Symbolism
Black Cube = Black Bloc?
In February 1967, the anarchist group Black Mask marched on Wall Street in New York City wearing black clothes and balaclavas. This was the first instance of a social movement in the western world utilising masks and black dress, which were used not for purposes of disguise but to signify a militant identity. In this regard, Black Mask anticipated and may have indirectly influenced the black bloc tactic.[5]
The first prominent use of the tactic in United States of America occurred at the Pentagon, in Washington, D.C. on 17 October 1988, although anarchists had been using similar tactics in small numbers in preceding years in places like San Francisco, culminating with several hundred anarchists in black smashing glass store fronts and attacking vehicles in the Berkeley Anarchist Riot of 1989.[18][19] In D.C., over one thousand demonstrators—a small number consisting of a black bloc—called for the end to U.S. support for the right wing death squads in El Salvador.[20] A black bloc caused damage to property of GAP, Starbucks, Old Navy, and other retail locations in downtown Seattle during the 1999 anti-WTO demonstrations.[21] They were a common feature of subsequent anti-globalization protests.[22]
In the years after the end of the Vietnam War, protest in the US came to assume more legalistic, orderly forms, and was increasingly dominated by the middle-class.[23] This corresponded with the rise of a highly effective police strategy of crowd control called "negotiated management."[24] Many social scientists have noted the "institutionalization of movements" in this period.[25] These currents largely constrained disruptive protest until 1999. In an unprecedented success for post-Vietnam era civil disobedience, the WTO Ministerial Conference opening ceremonies were shut down completely, host city Seattle declared a state of emergency for nearly a week, multilateral trade negotiations between the wealthy and developing nations collapsed, and all of this was done without fatalities. This occurred in the midst of mass rioting which had been set off by militant anarchists, some of them in a black bloc formation.[26][27][28]
In the lead up to the shutdown, local group Seattle Anarchist Response (SAR) had circulated Ward Churchill's text Pacifism as Pathology freely among protesters. SAR actively promoted among the rank-and-file of the Direct Action Network (DAN) and criticized NGO hegemony of the protests. They often found an enthusiastic response.[29]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_bloc