Tharwa Ben Belgacem 1

Introduction

America, as a result of centuries of slavery followed by an overt and

institutionalized racism, created for itself as justification of its attitudes an
image of the black man as an inferior entity within the context of Western
civilization. Black people responded by struggling to alter this defective
image of their race and fought against the mode of thought that questioned
their very humanity. Consequently, in the mid 20 th century, there arose a
movement that has been and still is honored for its embodiment of that
struggle and the liberating driving force among blacks, across the whole
world.

That movement is called the civil rights movement, and it is

considered to be the crowning glory of blacks‟ efforts to achieve liberty
and equality. Hence, this paper will not define nor show the consequential
events of that era but rather it will simply be an answer to the question
“What were the main factors that gave birth to the civil rights movement.”
This paper will discuss the main factors to which the movement is indebted
for its origins, promotion and growth. These factors are examined under
three categories: organizations, leaders, and literary canons.

The first chapter deals with organizations important in the struggle

for liberty and equality. The focus will be on the strategies adopted and
followed by these organizations against their segregated society where
whites were in all the superior positions and blacks were socially and
economically bottom of the heap. The strategies are divided into two types
the non-violent strategy and the violent one.
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The second chapter will introduce those influential and inspirational

leaders whose deeds and thoughts shaped the vision, development and
progress of the civil rights movement. The focus of this chapter will be
portraits of two leaders Dr. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X who were
opposite in that where each desired the same goal, they followed different
paths towards that goal.

Chapter three will undertake to show how literature and especially

poetry became a voice for the movement expressing blacks' unity and
desire for civil liberty. In particular the chapter will refer to Amiri Baraka
and Gwedolyn Brooks, as being pre-eminent in this field.
 Tharwa Ben Belgacem 3

Chapter I
Influential organizations in the development of the Civil Rights
Movement.

1. Most important organizations that adopted the non-violent strategy

1.1. The NAACP organization
One of the most influential organizations that played a major role in
shaping of the movement was the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People or NAACP. Its influence rose through the
continuous struggle in law courts to throw a searching light upon travesties
and gross unfairness of the „Jim Crow‟ system that prevailed in the
Southern States of America during that era, denying blacks their legal
rights and privileges.
1.1.1. Historical background
The NAACP organization from its foundation in the year 1909,
fought against racial discrimination, injustices and prejudices through
litigation, education and lobbying efforts. These strategies of struggle
against the unjust white system are stated in the organization‟s charter of
mission:
“…To promote equality of rights and to eradicate caste or
race prejudice among the citizens of the united states; to
advance the interest of colored citizens; to secure for them
impartial suffrage; and to increase their opportunities for
securing justice in the courts, education for the children,
employment according to their ability and complete equality
before law.”[1]

The NAACP started to fight injustices in 1910 with a case called the
Pink Franklin case. Though they failed in this case, the organization
resolved to continue to use the law and the law courts to fight prejudice.
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Moreover, the NAACP lobbied against President Wilson's introduction of

racial segregation into Federal government employment and offices in 1913
until after intense pressure from the NAACP, Wilson, finally, publicly
condemned lynching. (It is strange that the man who wanted a "just" peace
settlement in Europe after World War I had failed to voice this particular
condemnation throughout his presidency.) The NAACP also challenged
the Louisville, Kentucky ordinance that required residential segregation in
Buchanan v. Warley, 245 U.S. 60 (1917) with success. Additionally, it
gained a Supreme Court ruling striking down Oklahoma's "grandfather
clause" that exempted most illiterate white voters from a law that
disenfranchised African-American citizens for their illiteracy, in the Guinn
v. United States case (1915). In 1920, the NAACP deliberately selected
Atlanta for its annual conference; the city was known as an active KKK
(Ku Klux Klan) area and this was a signal that white violence and general
intimidation would have no impact on the organization. Furthermore the
NAACP effectively protested against the nomination of John Parker to be a
Supreme Court judge in 1930, as he was known to want laws that
discriminated against African-Americans.
1.1.2. Most important case

The NAACP, through its permanent attempts to outlaw segregation,

succeeded in fueling the civil rights movement in the mid 1950s. Success
began when Oliver Brown from Topeka Kansas, came to ask for help from
McKinley, the head of Topeka's branch of the NAACP. Brown was the
father of, Linda Brown, a black third-grader, who had to walk one mile
through a railroad switchyard in order to get to her black elementary
school, even though there was a white elementary school seven blocks
away. Linda‟s father enrolled her into the white elementary school, but the
 Tharwa Ben Belgacem 5

principal of the school refused to admit her. After this incident, the
NAACP was eager to assist the Browns for it had long wanted to challenge
wide spread segregation in public schools. Soon after, other black parents
joined Brown, and in 1951, the U.S. District Court for the District of
Kansas heard Brown's case. At the trial, the NAACP argued that
segregated schools sent out the message to black children that they were
inferior to whites; and therefore, the schools were inherently and
institutionally unequal. After a long battle on May 17, 1954 (also known as
the "Black Monday") Chief Justice Earl Warren read the decision of the
unanimous Court:
“... We conclude that in the field of public education the
doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place. Separate
educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we
hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for
whom the actions have been brought are, by the reason of
the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal
protection of the laws guaranteed by the fourteenth
amendment (Cozzens, Brown2).”[2]

Headed by Special Counsel Thurgood Marshall, the NAACP had won

their case, which was called Brown v the Board of Education. This victory
was to pave the way for other organizations in their pursuit of the
promotion of the civil rights movement.
1.2. The SCLC organization
One cannot provide a clear overview of the civil rights movement
without the mention of the most supportive and productive organization
across the years of this movement. The year 1957 marks its birth and “not
one hair of one head of one white person shall be harmed,” [3] states the
organization‟s motto. It is the “Southern Christian Leadership Conference”
or SCLC that was a crucial force in the advancement of the civil rights
movement.
 Tharwa Ben Belgacem 6

