As a matter of fact, the split was as a result of four prime factors which include; ideology, methods such as peaceful protest and violence, popularity contest, media attention war, as well as the diverse personalities of the civil rights groups as they were competing for public recognition and media attention (Literacy 3-28). As a result, these divisions limited the success of the civil rights movement as they held back the course. In the early 1 sass, there was a number of achievements made by the civil rights movement especially for Martin Luther King and SYNC.
One of the major accomplishments was the Greensboro protests led by SYNC in 1 960 as they revealed that civil rights could rapidly spread and that other societies could collaborate as the demonstrations confronted all scopes of segregation. As a result, the current NAACP battles against segregation in public schools became greater than before. In fact, these protests were only successes due to the methods used by the leaders of the organizations. Martin Luther King and the SOLS demonstrated the efficiency of peaceful protests and direct actions as their methods.
Besides, they believed that peaceful tactics were compatible with defense. After some time, civil rights organizations became impatient at the rate at which at which their rights were improving and sought out to use more severe methods to speed up the course. In point of fact, the radicals were devastated with the peaceful protest and disagreed with the code on which it was based. One of the radicals, Malcolm X, argued that the black community should be prepared to use any means to fight the “white” oppression.
After the shooting of civil rights activist, James Meredith, Stokers Carmichael, the leader of the SYNC urged the organization to focus its commitment to self-defense and declared that Meredith shooting emphasized the need for black people to use violence to defend themselves. In the course of the Vietnam War, there was also a clear divide between the different groups and activists. Leaders of the NAACP supported the war while on the other hand, the SYNC believed that the war was a racial war and were therefore very serious of the war.
As Martin Luther King was at odds with the war, he felt it essential to speak out in 1967 bringing about to tension between himself and the NAACP (Wolfs 39-64). Indeed, these tensions had a destructive impact as they made it difficult to fight for black freedom efficiently. As a result, there was a divide between civil rights groups, for instance CORE and SYNC were no longer aligned with the NAACP, NULL and CLC, and as such the splitting of the movement meant that it was now challenging to organize national campaigns.
In addition to that, Black Power ad been completely established and disputed all the peaceful protest methods used initially and also influenced some groups to adopt the same approach as them. They had the same view as Malcolm X who argued that black people should be prepared to apply violence so as to get equal rights. Unlike other groups black power movement was not satisfied with equality among black and white folks and instead fought for black supremacy (Romano 546-579). Therefore, this challenged the whole peaceful protest for equal rights and the whole philosophy of Martin Luther King.
In summary, the unity of the civil rights movement in the early 1 sass obscured personal competitions and political disagreement. In point Of fact, the breakdown Of the civil rights movement was as a result of the retaliation of some civil rights organizations such as CORE and SYNC as well as the development of Black Power and Malcolm X. As a result of these issues they were not able to make much difference. On the other hand, if they worked together they would have had a better outcome in the struggle for the civil rights of the minority groups.