G.C.S.E History Coursework: Civil Rights 2 Nikki Robinson
The situation for the blacks in the 1960’s was just as tough as ever before and economic problems were rising. Many blacks lived in Ghettoes such as “Watts” in LA, which had many drug problems. Riots were also becoming more frequent due to police brutality. Blacks increasingly believed that the white officers were using riots as an excuse to terrorise and intimidate the local population. They also believed that judges were very racist. One of the main problems though was the fact that blacks couldn’t vote unless they took an IQ test, which the whites made impossible to complete. Without the vote, blacks couldn’t change the racist sheriffs, politicians, police officers etc.
In 1960’s, blacks began to disagree among themselves about the best ways to gain more civil rights. Dr. Martin Luther King started to find himself in a position where he no longer had the control that he used to over the black’s civil rights movement and also found that his idea of bringing the changes peacefully falling away beneath his feet. This was due to new black activist groups called “Black Nationalists”. These groups developed in the North from the ghettos and other working class black groups. It was led by Malcolm X and also Elijah Mohammad which, unlike Martin Luther King, believed that the Blacks had waited too long to gain acceptance from the white “oppressors”. The main aims for this group were to gain rights from white without “pleading and begging” and if this meant fighting back against white violence then they would fight back and “be proud to be black”. The S.C.L.C (Southern Christian Leadership Conference) was completely opposed to this group and believed that violence was not the way to gain support from the whites. Some of the aims involved gaining equal rights under the law for black Americans and to have full integration as American citizens Skin colour was inconsequential to them. Although the supporters of this group were mainly from the south many of them began to change their views after Martin Luther King’s assassination in 1968 and enthused with the “Black Nationalism”.