1.2.1. The SCLC’s historical background

The success of the Montgomery bus boycott, lead by Dr. Martin
Luther King in 1956, drastically changed the view of the civil rights
movement. Immediately after its success the Montgomery bus system
became desegregated. This victory brought forth another strong belief that
civil rights could not only be attained through litigation but also through
another strategy called „direct action‟ that involved masses in the struggle
as Rustin, who was one of the main founder of the SCLC, said
“Montgomery showed that “the center of gravity has shifted from the
courts to community action, and the leaders should realize that the people,
and not simply their lawyers, could win their own freedom” [4].
As a result of this huge success; leaders of the former boycott such as
Dr. Martin Luther King and Rustin, advanced the idea of creating an
organization that “…try[s] to stimulate bus protests in other areas of the
south” [5], They also sought to push through black voter registration across
the south and involved the mass of black people in peaceful direct action,
within the philosophy of nonviolence.
This desire to remake the ways in which the movement was
progressing was strengthened by the decision of the Supreme Court to
overturn the actions of the NAACP in 1958, delivering leadership to other
organizations and especially the SCLC to run the struggle where mass
action replaced litigation. The SCLC headed by Dr. Martin Luther King,
offered training and leadership assistance for local efforts to fight
segregation and it made non-violence both its central tenet and its primary
method of confronting racism. They also introduced a program of
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education that taught literacy to blacks to enable them to pass the

mandatory voting tests.

1.2.2. Most important actions of SCLC

The output of the SCLC was so important in the way that it stressed
the importance of the masses' involvement in their own struggle and
accentuated the non-violent aspects of such struggle. Thus, the SCLC
launched many campaigns; some were successful while others failed.
 In November 1961, SCLC became involved in a civil rights issue in
Albany, Georgia. The campaign was a failure because it received very little
media coverage and it was a failure due to the fact that Laurie Pritchett, the
local police chief, succeeded in containing the campaign through tactics
that were based upon the idea of confronting the demonstrators without
violence. The goal of these tactics was to not inflame and probably swing
national opinion towards the Civil Rights Movement. The police chief won
the approval of the nation and the SCLC lost the fight.
 The Albany movement proved to be a lesson for the SCLC, however,
when it undertook the Birmingham campaign in 1963. Unlike the Albany
movement that requested total desegregation the Birmingham campaign
concentrated on one concrete goal and that was the desegregation of
Birmingham‟s downtown merchants. The SCLC succeeded in achieving its
stated goals. The accomplishment of their aims was helped by the violent
over-reaction of the local authority since the latter resorted to many
different ways to disrupt this demonstration. It turned the city‟s fire hoses
on demonstrators to knock them down and it also unleashed police dogs on
them. All these scenes were televised and broadcast nationally and resulted
in a widespread national public outrage.
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 That outrage led to a desegregation of lunch counters and other

public accommodations and contributed to the creation of a committee to
get rid of discriminatory hiring practices and to arrange for the release of
jailed protesters.
 Central also to the civil rights movement was the Selma to
Montgomery marches that marked a major achievement in the agenda of
the SCLC. Dr. Martin Luther King was asked for help and support in Selma
and he came to lead several marches at which he was arrested with 250
other demonstrators. At the beginning the marches continued to face
resistance from police. Attacks from the authority were also met with a
national response similar to that provoked during the Birmingham protest.
These marches were further supported by a televised address from
President L B Johnson in support of the voting rights bill he had sent to
Congress. In that address he stated:
“… What happened in Selma is part of a far larger
movement that reaches into every section and state of
America… Their cause must be our cause too. Because it is
not just Negroes; but really it is all of us, who must
overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And
we shall overcome…” [6]

Johnson signed the voting rights act of 1965, which suspended poll taxes,
literacy tests and other voter tests and authorized federal supervision of
voter registration in states and individual voting districts where such tests
were being used. This was a significant victory for blacks on the road to
eventual total equality.
 Tharwa Ben Belgacem 9

1.3. The SNCC organization

Important, too, to the civil rights movement was the rise of another
organization that was called the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee or SNCC. Similar to the SCLC; the SNCC adopted a strategy of
nonviolence but with differences. These differences were made
strategically through the sit-in actions and freedom rides.

1.3.1. Historical background

On February 1, 1960, four black college students at North Carolina
A&T University refused to leave a Woolworth's lunch counter in
Greensboro, where they had been denied service. Their action was a protest
against racial segregation in restaurants. The response to such actions was
shocking, as sit-ins had spread throughout North Carolina in just of few
days, and within weeks they were taking place in cities all across the South.
It is fair to say that, the sit-ins did have some impact. In Atlanta, the city
most associated with King, stores were desegregated. The Woolworth‟s at
Greensboro eventually agreed to desegregate its food counter in July 1960
having lost $200,000 dollars of business or 20% of its anticipated sales.
Shortly after the sit-ins showed good results, the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was founded on April 1960 in Raleigh,
North Carolina, to further direct the student sit-ins movement. King
encouraged SNCC's creation, but Ella Baker, who had worked for both the
NAACP and SCLC, believed that SNCC should not be part of SCLC but a
separate, independent organization run by the students. She also believed
that civil rights activities should be based on individual black communities.
Eventually, the SNCC adopted Baker's approach and focused on making
changes in local communities, rather than striving for national change. This
 Tharwa Ben Belgacem 10

