Radical Groups, Individuals, and Organizations

Radical Groups, Individuals, And Organizations in the Civil Rights Movement

When most people think of the Civil Rights Movement, they think of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And the peaceful civil disobedience that he advocated. While there is no question that Dr. King and those he led made significant gains in civil rights for African-Americans, it is important to keep in mind that they were not the only people working for greater civil rights for African-Americans. In fact, there were several notable radical groups, individuals, and organizations advocating for greater civil rights for African-Americans, who did not advocate the passive approach of working within the existing system to effectuate those changes. The best known of those groups, individuals, and organizations were the Black Panthers, Malcolm X, the Black Power Movement, the Black Arts Movement, and the Black Student Movement. While each had its own agenda, all of these political powers wanted an immediate end to white oppression of blacks and believed that an any-means necessary approach was substantially justified.

Other than Dr. King, Malcolm X may be the most well-known figure of the Civil Rights Movement. The two men could not have been more different. Dr. King grew up in a family of preachers, in the South, and practiced and preached non-violence. Malcolm X was from the North, was not particularly religious, and had a significant criminal history. While incarcerated, he became acquainted with the Nation of Islam, or the Black Muslims, a religious organization that "taught that white society actively worked to keep African-Americans from empowering themselves and achieving political, economic, and social success" (Estate of Malcolm X, 2012). When he emerged from prison, Malcolm X became an advocate for black civil rights, initially advocating for separatism, and even hatred of whites. While he became less militant after a life-changing trip to Mecca, he is often remembered as a person who advocated an anti-white status.

The Black Panthers was "the sole black organization in the entire history of black struggle against slavery and oppression in the United States that was armed and promoted a revolutionary agenda" (Huey P. Newton Foundation, 2012). It was initially established to help protect black individuals and black neighborhoods from routine police brutality. The organization eventually established a 10-point platform and program which addressed not only legal racial inequality, but also the social and economic impact of that racial inequality.

The Black Arts Movement refers specifically to the rise of African-American literature in the 1960s. Writer and activist Amiri Baraka started the movement in Harlem in response to the assassination of Malcolm X and actively encouraged black writers to use their voices to tell their stories. The movement went outside of the realm of written art to include theater and other forms of expression. It led to the development of cultural studies programs at universities that focused on the idea that being black in the United States was a different cultural experience than being white, and helped highlight social differences between black and white America.

The Black Student Movement is an organization at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. It was established because of Black student dissatisfaction with both the growth of the black student population at the school and the NAACP chapter at the school. It became an active voice for students at the school, and presented demands to the school's chancellor. The Black Student Movement also identified with working blacks at the school, particularly food workers, showing an overlap in social class that did not necessarily exist in other areas of the civil rights movement.