How to Understand the Black Power Movement

The 1950s and 1960s were a tumultuous time in American history. The civil rights movement, which reflected the desire by America's minorities to gain equality, had many offshoots, one being the black power movement. The movement was viewed as a more aggressive struggle for the rights of African Americans, but this is an incomplete view.

Difficulty:

Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. Understand that during the 1950s and 1960s, many states, especially in the South, were divided over the issue of racial integration. A lack of social justice, good education and employment opportunities were just a few issues that sparked the civil rights or Black Power movement.

2. Recall that in 1952, Malcolm X joined the Nation of Islam and became a leading spokesman for black separatism. He and his followers held rallies and protests that raised the collective African American consciousness. Malcolm X would later change his views and promote equality and peace between Americans only to be assassinated in 1965.

3. Remember that the black power movement exploded onto the national scene in 1955 when Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference led a bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama. King, like Mahatma Gandhi, believed in nonviolent protest. The boycott forced an ending to segregation on public transportion in Montgomery.

4. Know that the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was a student organization that joined the black power movement in 1960 by staging sit-ins at segregated business, conducted freedom rides to promote equality and practiced nonviolent protest.

5. Note that the Birmingham marches resulted in bombings and violence against protesters, including Martin Luther King and in his family in 1963. The attacks by police with fire hoses against child protesters heightened national awareness of civil rights issues.

6. Celebrate July 2, 1964, the date on which President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act which made segregation illegal and gave the courts the power to prosecute anyone practicing segregation.