goal differed from that of the SCLC that worked to change national laws.
During the civil rights movement, tensions occasionally arose between
SCLC and SNCC because of their different methods.
1.3.2. Most important actions
Along with the other organizations such as SCLC, CORE, and NAACP, the
SNCC participated in many major actions that were beneficial to the civil
rights movement. Even though there was a strong opposition from whites
the SNCC was firm about getting what it wanted. Through sit-ins and the
freedom rides the organization changed the scene of this movement.
 In 1961,after a gang of Ku Klux Klan members and other whites
attacked integrated groups of bus passengers who challenged local
segregation laws as part of the Freedom Rides, the SNCC, along with the
CORE organization, arranged to travel into the deep south forcing the
Kennedy administration to grant federal guard and in a this way the violent
reactions of the whites would be halted. During the spring and summer of
the same year, 436 people took part in these Freedom Rides.
 The SNCC played a significant role in the 1963 March on
Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Thus, John Lewis the chairman of the
SNCC, in his speech, took the Kennedy administration to task for how little
it had done to protect Southern blacks and civil rights workers under attack
in the Deep South. He stated in his address that the Kennedy‟s bill “…will
not protect young children and old women from police dogs and fire hoses
when engaging in peaceful demonstrations… Listen Mr. Kennedy, the black
masses are on the march for jobs and for freedom, and we must say to the
politicians that there won't be a 'cooling-off period.”[7] Emphasizing the
SNCC‟s loyalty to the cause and so to the masses.
 In 1961 SNCC began expanding its activities into other forms of
organization, most notably voter registration. Under the leadership of Bob
 Tharwa Ben Belgacem 11

Moses, the SNCC's first voter-registration project was in McComb,

Mississippi, efforts were suppressed with arrests and savage white
violence. These hardships did not stop, but on the contrary they expanded
through other states the Mississippi Delta around Greenwood, South West
Georgia, and Alabama Black Belt around Selma. In addition, in 1963, the
SNCC ran the Freedom ballot; a mock election in which black
Mississippians came out to show their willingness to vote. Even though it
was faked, the SNCC took it as a strategy to encourage voter registration in
Mississippi. But; this strategy almost failed due to the fact that the white
authorities either rejected their applications on any trumped-up pretext
available or, simply refused outright without reason to accept their
applications.
 The SNCC also had been a prominent factor in the 1965‟s voting
rights in Selma, Alabama. Thus, it had organized black citizens to register
to vote in Selma in 1963, but failed to do so because the Sheriff Jim Clark,
along with the White Citizens' Council put up strong resistance. So the
organization asked the SCLC for help. Both formed an uneasy alliance in
the struggle for voting rights that helped to emphasize the need for a Voting
Rights Act.
2. Most important organizations that adopted the violent strategy
2.1. The Nation of Islam
Caught up in the clutches of injustices, the violent strategy shone out
during the civil rights movement as a reaction to there being no immediate
effective results from the non-violent strategy. Many of those who had faith
in the civil rights movement and longed for change grew tired of waiting.
They became exhausted by the non-violent method that believed in the
peaceful response to the whites‟ prejudices and violent attacks against
blacks. This new strategy legitimized self-defense against those who were
 Tharwa Ben Belgacem 12

trying to subdue the black nation through violence and was first embraced
by an organization called The Nation of Islam or the NOI, which had a
chief role in the progress of the civil rights movement during the 1960s.
2.1.1. The historical background
The Nation of Islam is a black religious organization that was
launched in Detroit, Michigan, in 1930 by Wallace Fard. He argued that
African Americans could obtain success through discipline, racial pride,
knowledge of God, and physical separation from white society. Fard
disappeared in June 1934. Elijah Muhammad replaced Fard as a leader. The
former was born in Georgia, but later moved to Detroit, where he came into
contact with Fard through his wife Clara Muhammad and accepted his
teachings. During the Second World War Muhammad advised his
followers to avoid the draft. Thus, he was charged with violating the
Selective Service Act and was jailed between 1942 and 1946. After his
discharge from prison, Elijah Muhammad developed the membership of the
Black Muslims. He described African Americans as the chosen people and
encouraged the embracing of a religion based on the worship of Allah. In
the late 1950s a charismatic minister who became a spokesman for the
movement had emerged to be the most important figure after Muhammad
in the Nation of Islam; who was Malcolm X. Malcolm assisted in launching
several new mosques and was the founder and editor of Muhammad
Speaks, in which he became more extreme in his views. His belonging to
the organization had an end in March 1964 as Malcolm left the Black
Muslims and established his own religious organization, the Organization
of Afro-American Unity. After a pilgrimage to Mecca, he rejected his
previous separatist beliefs and advocated world brotherhood.
2.1.2. Mission and objectives
 Tharwa Ben Belgacem 13

