Civil Rights Movement Essay
Frustrated and disillusioned, civil rights activists seemed to move one step forward and one step backwards through much of the battle for full legal status. This slow pace ultimately caused a split between the peaceful MLK led civil rights movement and the more aggressive SNCC and Black Power movements. While much progressive domestic legislation was being passed, African American frustration was peaking. Civil rights advances were consistently rebuffed by carefully crafted state and local level laws as well as outright defiance purposed to circumvent federally mandated efforts for full legal status. For example, LBJ attempted to placate White fear of government support and enforcement of civil rights by implementing the compensatory
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Traditional non violent protest adherents aligned with MLK and the younger more militant groups that seemed to gravitate toward Stokely Carmichael, SNCC leader who coined the phrase Black Power. Urged by MLK to soften the rhetoric of black power, fearing it would confuse their allies and add to an already prejudiced white rejection of full legal status for blacks, Carmichael rejected MLK's suggestions. Further, Roy Wilkins of the NAACP labeled the Black Power movement as “the father of hatred and the mother of violence”. Nonetheless recognizing a need to attempt to bridge the gap between Black Power and Christian conscience the National Committee of Negro Church Man (NCNC) issued a statement rejecting violence but acknowledging the need for blacks to exercise power and demand political and economic rights. Nevertheless, the same reasons that white militancy acted out with violence and force invalidated the segregationists efforts, civil rights activists that gravitated toward militancy equally lost credibility. Lawful or not, any gains or positions maintained by either side and achieved by utilizing militant tactics were never accepted in a friendly way. Rather they were reluctantly accepted, such that the side forced to accept the changes did so with feelings of resentment always escalating racial tensions. Further, LBJ’s National advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, in an attempt to find causes of the riots, had
Traditional non violent protest adherents aligned with MLK and the younger more militant groups that seemed to gravitate toward Stokely Carmichael, SNCC leader who coined the phrase Black Power. Urged by MLK to soften the rhetoric of black power, fearing it would confuse their allies and add to an already prejudiced white rejection of full legal status for blacks, Carmichael rejected MLK's suggestions. Further, Roy Wilkins of the NAACP labeled the Black Power movement as “the father of hatred and the mother of violence”. Nonetheless recognizing a need to attempt to bridge the gap between Black Power and Christian conscience the National Committee of Negro Church Man (NCNC) issued a statement rejecting violence but acknowledging the need for blacks to exercise power and demand political and economic rights. Nevertheless, the same reasons that white militancy acted out with violence and force invalidated the segregationists efforts, civil rights activists that gravitated toward militancy equally lost credibility. Lawful or not, any gains or positions maintained by either side and achieved by utilizing militant tactics were never accepted in a friendly way. Rather they were reluctantly accepted, such that the side forced to accept the changes did so with feelings of resentment always escalating racial tensions. Further, LBJ’s National advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, in an attempt to find causes of the riots, had