Civil Rights and Black Power (1941-1970)

 After the civil rights act.

http://africanamerican2.abc-clio.com.libproxy.eku.edu/Topics/Display/30

this article talks about how African American were still upset even after the civil rights act because they were still being discriminated against.

TOPIC CENTER: CIVIL RIGHTS REIGNITES, 1965-1968

During the civil rights movement of the mid-20th century, African Americans took up many different strategies in their struggle for political and social equality. Beginning in the 1950s, many activists turned to leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., who advocated nonviolent protest and civil resistance as the primary means to secure equal rights. However, by 1965, many African Americans were frustrated by the racism and discrimination that continued in their daily lives. By this time, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had been passed, which banned discrimination based on race and ended racial segregation in schools and the workplace. This legislation, while a major victory for civil rights leaders, did not necessarily trickle down immediately to become reality for most African Americans. For them, everyday life was still characterized by poor socioeconomic conditions and discrimination. As such, other movements that advocated for black civil rights began to develop along the mainstream civil rights movement, the most prominent of which was the black power movement. Epitomized by the Black Panther Party, this movement advocated self-defense and black nationalism in opposition to the nonviolence of such leaders as King.
Urban Riots and Violent Protest
By the time the Civil Rights Act was finally passed, African Americans had spent decades fighting for equality in a society that had viewed them as second-class citizens. Even though slavery had been abolished and African Americans had won the right to vote, deep-seated racism persisted. Accepted social practices like segregation in housing and education kept blacks relegated to the lowest rungs of the socioeconomic ladder, with little opportunity to climb up.
In response to these injustices, civil rights leaders like King advocated for nonviolent protest, insisting that reacting in violence would only feed into the negative stereotypes of African Americans that formed the basis for racism. However, by the mid-1960s, frustrations exploded. Urban unrest such as the 1965 Watts riot in Los Angeles and the 1967 Detroit riot drew media attention to the realities of black life in, making the situation something that white Americans could no longer ignore.
Black Nationalism
Black nationalism was an ideological movement that could be traced back to abolitionist Martin R. Delaney, who in the mid-19th century advocated for African Americans to return to Africa so that they could build their own nation. By the early 20th century, Universal Negro Improvement Association founder Marcus Garvey developed these radical abolitionist ideas into a black separatist, back-to-Africa movement. Garvey's philosophy would come to inspire the Nation of Islam, which advocated for a different strain of black nationalism: black separatism—that is, living apart from whites—within the United States.
By the late 1950s, Malcolm X emerged as a prominent leader of the Nation of Islam. He called for his followers to express racial pride as a means of taking back their human rights. In contrast to the mainstream civil rights movement, which sought to integrate blacks into American society, black nationalist leaders like Malcolm X called for separatism. They believed that African Americans could not advance in a society dominated by whites, and that institutional racism and social injustice turned African Americans into the very stereotypes that they had been fighting against for decades. By advocating armed self-defense, violent protests, and separatism, leaders like Malcolm X offered an alternative to the civil rights movement led by King.
Black Power and the Civil Rights Movement
Another take on black nationalism emerged with the formation of the Black Panther Party (BPP) in 1966. Adopting the the term "black power," and frustrated by what they perceived as disregard for the problems of urban blacks by King and his supporters, members of the BPP used Malcolm X's ideas of armed self-defense to reclaim their neighborhoods. Rather that advocating for the creation of a separate black nation, they created social programs for the purpose of forming self-sufficient black communities that had full control over economic and political resources.
Many civil rights leaders during the 1960s actually advocated for violent protest as a means for change. Unlike King and other mainstream activists, the black power movement advocated for black political empowerment and self-defense as a means of achieving the goals of the civil rights movement. Rather than sit back and wait for change to occur, black power called on African Americans to use their economic and political power to take a stand against racial discrimination.

Lauren Gallow