From its foundation the Nation of Islam set forth a layout defining its
duties and goals. Thus the aims of the organization were laid down in
Elijah Muhammad‟s The Supreme Wisdom. In which he stated that his
mission is “…to raise [his] people here (the so-called Negroes), and to
help them into the knowledge of Self, and their God Allah (who is in Person
among them) and the devils (their open enemies)…”[8] „their own
enemies‟, according to Muhammad was the white man, that‟s why he
rejected integration and called for black unity through the maintenance of
the black‟s education system, military organization, and economic
development program, under his leadership. In short the aim of this
organization in America was:
 To teach the blacks the Truth.
 To bring them face to face with God, and to teach them to know their
enemies.
 To teach them that the black nation is the supreme nation.
 To stress the idea that the devil is in person of whites.
 To emphasize the self-defense strategy by “any means necessary”
against whites‟ prejudices as a legitimate one.
This organization, through its most important speaker Malcolm X, helped
in the rise of the most radical movement during the era of the Civil Rights
Movement. It was called the black power that emphasized black pride and
superiority and called for total separation between the two races. The
revelation of its philosophy was the development of an organization that
was called the Black Panther party.
2.2. The Black Panther Party
The Black Panther Party is the only Black organization in the entire
black history that was armed and promoted a revolutionary agenda. It
represented the last great thrust by the masses of Black people for equality,
 Tharwa Ben Belgacem 14

justice, and freedom. Its foundation was against the flood of resistance that
calls for nonviolence in the mid of the 60s.
2.2.1. The historical background
As the images of non-violent Black protestors and other civil rights
demonstrators being beaten and water-hosed by police, spat on, and jailed,
merely for protesting against social injustices flickered across America‟s
television screens young urban Blacks rejected nonviolence. It was against
this backdrop that the Black Panther party was founded on October 1966 in
Oakland, California, as a manifestation of the Huey P. Newton and Bobby
Seale's vision. The party was originally named the Black Panther Party for
Self-Defense. The “self-defense” term denotes the party‟s difference from
the strategies adopted by other civil rights organizations such as NAACP,
SCLC, and SNCC. The Black Panther Party (BPP) had four wishes:
equality in education, housing, employment and civil rights. This party
stated 10-point plan to get its desired goals.
 Freedom: the power to determine the destiny of the Black and
oppressed communities.
 Full Employment: give every person employment or guaranteed
income.
 End to robbery of Black communities: the overdue debt of forty
acres and two mules as promised to ex-slaves during the reconstruction
period following the emancipation of slavery.
 Decent housing fit for the shelter of human beings; the land should
be made into cooperatives so that the people can build.
 Education for the people; that teaches the true history of Blacks and
their role in present day society.
 Free health care; health facilities which will develop preventive
medical programs.
 Tharwa Ben Belgacem 15

 End to police brutality and murder of Black people and other people
of color and oppressed people.
 End to all wars of aggression the various conflicts that exist stem
directly from the United States ruling circle.
 Freedom for all political prisoners; trials by juries that represent our
peers.
 Land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice, peace and
community control of modern industry.
2.2.2. Major actions of the Black Panther party
The Black Panther party endorsed both violent and smooth actions.
The violent ones were towards the enemy in the person of the white man
and the US government. However the smooth ones were aimed at the black
and poor people.
 In 1967, the party organized a march in the California state capitol to
protest the state's attempt to outlaw carrying loaded weapons in public.
Participants in the march deliberately carried rifles. Though the party‟s
philosophy was new and different from Luther King‟s, it had expanded into
many cities throughout the United States, including Chicago, Los Angeles,
San Diego, Denver, Newark, New York City, and Baltimore by 1968.
 In October 1967 the incident in which Huey Newton was shot,
arrested and charged with the murder of a white Oakland, California,
policeman, after a gun battle of sorts on the streets of West Oakland that
resulted in the death of police officer John Frey provided the spark that lit a
fire. On February 17, 1968, a large rally was held for Huey in the Oakland
Auditorium. The speakers included Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown,
and James Forman. After this event, membership grew rapidly. The
structure of the group became more defined.
 Tharwa Ben Belgacem 16

 In addition to its political engagement in the civil rights movement,

the Black Panther Party developed social programs to help the needy
blacks. These programs were called “survival pending revolution.” The
first such program was the Free Breakfast for Children Program, which
provided breakfast to thousands of poor and hungry children everyday.
 Tharwa Ben Belgacem 17

References of chapter I
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAACP
[2]
http://www.doingoralhistory.org/project_archive/2002/papers/PDF/E_artz.
pdf
[3]http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761580653/southern_christian_lea
dership_conference.html
[4] J.Garrow, David. Bearing the cross: Martin Luther King and the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Country: press, years.
[5] http://www.sclcnational.org/
[6]
http://www.haitiwebs.com/forums/vbarticles.php?articleid=65&do=article
[7]
http://www.haitiwebs.com/forums/vbarticles.php?articleid=65&do=article
[8] http://www.muhamadspeaks.com
 Tharwa Ben Belgacem 18

Chapter II
Influential leaders of the Civil Rights Movement

1. Martin Luther King

When speaking about the civil rights movement the name of Dr.
Martin Luther King will always be used as a star that shone during that era.
He became epitomized all that was right and good in the movement.
Looking back to his wise leadership King was a man with a vision that
compounded a bunch of ideologies and forged them into concrete actions.
He endorsed numerous ideas that helped in the empowerment of his non-
violent strategy through the civil rights movement.
1.1. Influential terms or phrases in king’s addresses
Martin Luther King was known for his skill oratorical skills. He
attracted both blacks and whites. In his speeches many terms and phrases
became associated with him.
1.1.2. Love and justice
In his emphasis on the nonviolent struggle, King adopted a
philosophy based on love as a generator of justice. This idea was tackled by
James H. Cone in his book „A dream or a nightmare‟ in which he
interpreted the inter-relationship of justice and love. As Cone stated, Dr.
Martin Luther King‟s thoughts had “…an optimistic belief that justice
could be achieved through love, which he [King] identified with
nonviolence.”[1]
But, at an early phase of his struggle, Martin Luther King was
overwhelmed with the term „justice‟, as it meant for him “…white people
 Tharwa Ben Belgacem 19

treating Negroes with the dignity and respect accorded other human beings
in the society.”[2] His speeches at that time were a call for justice. A call
for negroes to take a stand for their rights to ride Montgomery buses as
equal as whites. As he was obsessed with justice he proclaimed:
We are not wrong in what we are doing. If we are wrong,
then the Supreme Court of this nation is wrong. If we are
wrong the constitution of the United States is wrong. If we
are wrong God almighty is wrong. If we are wrong Jesus of
Nazareth was merely a utopian dreamer and never came
down to earth. If we are wrong justice is a lie… And we are
determined here in Montgomery to work and fight until
justice runs down like water and righteousness like a mighty
stream. [3]

