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The leadership of the civil rights movement during the mid- 1 sass were split into two main types. Martin Luther King and Stokers Carmichael were great leaders in the intolerance movement. King and Carmichael preached for a non-violent movement and held freedom marches to get them heard. Stokers Carmichael became president of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in 1 966 where he gained national prominence as the originator of the term “Black Power. ” He had been active in the organization during the Freedom Rides and had run a successful campaign to increase voter starvation in Lowness County, Mississippi.
In 1 967, Carmichael left the SYNC and joined the Black Panthers where he rose to the position of Prime Minister. Malcolm X began his real education in a prison library where he was serving time for robbery. Upon his release, he joined the Nation of Islam whose leader Elijah Muhammad preached that the black race was superior to the white, that the white race was inherently evil, and that total separation was the only way to achieve racial equality. Malcolm X rose quickly through the ranks, attracting numerous converts with his fiery oratory skills, organizational abilities, and tireless work.
In 1964, disturbed by Elijah Muhammad accumulation of wealth, Malcolm X left the Nation of Islam and started his own organization, the Organization of Afro-American Unity, which vowed to promote greater harmony among all nationalities and races. He was warned repeatedly that some of his former associates were plotting to kill him, and on February 22, 1 965 three men shot him to death as he gave a speech in the Harlem Ballroom. Malcolm X was a criminal who preached for a free black nation, he used his new position as the spokesmen for the nation f Islam to exalt himself to a position of power in the civil rights movement.
Hey Newton and Bobby Seal formed the Black Panthers in 1966 to protect black citizens from police brutality. The Black Panthers were responsible for starting the trend of referring to police as “pigs” In 1 967 Stokers Carmichael changed his views and joined the Black Panther party and denounced his nonviolent views. This would be the beginning of the end to the armed Panthers. Hey Newton was charged with murdering a police officer and later acquitted of the charges. Martin Luther King denounced the war in Vietnam and lost his support from President Johnson.
He did this because of the growing poverty in the united States. Poverty in this country was becoming a major problem and the war was not helping this national problem. In the summer of 1967 there were riots and 87 people died. King arranged a poor people march from Mississippi to Washington D. C. 1968 two black garbage workers were killed by accident and their families were not entitled to benefits. There was a garbage strike lasted several weeks. Martin Luther King goes to speak for the garbage workers and when he returns to Tennessee his next demonstration becomes a disaster.
Several people break windows and attack police. This upsets King because it is the first demonstration that King has led that turned violent and he had no control over it. The main reason for the falter of the civil rights movement was the assignation of Malcolm X. This enraged the black people and made them think that they had to fight even harder. Along with the black leader Carmichael joining the Black Panthers made some think that their struggle loud only be fought through violence.
Next was the assignation of Martin Luther King, on who was among the only left who believed in nonviolence. This left everyone with no role models for nonviolence and everything just started to plummet out of control. Goal changes were also responsible for some of the problems. The black leaders started out with the intention of getting equal rights for all blacks. Toward the end of the struggle their goals were not so clear cut and due to leadership clashes, economic struggle the lines had become blurred.