white liberal opinion on the pros and cons of black consciousness, and emphasized the rejection of white monopoly on truth as a central tenet of their movement. While this philosophy at first generated disagreement amongst black anti-Apartheid activists within South Africa, it was soon adopted by most as a positive development. As a result, there emerged a greater cohesiveness and solidarity amongst black groups in general, which in turn brought black consciousness to the forefront of the anti-Apartheid struggle within South Africa.

Stephen Biko (18 December 1946 – 12 September 1977) was an anti-apartheid activist in South Africa in the 1960s and 1970s.

A student leader, he later founded the Black Consciousness Movement which would empower and mobilize much of the urban black population. Since his death in police custody, he has been called a martyr of the anti-apartheid movement. While living, his writings and activism attempted to empower black people, and he was famous for his slogan "black is beautiful", which he described as meaning: "man, you are okay as you are, begin to look upon yourself as a human being".

Despite friction between the African National Congress and Biko throughout the 1970s^{[Need quotation to verify]} the ANC has included Biko in the pantheon of struggle heroes, going as far as using his image for campaign posters in South Africa's first non-racial elections in 1994.

Biko was born in King William's Town, in the present-day Eastern Cape province of South Africa. He studied to be a doctor at the University of Natal Medical School. Biko was a Xhosa. In addition to Xhosa, he spoke fluent English and fairly fluent Afrikaans.

Tariq Nasheed (b.1974) (sometimes nicknamed Tariq Elite, King Flex, K-Flex, ) is a controversial author, documentary film producer, media personality, Internet radio host, relationship expert, and social commentator, focusing on the psychology of dating and African-American social history.

Nasheed's books on dating and finding women include The Mack Within, The Elite Way, and The Art of Mackin, which has been called "something of a classic." Nasheed also wrote an advice book for female readers, Play or Be Played: What Every Female Should Know About Men, Dating, and Relationships.

His television appearances include The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,Late Night with Conan O'Brien, MTV's Made, and the Current TV series Joe Gets.

He has been quoted on a wide array of issues, including race relations,intimate relationships and infidelity, and U.S. politics and campaign finance. Nasheed has also been a regular speaker on college campuses on the topics of sex and relationships.

Nasheed produced the 2011 documentary film Hidden Colors, on the history of African and aboriginal peoples. The film had a limited theatrical release around the United States before being made available on DVD.

The term black supremacy is a blanket term for various ideologies which hold that black people are superior to people of other races.

In the 1930s the Nation of Islam emerged, coming to prominence during the 1960s, when charismatic minister Malcolm X became a spokesman for the movement. The group's founders, "Master Fard" Muhammad and Elijah Muhammad, preached the Doctrine of Yakub, which held that the Original Man was an "Asiatic black man". White people, it contended, were "grafted" from black people 6,000 years ago by an ancient black scientist named Yakub.

The belief in sacrificial killing and ritualistic murder was part of the early Nation of Islam doctrine. Fard thought explicitly that it was the duty for every Muslim to offer as sacrifice four "Caucasian devils". A portion of Fard's lesson reads as follows:

Why does Fard Mohammad and any Moslem murder the devil? What is the duty of each Moslem in regard to four devils? What reward does a Moslem receive by presenting the four devils at one time? — Because he is one hundred percent wicked and will not keep and obey the laws of Islam. His ways and actions are like a snake of the grafted type. So Mohammad learned that he could not reform the devils, so they had to be murdered. All Moslems will murder the devil because they know he is a snake and also if he be allowed to live, he would sting someone else. Each Moslem is required to bring four devils, and by bringing and presenting four at one time his reward is a button to wear on the laple of his coat, also a free transportation to the Holy City of Mecca.