Martin Luther King, however as the struggle progressed and he

looked at the movement overall, justice, for him, as a primary quest in a
segregated nation seemed to be unacceptable. Integration became the chief
mission of the movement. This idea did not mean that the quest for justice
lost its importance; rather it was seen in a larger context and was wrought
by a higher goal – love. From integration and love, justice would flow
automatically and naturally. Cone in his dealings with Luther‟s philosophy
concerning love and justice stated that King developed a new inter-
relationship between the two as “love – and its political expression,
integration – occupied the center of his thinking, while justice – and its
political expression desegregation – became the precondition or the means
of achieving love.”[4]
1.1.2. The “American Dream” phrase in King's speeches
The “American Dream” phrase in King‟s addresses emerged in the late
1950s. Later at the beginning of the 1960s, he used it as a symbol of his
viewpoint concerning America and the Negros‟s fight for a place in it.
James H Cone further elaborated on the idea, saying that the
“American Dream” expression endorsed by King had as an origin two
 Tharwa Ben Belgacem 20

sources the first is the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution,

and the second is the biblical tradition. King, in the period between the late
1950s and early 1960s, tried continuously to blend these sources into a
coherent and influential image of the nation‟s future. As he was “deeply
moved by the assertions of the Declaration of Independence “that all men
are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain
inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness.””[5] The declaration is an assertion that the blacks are as equal
as the white and this further empowered the protestors.
It is the dream that King sought from the whole struggle during the
civil rights movement that is a beloved community of blacks and whites
working together for the good of all.
1.2. Martin Luther King’s ideology of how blacks should face
racism
Through the centuries blacks in America have suffered from racism,
discrimination, and humiliation. Such oppression was not faced with a
strong resistance; rather blacks felt powerless to alter their lot, they could
do nothing. That is why King thought that what blacks needed was to be
inspired and taught the most effective way, morally and practically, to fight
for justice. Consequently King urged his people to use five tools to attain
their desired goals. These tools are, self-respect, high moral standards,
wholehearted work, leadership, and non-violence.
1.2.1. Self-respect
With a history of 244 years of slavery and a century of segregation, King
became conscious of the state of nothingness that overwhelmed the
Negros‟s thoughts. Thus, he urged blacks to regain their violated humanity
through self-respect. The self-respect idea represents the core of his
philosophy and many other integrationists. Self-respect according to King,
 Tharwa Ben Belgacem 21

connoted with being an American citizen, with the same treatment and
regard as others without any reference of color. This meant blacks
beginning to see themselves not as Negroes but as human beings.
Conditionally, Dr. Martin Luther King told the Negroes that:
“We must have the spiritual audacity to assert our
somebodyness. We must no longer allow our physical
bondage to enslave our minds. He who feels that he is
nobody eventually becomes nobody. But he, who feels that
he is somebody, even though humiliated by external
servitude, achieves a sense of selfhood and dignity that
nothing in all the world can take away.”[6]

1.2.2. High moral standards

The second quest for Martin was the must of Negroes to raise their
standards. He stressed that Negros should “make ourselves worthy of the
respect of others by improving our personal standards.”[7] Emphasizing
the thought that the struggle is worth the effort.
1.2.3. Wholehearted work
King, along with the self-respect and the high moral standards objectives;
stressed also the need for Negroes to adopt the wholehearted work to get
rid of the ugly disease of segregation and to be worthy of the struggle.
Negroes should not to use white oppression as an excuse for poorness and
laziness.
1.2.4. Leadership
Martin also stressed the “urgent need for strong, courageous and
intelligent leadership from the Negro community.” [8] This leadership
should be aware of the goals of the civil rights movement and should be
aware of the ways those goals can be met and those aspirations satisfied.
He continued with this idea saying that influential leaders should not be
those who hunt money or publicity but those who seek justice and
 Tharwa Ben Belgacem 22

humanity. For King, the struggle needs a total commitment and self-
discipline from such leaders to be effective in the battle.
1.2.5. Non-violence
The shift of his primary focuses of thinking from justice to love;
generated King‟s philosophy of non-violence. First used and developed by
Mahatma Gandhi in achieving Independence for India and Pakistan, Kin
became strongly committed to this philosophy and he advised Negroes to
follow his way. He explained later that nonviolence is not passivity or
doing nothing, but rather it is a protest with peaceful ways. Arguing that
violence will not achieve freedom for negroes, but it will just get a whole
lot of them killed and also serve as an excuse for the whites not to do
anything about oppression.
“The reason I can‟t advocate violence is because violence
ultimately defeats itself, it ultimately destroys everybody.
The reason I can‟t follow the old eye-for-an-eye is that it
ends up leaving everybody blind.”[9]

His aim from this speech was to convince blacks to “meet hate with love”
or “physical force with soul force.”
2. Malcolm X
Between 1953 and 1965, while most black leaders worked in the
civil rights movement to integrate blacks into mainstream American life,
Malcolm X advocated independence. He was a gifted leader whose
perspective was defined by his uncompromising solidarity with the victims
of history. He was the counterpart of King in almost everything. King
promoted non-violent actions whereas Malcolm endorsed the ideology of
self-defense and declared in one of his speeches that nonviolence is the
“philosophy of the fool.”
2.1. The white men's image in the eyes of Malcolm X
 Tharwa Ben Belgacem 23

