Many changes occurred during the late 1950s into the early 1960s in the goals, strategies, and support of the movement for African American civil rights.

in the South had separate counters for blacks and whites. Carmichael had black students sit down at a counter designated for whites only. When the owner of the restaurant approached the student to tell them to move, the student would simply say “I would like a hamburger and a coke please.” The student would be sure not to raise his or her voice because that would denote violence. The student would continue to politely recite his or her lines until the police showed up. The student would be arrested for violating the Jim Crow laws. However, the commotion caused by the police caused the restaurants to lose business. For this reason, restaurant owners were forced to desegregate their lunch counters. This process exemplified the strategy of SNCC. In a statement released in 1960, the organization stated its method for achieving civil rights. They believed in nonviolence to help their goal of integration. They wanted t be equal with the white man. They wanted to be able to do everything white people could do. Blacks did not want to be separated from whites, they wanted to be together and equal. Stokley Carmichael exercised these beliefs in his civil rights movements. The lunch counter sit-ins were non-violent and they succeeded in their purpose to integrate the lunch counters of the South. However, change came to slow for Stokley Carmichael. He became frustrated as stated in the introduction. He changed his beliefs of non-violence and integration to violence and black separatism. In a statement entitled “What We Want” released in 1966 by Stokley Carmichael, he said that blacks should join together and form their own society. This was reverting back to segregation. He wanted black money to go into black pockets. He felt blacks should be independent in their own community. Carmichael urged blacks not to buy from white shops in their neighborhood. Amazingly, this is the exact opposite of what he was fighting for as head of SNCC. In the spring of 1961, James Farmer, head of the Congress of Racial Equality(CORE), organized freedom rides. The purpose of freedom rides was to non- violently end segregation in interstate commerce. A freedom ride was either two white men and one black woman or one white man and two black women riding on interstate buses. The black person or people would sit in the front while the white person or people would sit in the back. They would ride until the next stop and then get off. Once they left, a new set of people would board the bus at the next stop. This method resulted in the Interstate Commerce Commission(ICC) declaring that segregation on interstate travel was unconstitutional. Freedom rides were completely non-violent and their goal was integration. However, the slow rate of change also frustrated James Farmer. Like Stokley Carmichael, he turned to the method of black separatism. He now condoned violence as an acceptable way of obtaining black power and independence. Both Carmichael and Farmer shared the same views as the Black Panthers, an organization preaching black power. They felt violence was acceptable because the black people had been punished for so long in the past. In a statement released in 1967, the head of the Black Panthers stressed the importance of self-defense against whites. They felt that blacks must arm themselves against whites before it was too late. This meant that blacks should used violence if necessary against whites. They called this self-defense, but it was really just senseless violence. Unlike Carmichael and Farmer, Martin Luther King, Jr. stayed true to his original theories of non-violence, civil disobedience, and the goal of integration. In a letter King wrote from a jail cell in Birmingham, Alabama, he stated why he was jailed, and what he was fighting for. He said that he was in Birmingham to protest the injustices that existed there. He organized a non-violent march to try and speed up the integration process. However, the police present to preserve the peace, attacked marchers with dogs. There was even a photo published from the Black Star of a dog attacking a black man at the command of a police officer. Of course, King was jailed, showing the overall disapproval of desegregation in the South. In a radio and television address from President Kennedy on June 11, 1963, he gave his support to the efforts of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He commended him on keeping his protests non-violent and for striving for the goal of integration. Kennedy was worried about the violent protests that occurred regularly and which threatened the lives of innocent people everyday. He urged Congress to pass laws that would end segregation and perhaps create a calm in the storm that rage in the U.S. at the time. There was much resistance to integrate in the South. They were content to remain segregated. The overall feeling in the South continued to be one of prejudice where whites felt they were better than blacks. No laws were passed to the contrary because politicians listen to their constituents. Since blacks didn’t vote, the lawmakers did not do anything to help them. However, in all of the states in the South, there was a dramatic increase in the percentage of voting-age blacks registered from 1960 to 1968. The highest change was in Mississippi where it rose from 5% in 1960 to 59% in 1968. Even with the dramatic increase n the number of black voters in the South, the majority spoke volumes in the 1968 presidential election. The Republican candidate was Richard Nixon, the Democratic candidate was Hubert Humphrey, and the Independent Party candidate was George Wallace. Amazingly, George Wallace won 46 electoral votes. He won 5 states outright and got partial votes in another state. An independent party candidate never wins electoral votes. Wallace was in favor of segregation and he won most of the vote in the South. This event showed the feeling toward segregation in the South even with the increasing civil rights of blacks. All in all, there were many changes during the 1960s in the goals, strategies, and support of the movement for African American civil rights. Many people changed their views on segregation and others remained the same. Civil Rights for all took a long time to achieve and even though the South heavily opposed it, it finally succeeded.