The result of using the same tactics on the Chicago Freedom Campaign had disastrous effects. In a heat wave during the campaign, the people in black neighbourhoods had to use fire hydrants to cool themselves, but the authorities demanded that the fire hydrants would be shut off to preserve water in case of a fire starting. When people arrived to enforce this, a riot erupted. Even though King appealed for calm, the violence only intensified. They faced angry mobs worse than Mississippi and Alabama while marching through all-white areas and even worse violence seemed likely. Because of the threat of increased violence, Mayor Daley was enforced to negotiate, but he also obtained the court injunction which severely restricted future marches. With this, the court order changed the balance of power which meant that King was forced to compromise. The Chicago Real Estate Board promised to respect the city’s fair housing laws and King presented the compromise as a victory. However, the promises of fair housing were ignored. King had made tactical mistakes in this campaign which is a very important reason to why it failed as he didn’t decide to break the court injunction restricting further marches. Because of this, many of Chicago’s black citizens lost faith in the SCLC and turned to more radical black leadership. King had misjudged the situation very greatly, as in this campaign President Johnson also refused to involve the Federal Government in the campaign. This was because Johnson was no longer willing to work with King following his attack on the Vietnam War in which he led a march of 5000 anti-war protestors through Chicago.
Also, the Vietnam War became the major priority for the Federal Government at this time, as they were more occupied that and saw it as more important than the civil rights movement which had already achieved a great deal already. The changed context also created an underlying problem and reason for the failure of the Northern campaigns. If the Northern campaigns hadn’t been during the time of the Vietnam War in which the Fed Gov was more occupied, then Johnson may have involved the Federal Government in the Chicago Freedom Movement. Without the federal government involved they can’t enforce much on the northern states, as the racial discrimination is because of the attitudes of ordinary whites too and they can’t force them to change what they believe in. Also, social and economic change required high levels of financial investment and this couldn’t be done without the help of the Federal Government, as they were reluctant to commit money to addressing these problems when there was, in their eyes, bigger problems at hand (Vietnam War).
However, the disagreements between MLK and Johnson played an important part in the failure of the Northern campaigns. For example, President Johnson commissioned The Moynihan Report (1965) which he had hoped to use to promote economic equality. However, this idea unfortunately backfired and instead of promoting economic equality the report blamed black people for their economic problems and also suggested that they were incapable of helping themselves. Due to this, the report created further tension between President Johnson and other well-intentioned liberal politicians and black radicals. With this as well, some whites used it to argue against government help for black people. This had put a barrier between the two sides already, even if it had not been intentional.
Another example of why the Northern Campaigns failed despite the disagreements between MLK and Johnson is that the campaigns were getting less media attention as the media as well as the public were becoming desensitised to white violence because they had seen so much of it. This had made it no longer newsworthy. There were other things the media was more interested with (Vietnam War) and this meant that it would hinder the chances of the Northern campaigns succeeding even if this was a latent problem compared to the disagreements between MLK and Johnson which was one of the central problems to why the Northern campaigns failed. Without the media as a link, it wouldn’t grasp the world’s attention and show that something needed to be done to change this problem, which would then usually gain the Federal Government’s attention too. Without the media, the problem of racial discrimination didn’t seem as an important problem to deal with at the time.
The Vietnam War itself did hinder the progress of the civil rights movement’s involvement in the Northern campaigns as not only did it occupy the Federal Government, but it also split the movement in two on how to deal with the war. MLK and the SNCC were both against the war, which made them very unpopular with many people. On the other hand, the NAACP supported the war, which lost its support with other people. This created a divide between the civil right movement, rather than the unity that they had before which meant that it would decelerate the progress of the movement as the movement itself was having problems within it.
Overall, the disagreements between MLK and Johnson was a major reason for the failure of King’s Northern campaigns, however, this was only one reason among many other which are linked together. Without the right tactics used by Black leadership (MLK), the attitudes of ordinary blacks towards King would falter, and with the changed context of the Vietnam War taking place at the time, the media and the federal government weren’t as occupied with the civil rights movement as before. All of these, along with the disagreements between MLK and Johnson and the two way split inside the movement meant that the Northern campaigns weren’t going to be as successful as the Southern ones turned out to be.