Malcolm ceaselessly blamed the white men for the blacks' situation
in America. Thus his speeches were so angry in a way that revealed another
facet of struggle during the civil rights movement. As a leader who
mastered the rhetoric of violence, the black community at first, exclusively
heard Malcolm‟s addresses; this was between the year 1953 and 1959.
Later on, his speeches spread all over the country to cover both blacks and
whites. In his speeches, he showed extreme anger and hatred towards
America as a government and as a white community for tacitly legitimizing
racism.
2.1.1. Accusation of the white men to black audiences
Contrary to King, Malcolm addressed primarily the black
community. His speeches were focused on how vicious, greedy and
generally awful are the white men. Malcolm, almost in all of his speeches,
spoke out of the white man‟s conspiracy, in which the latter tried, over
centuries, to subdue blacks and deny them the right to have an honorable,
decent life. In addressing blacks, Malcolm felt that he had to tell them the
truth about the evil nature of the white man and convince them of their
superiority over the white man. But a problem faced Malcolm when do so
and that was the fact that the blacks were still under the influence of the
memories of slavery and the notions that this was the normal place for the
negro. Convincing them otherwise was a major obstacle for him.

Mental slavery was the great problem of the Negro. “he is

so deaf and dump and blind, he cant hear the truth when it
is told to him, he cant speak up for himself and he is so
blind he cant see that the white man is the devil and his
enemy. We are so much in love with him we still thinking he
is our friend.” [10]

Contrasting Martin Luther King, Malcolm did not try to convince

white people of anything but rather he was speaking from a black point of
 Tharwa Ben Belgacem 24

view to a black listener. The white man did not have a place in his future
plan that is why he advocated, with great persistence, separation between
the two races as a solution to the dilemma. To fulfill his dream of
separation, he had to stress strongly the fact that the white man is the
enemy and the fight for dignity should be against him. He often referred to
whites with insulting names, such as “blue-eyed devils”, “two legged
snakes”, “international thugs and rapists” and “white apes and beasts” to
promulgate amongst the black population, resentment and hatred of the
white race.
2.1.2. Accusations of the white men to white audiences
King, among the white community; was getting the fame as the civil
rights leader whereas Malcolm was still virtually unknown in this
community. The occasion came in late 1959, when a TV show called
“Make Wallace Show” aired a documentary on the Black Nationalism
named “The Hate That Hate Produced”. This documentary represented a
great shock to white viewers, as it was the first time they got acquainted
with Malcolm X. His speech was not for the settling down the argument
but rather it was for the readiness to engagement. He declared his fury
saying that his anger is a result of white prejudices, unfairness, and racism.
Addressing a Boston University audience, Malcolm said “You should not
be angry with me if I raise my voice… when you see a man on a stove and
he yells, „ouch‟, why, he should be allowed, because he knows what it feels
like to suffer.”[11] Whites were shaken by his words; they often called him
racist and „anti-white‟ or a „teacher of hate‟ similar to the Ku Klux Klan.
As he was a brilliant speaker he responded righteously to such accusations
for a Playboy interview saying:
We are anti-evil, anti-oppression, and anti-lynching. You
can‟t be anti- those things unless you are also anti- the
oppressor and the lyncher. You can‟t be anti-slavery and
 Tharwa Ben Belgacem 25

pro- slave master; you can‟t be anti-crime and pro-

criminal. In fact, Mr. Muhammad teaches that if the present
generation of whites would study their own race in the light
of their true history, they would be anti-white themselves.
[12]

If there were any debates with Malcolm they were almost always
doomed to failure especially when debating the issue of integration. He was
so successful in debates that he was called the “giant killer”. Malcolm did
not get this name for nothing but from his skillfulness in making his
adversary question his own beliefs and ideas.

2.2. Malcolm’s ideology of how blacks should face racism.

Malcolm‟s vision of how blacks should challenge racism in America
was very radical. This vision endorsed five ideals, the call for unity, self-
knowledge, self-love, self-defense, and separation.
2.2.1. Unity
According to Malcolm, achieving unity in the black community
depended on a sincere love for each other. This love among the whole
black community could only be attained through replacing self-hate with
self-love. But, how could these blacks love themselves without knowing
their own history and culture. They were estranged from their past and
from each other. Malcolm insisted on the idea that blacks should not think
about uniting with or loving another people until they were first taught how
to love each other.
2.2.2. Self-knowledge
Malcolm, when dealing with the idea of self-knowledge was so
dispirited because of the fact that mental slavery was a strong disease not
easy to heal. When common sense is shaken, one cannot act on the behalf
 Tharwa Ben Belgacem 26

of the self. In an address at the Philadelphia temple, Malcolm asserted that

“we are a lost people; we don‟t know our name, language, home land, God,
or religion… Any other people, no matter where they live or [are]
naturalized, they know where they come from.”[13]
2.2.3. Self-Love
“Don‟t love your enemy,” Malcolm instructed the blacks, “but love
yourself.” As he considered the thought of loving your enemy was a crazy
and stupid idea. Love, according to him should be a love from blacks to
blacks.
2.2.4. Self-defense
Frustrated by the advocacy to nonviolence Malcolm asserted that:
Any Negro who teaches Negroes to turn the other cheek in
the face of attack is disarming that Negro of his God given
right, of his moral right, of his natural right to defend
himself. Every thing in nature can defend itself and is right
in defending itself, except the American Negro.”[14]

Malcolm further backed up his point of view by saying that “ this little
passive resistance or wait- until- you- change- your- mind- and –then- let-
me- up philosophy,” is a defeated one. It robs blacks of their self-esteem,
and humanity.

