Robert Rhodes, an African-American studies professor, raised his fist last night, remembering a movement that still has meaning today.

"Black power," he said, smiling with his fist raised in the air.

As part of the Contemporary History Institute's 1968 Remembered Conference, panelists discussed the Black Power movement and its relevance today last night in Baker Center.

Heather Hughes/THE POST
During a panel discussion in Baker Ballroom last night, Clarence Page shows the audience how big his hair was during his college days. As part of the Contemporary History Institute's 1968 Remembered Conference, Page and other panelists, discussed various issues like racial relations and politics in the 1960s and the present.

Clarence Page, commentator, Chicago Tribune columnist and OU graduate, related his experiences during the Black Power movement. He said "black power" started out as a phrase and then caught on as a social change.

But Page, a 1969 OU graduate, said the movement really started to take effect in his life after he graduated from OU.

"I almost did not get hired by the Tribune fresh off this campus because they thought I was too militant," he laughed. "The whole idea of black power was 'what do we do next?'"

While Page said there has been social progress since the movement, race relations are less than perfect.

"The civil rights movement didn't promise us a rose garden," he said.

Today, Page said there is a challenge to unify the nation.

"We have become two nations, one black and poor, the other, everybody else," he said. "Class has made race more complicated."

Originally, Kwame Ture, a member of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Coalition in the 1960s, was going to give the conference's keynote speech on "Black Power and Legacies of the 1960s," last night, but canceled because he fell ill.

Instead Francine Childs, an African-American studies professor, Vattel Rose, African-American studies chair, Rhodes and Page sat on the panel. Last night's discussion was part of a three-day "Remembering 1968" conference that ends Saturday.