Stereotypes: The Civil Rights Movement

“There is no better than adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time” (Malcolm X). The civil rights movement of the nineteen fifties and sixties was an era of enlightened equality and while many shared the common goal of equality, not everyone shared the same vehicle to achieve it. In the March Trilogy that outlines John Lewis’s rise to prominence, there were many instances of internal disputation between leaders within the movement during that time. Consequently, creating sources of conflict between various civil rights organizations and within them. Freedom activists, Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael shared the same goal as other civil rights

leaders such as John Lewis and Martin Luther King Jr but were vastly different in their approach to that goal. While Lewis and King advocated non-violence, Carmichael and X shared the notion by any means necessary. Therefore as the civil rights movement gained traction, sources of conflict began to grow within the movement between new and old generation leaders. New generation leaders advocated the use of violence, forbidding the inclusion of whites within their organizations and had the perception that older generation leaders were not progressing fast enough.
Although many within the civil rights movement shared a common end goal, many new and old generation leaders had different perspectives on getting there.

For instance, many felt that self-defense or the active pursuit of violence should be used as a viable option to combat inequality between blacks and whites. John Lewis narrates that Malcolm X was not invited to the March on Washington and describes his feeling towards him as thus, “I shared his belief that our struggle was not simply in the courts...but violence, no matter how justified, was not something I could accept.. But I could understand his appeal” (Lewis and Aydin 2:149). Lewis states here that he understands the emotions and general appeal that Malcolm X has, and that it is an appeal that he on a basic level shares. However, he cannot promote or participate the violent rhetoric in which he actively pursues. Stokely Carmichael while initially joining and later chaired the presidential position of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and held their non-violent principles, began to drift away from those ideals and instead adhering to and advocating similar methods Malcolm X shared. Giving a speech at Greenwood, Mississippi during the walk against fear protest, he gave this famous speech "We been saying 'freedom' for six years, What we are going to start saying now is 'Black Power.'" (Stokely Carmichael). At that moment, Stokely Carmichael was upset at the beating he and other protesters endured and deemed that

it was no longer an acceptable sacrifice. Synthesizing the notion in his mind of any means necessary and black separatism is the best option to combat inequality.
By and large many, new generation leaders felt that white inclusion into the movement diluted the significance of their accomplishments and self-determination. Book two of John Lewis's graphic novel The March depicts a scene in which two Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee members get into a physical altercation over, a member stating that smoking is not allowed here. John Lewis narrates the effects of the scene for the future of the movement as thus “ by the end of 1962, you heard people questioning whether SNCC should even be a multi-racial organization" (Lewis and Aydin 2:123). In my opinion, Lewis feels that the movement towards racial separation within the organization is the wrong approach to follow. However, the idea of racial separation was an idea that Stokely Carmichael agreed with, when he was elected Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee chairman in 1965 he stated this for white activists within the organization “ form their own poor white communities” (Stokely Carmichael). This idea that whites should be barred, can be understood from the perspective of how people of color have been treated up to that point. Moreover, the ideology of black power or black self-determination was growing stronger causing racial integration becoming less of a popular idea. Ultimately, with the combination of this issue and the notion that leaders within the movement were holding them back, were pivotal in the formation of those ideas such as these.
As the movement began its crescendo, many leaders new and old felt that the most prominent civil rights leaders were deliberately holding back the curtain of equality.

Arguably, they felt that the old methods of protest were not effective enough to produce lasting results, effectively holding back that curtain. In John Lewis's graphic novel The March, he recalls the protest in Nashville over fair employment practices. John Lewis narrates a moment at the protest in which he had to chastise Stokely Carmichael for breaking the rules establish within Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee on how to handle yourself during protests. “ Stokely later said he never saw it as his responsibility to be the moral and spiritual reclamation of some racist thug” (Lewis and Aydin 2:112). Even though Carmichael felt that nonviolence was an excellent strategy or tactic to employ, he did not view it as a basic principle that others within Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and Southern Christian Leadership Conference did. Although, Stokely Carmichael and Malcolm X shared the same beliefs when it came to methods and ideologies of black power and black independence. Carmichael once described this at a protest "When you talk of black power, you talk of building a movement that will smash everything Western civilization has created,'' (Stokely Carmichael). Regrettably, Carmichael is explaining that all black people must come together and create segregated cells away from whites to carve

out their own social, economic and political power base. This reinforces that notion that the methods that older generation leaders were no longer practiced by the younger generation for their perception that they were slow and ineffective and could not produce lasting results for future generations.
These sources of conflict continue well into today's civil rights movements such as the black lives matter movement and could be argued that they stem from the conflicts that were never resolved in the nineteen fifties and sixties. But with the death of various prominent civil rights leaders, both white and black, these disagreements over ideology never had a chance of becoming resolved. Therefore, after the signing into law the civil rights act of 1964 and voting rights act of 1965 many organizations splitter into smaller, more radical organizations. Advocating various themes such as violence, forbidding the inclusion of whites into their organizations and maintaining the perception that older generation leaders ideas and methods of nonviolence were slow and produced no lasting effect. In my opinion, if these sources of conflict were quelled and the uniting of ideas and methods emerged, the dream that Martin Luther King Jr could come to fruition.