2.2.5. Separation
Malcolm considered the desire to integrate with the white man as
being indicative of an inherent self-hate. He encouraged the black
community to support the idea of separation from the whites and show
more love to their own race.
 Tharwa Ben Belgacem 27

References of chapter II
[1] H.Cone, James. A dream or a nightmare. Place: name of press, year:
p61
[2] Ibid, p61
[3] Ibid, p62
[4] Ibid, p64
[5] Ibid, p66
[6] Ibid, p72
[7] Ibid, p72
[8] Ibid, p74
[9] Ibid, p78
[10] Ibid, p94
[11] Ibid, p100
[12] Ibid, p101
[13] Ibid, p105
[14] Ibid, p107
 Tharwa Ben Belgacem 28

Chapter III
The Civil Rights Movement and the Black Arts Movement

1. The Black Arts Movement

Organizations such as the CORE and SNCC which were firstly
founded on an integrationist philosophy, transformed themselves suddenly
into stridently revolutionary cadres after Alabama‟s commissioner of
public safety, Bull Connor, turned fire hoses and police dogs on non-
violent demonstrators, caring neither for children nor for women. This
incident had a major role in the emergence of the most influential political
movement in the black history that was called the Black Power Movement.
As a political phrase, black power was associated with a militant advocacy
of armed self-defense, separation from "racist American domination," and
pride in and assertion of the goodness and beauty of Blackness. The Black
Arts Movement was considered to be the "aesthetic and spiritual sister of
the Black Power concept” as Larry Neal proclaimed. It was the only
American literary movement to advance "social engagement", this
movement had as its objectives to transform the manner in which black
people in the US were defined and treated. It had an important role in the
furtherance of the civil rights movement as literature, produced in that
period, advocated political engagement. It stressed Black Nationalism as a
solution to the dilemma of racism. It also promoted and legitimized the
ideologies of those like Malcolm X who endorsed the idea of self-defense.
The Black Arts Movement was devoted to a goal of black mass
communication. Poems and dramas created by 1960s writers did not seek
to confound the intellect with difficult allusions to Western mythology. Nor
did they claim abstract philosophical wisdom. Instead, the products of the
 Tharwa Ben Belgacem 29

Black Arts Movement were blazingly simple in language and virtually

impossible to misunderstand. For example, Nikki Giovanni writes as
follows in her Poem for Black Boys:
Where are your heroes, my little black ones?
You are the Indian you so disdainfully shoot
Not the big bad sheriff on his faggoty white
horse
You should play run-away-slave
or Mau Mau
These are more in line with your history
Ask your mothers for a rap brown gun
Santa just may comply if you wish hard enough
ask for CULLURD instead of Monopoly
DO NOT SIT IN DO NOT FOLLOW KING
GO DIRECTLY TO STREETS
This is a game you can win. [1]

This kind of poetry overwhelmed the Black Arts Movement.

Because of the fact that poetry needs far less time to create than longer
prose genres, it was perfectly well matched to the felt immediacy of
struggle characteristic of black arts and black power. The Black Arts
Movement believed that such poetry committed to struggle could serve as
convincing and operative weapons in the drive to set free a black nation.
That's why many practitioners endorsed this path and excelled in it. One of
the most known figures of the movement was Amiri Baraka who had the
honor to found this movement and to set forth the poetry of liberation
during and after the civil rights movement. Along with Amiri Baraka, there
were many others who embraced the same stream namely Gwendolyn
Brooks.
1.1. Amiri Baraka
Amiri Baraka was the most widely known figure in the movement as
he was its founder and promoter. He had a set of ideologies that rejected art
for art‟s sake and denoted that this notion is invalid because all art that does
 Tharwa Ben Belgacem 30

not discuss or contribute to revolutionary change is unacceptable. He

considered that the black framework should be within the circle of
revolution and asserted that all art must be revolutionary and in being
revolutionary it must be collective, committing, and functional. For Baraka
the black poem had to be an active agent, not a vehicle of escape to another
world.
In his article "The Revolutionary Theatre" Baraka said that:
Our theatre will show victims so that their brothers in the
audience will be better able to understand that they are the
brothers of victims, and that they themselves are victims, if
they are blood brothers. And what we show must cause the
blood to rush, so that pre-revolutionary temperaments will
be bathed in this blood, and it will cause their deepest souls
to move, and they find themselves tensed and clenched, even
ready to die, at what the soul has been taught. We will
scream and cry, murder, run through the streets in agony, if
it means some soul will be moved, moved to actual life
understanding of what the world is, and what it ought to be.
We are preaching virtue and feeling, and a natural sense of
the self in the world. All men live in the world, and the
world ought to be a place for them to live. [2]

This citation denotes Baraka‟s major theme adopted in his poems during
that era. His poem Black Art, from his volume Black Magic Poetry set
much of his ideologies:
We want “poems that kill.”
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
with tongues pulled out and sent to Ireland.
[…]
Black People understand
That they are the lovers and the sons
of lovers and warriors and sons
of warriors Are poems & Poets &
All the loveliness here in the world.
[…]
 Tharwa Ben Belgacem 31

We want live
Words of the hip world live flesh &
Coursing blood. Hearts Brains
Souls splintering fire. [3]

