English 1302.044
March 3, 2000
Militant and Violent Acts of the Civil Rights Movement and Black Nationalism The rights of African-Americans have been violated since they were brought over to America as slaves in the late 1600's to the land of the free. Great political gains for African-Americans were made in the 1960's such as the right to vote without paying. Still, many African Americans were dissatisfied with their economic situation, so they reacted with violence in the form of riots. Other African-Americans became frustrated with the system of "white" America; hence they turned to militant organizations that stressed black power. Many people believe that violence or militant actions solve their problems, but in reality the
The Black Power advocates expelled white members from some civil rights organizations because they believed that the white people could not be trusted. Nor did the Black Power movement want anything to do with African-Americans that were economically successful, had degrees in higher education, or already living within the white middle class and above. "The black man in the ghetto has one big advantage that the bourgeois Negro does not have despite his ‘superior' education. He is already living outside the value system white society imposes on all black Americans" (Civil Rights 282-85).
Whereas the earlier basis of the civil rights movement focused on love and unity between the races, the militant black power movement sprung from hatred of white society and packaged along with it the "white man's religion" of Christianity. "We must fill ourselves with hate for all white things . . . We have to learn to ridicule the black man who says he worships the white Jesus. He is truly sick" (Civil Rights 283-84). The consequences of the Black Power movement set the civil rights movement of African Americans back because of its policies. "We must copy the white man's biggest trick, diversion, (Hitler taught them that) and infiltrate all civil rights groups, keep them in confusion so they will be neutralized and cannot be used as a tool of the white