Why Did Some African Americans Reject Nonviolence

Joel Blackmore

WHY DID SOME AFRICAN AMERICANS REJECT NONVIOLENCE?

Black protest in America in the 1960s developed into two opposing stances, the non-violence of the Civil Rights movement in the South and the violent protests of the urban poor blacks and black power organisations in the North. In the early 1960's the main protest form was the Civil Rights movement. This was predicated on non-violent protest. It fo0lowed the principles of non-violence successfully used by Mahatma Gandhi

in India. The Civil Rights movement focused

on non-violent protest in the Southern States. Thousands of black and white protesters demonstrated peacefully against segregation--against practice where white people had seating preference in public buses, where black people had to sit at separate lunch counters from whites, had to go round the back of stores to drink from water taps rather than drink at fountains used by whites, where education and schools were strictly segregated so whites had the best education and blacks the worst. Most importantly the Civil Rights movement was just that--a mass campaign to get black people their civil rights--including the right to vote. Thousands of black people and white students from the North poured into the south in protest marches and demonstrations and were frequently met by white violence--police attacking protesters, jailing protesters and white racists including members of the Klu Klux Klan killing, black (and white protesters), and firebombing black churches and homes. Despite this violent reaction by southern whites to the civil rights protests the Civil Rights leaders emphasised that they mush fight through legal challenges and non-violent demonstrations.

A key aspect of the Civil Rights non violent movement was that it was supported by white establishment figures alongside black leaders and organisations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) and national leaders such as Martin Luther King, which relied heavily on non-violence, The Civil Rights protests received massive national and international media publicity with white violence against black and white protesters being clearly shown to TV audiences in the North and around the world.

The resulting pace of change through the Civil Rights movement in improving the real poverty conditions and discrimination that black people in the south and in the north faced was however very slow.

As a result some black people and black leaders began to reject non-violence--they couldn't see non-violence making any real difference to the poverty and injustice that black people in America faced in their daily lives. In the northern city ghettos black people were as segregated in practice as the black people in the south. They were unemployed, harassed by police daily, their children went to all black schools which were much poorly funded than schools for whites.

More radical forms of black protest developed in the mid 1960's and became much more dominant as the decade drew to a close. These more radical forms of black protest often became associated with violence and militancy. The Nation of Islam founded by Elijah Muhammad and made famous by its national spokesman Malcolm X, was the first black organisation that came to the attention of the American media and then the American public. The media called the Nation of Islam 'the Black Muslims ' and portrayed them as being a threat to America through advocating violence against white people. The white press sensationalised the Black Muslims saying they wanted their own separate state and wanted to kill 'white devils'.

Some supporters of the Civil Rights movement began to grow disillusioned with the slow progress they were making and organisations such as the Student National Co-ordinating Committee (SNCC) led by Stokely Carmichael began to move against non-violence and say that black people should be able to use violent protest if they were forced to. Eldridge Cleaver and the Black Panther party were proponents of black power. They dressed in a 'uniform' of black leather jacket, black leather gloves, black sunglasses and a black beret with a leaping panther as their motive. They frequently carried guns, turned up at incidents where white police were arresting black people and were involved in highly publicised shoot outs.

Opposeors to Martin Luther King\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s non-violent forms of protest felt that the Civil Rights Movement was dominated by white people too much and that black people should be more in control over the protests that affect them the most. Whites were heavily involved in the Civil Rights Movement on all levels, from senior positions involving planning the strategy and policies of the movement, to white liberals joining the protests and demonstrations. Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam felt that white people were not to be trusted and therefore white people would only harm the struggle for improvement of life for black people. Malcolm X openly criticised the 1963 Civil Rights march on Washington, where Martin Luther King delivered his famous "I have a dream..." speech to over two hundred thousand people. Malcolm X said that the march had been taken over by white liberals: "as they [white liberals] took it over it lost its militancy. It ceased to be angry, it ceased to be hot, it ceased to be uncompromising...it became a picnic, a circus". (11) Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam felt that a more uncompromising solidly black force could achieve far more than the more liberal people of the Civil Rights Movement. This offered an alternative to Martin Luther King's movement for any demonstrators that agreed with Malcolm X.

Whilst blacks were being attacked by racists and the police in the South, Martin Luther King still called for non-violence, something he was heavily influenced to do through Gandhi

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s example in India: \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"[Gandhi

] led the struggle for India\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s independence from British colonial rule...he opposed any form of terrorism or violence... [Gandhi

] has influenced national and international non-violent resistance movements...including the American Civil Rights Movement led by Martin Luther King\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\". (1) Although Martin Luther King called for non-violence, the Civil Rights Movement was being covered internationally by the media and violent images of black people being attacked were seen