Baraka wanted to place real objects in his poems to create a black

world that would reflect the lives of black people. He wanted concrete
images in this poem so that black readers would recognize themselves and
be inspired to revolt against their circumstances. Moreover he used
objectivist techniques to signal the need to destroy the white world. Baraka
believed that poems are the weapons of the warriors to accomplish
destruction that will usher a new world; in which blacks enjoy self-respect
and dignity.
Additionally to the revolutionary poems that called for violent
response as a first choice to self-defense, Baraka wrote another kind of
poems that embraced the black supremacy and conveyed the terrible nature
of white men, in his poem “In the funk world” Baraka stated:
If Elvis Presley/ is
King
Who is James Brown?
God? [4]

Hatred was a major theme that pervaded Baraka's poems during the civil
rights movement. He continuously named the white man the devil and
condemned him for all the miseries in which the black nation was living.
One of these poems that denounces Baraka's hatred is Monday in B_Flat:
I can pray
all day
&God
Wont come
But if I call
911
The Devil
Be here
 Tharwa Ben Belgacem 32

In a minute! [5]

1.2. Gwendolyn Brooks

Influenced by the cannons of the black art movement, Gwendolyn
Brooks engaged her self in the struggle to be one of the most knowing
figures in black literary history. Her integration in the cause of nationalism
came after attending the second Black Writers‟ Conference at Fisk
University, where she witnessed the energy, confidence, and combative
spirit of many of the young authors she met there including Amiri Baraka,
Larry Neal, Ron Milner and many others to be a life changing experience.
Brooks left the conference with new political and cultural ideologies. As
she later talked about this experience in her book Black Women Writers at
Work [5], saying that the new generation of black activists and artists she
became acquainted with at Fisk “seemed proud and so committed their own
people… The poets among them felt that black poets should write as
blacks, about blacks, and address themselves to blacks.” From this
conference Brooks directed her poetry not for the whole America any more
but for blacks. That‟s why she spoke about poverty, unfulfilled dreams, and
violence figure. In her most famous poem entitled “we real cool” Brooks
spoke about the life of black youth in black streets:
The pool players.
Seven at the Golden Shovel.
We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June. We
Die soon. [6]

Until the last line, the element of bravado in the diction and
rhythm has made the activities of the street people seem somehow
 Tharwa Ben Belgacem 33

defensible, if not downright desirable. A certain pride in being outside the

conventions, institutions, and legal structures of the predominant society is
conveyed. Escaping the drudgery and dullness of school and work has left
the lives of these dropouts open to many romantic possibilities. However,
the tone changes dramatically when the reader learns the street people "Die
soon." At once their defiant and complacent attitudes seem quite pathetic,
and the reader wonders just who the cool people are trying to kid about the
desirability of their disordered lives. It was an excellent way to conceive
and write a poem that summarizes the 1960s black lives. It is a life of
despair and misery where blacks' unconsciousness meant death whether
morally or physically.

References of chapter III

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikki_Giovanni
[2] http://www.umich.edu/~eng499/documents/baraka1.html
[3] http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/barakablackart.html
[4] http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/baraka/onlinepoems.html
[5] http://www.pbs.org/wnet/foolingwithwords/mainlst_baraka.html
[6] http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/brooks/werealcool.html
 Tharwa Ben Belgacem 34

Conclusion

Much of African history has embodied the struggle for overcoming

negative social forces manifested in both a pre and post slave society.
Throughout most of American history, laws and social more and folkways
have forced African American to seek various alternatives that would
enable them to realize their potential by seeking opportunities for
intellectual, economic, political self determination and autonomy. The civil
right movement, through its organization, leaders or poets, took charge of
fulfilling these dreams. This paper aimed at explaining how these factors
empowered the movement and enabled it to achieve success. The paper
dealt with, the importance of organizations such as NAACP, SNCC, and
Nation of Islam. It depicted the thoughts of the two best-known figures of
the civil rights movement. Then my focus shifted to how poetry overrode
its conventional role to involved in political engagement.
Although this paper has developed the principal elements associated
in the struggles of the civil rights movement, the concern was also to give
an additional perspective to that of the separation the two races and other
divisive forces engendered by that separation. This additional view is
contained in the split in the black nation itself as two opposing intellects
dominated the philosophies adopted in the struggle for liberation.
The first, is the integrationist philosophy developed by Dr. Martin
Luther King, and the other is a totally separatist one adopted by Malcolm
X. even though there was this divergence of attitude and philosophy
between them, the civil rights movement succeeded in achieving its desired
goals. This situation of difference and success, was a lesson for us all in
that differences of thought within the same nation, group, assembly, need
 Tharwa Ben Belgacem 35

not be a hindrance to progress but can enhance the possibilities of success.

From a personal to universal level the civil right movement generated a
legacy for the whole world. This universal legacy is to be concerned with
fighting injustice wherever it found in the world.
Using this legacy America declares itself a freedom fighter in the
world. It seems not to have learned the larger lesson when it uses this
stance to legitimize its occupations of countries such as Iraq where the
honesty of its posture becomes questionable.

Works Cited

Books
 J.Garrow, David. Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King and the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Country: press, years.
 H.Cone, James. A dream or a nightmare. Place: name of press, year
Sites web
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAACP
 http://www.doingoralhistory.org/project_archive/2002/papers/PDF/E
_artz.pdf
 http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761580653/southern_christian
_leadership_conference. html
 http://www.sclcnational.org/
 http://www.haitiwebs.com/forums/vbarticles.php?articleid=65&do=a
rticle
 http://www.muhamadspeaks.com
 http://www.umich.edu/~eng499/documents/baraka1.html
 http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/barakablackart.html
 Tharwa Ben Belgacem 36

 http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/baraka/onlinepoems.htm
l
 http://www.pbs.org/wnet/foolingwithwords/mainlst_baraka.html
 http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/brooks/werealcool.html