Black Power: 1965-1970, Essay Example

Before the 1960’s, the fight for African American rights was progressing slowly.  Then Malcolm X came onto the scene, preaching pride for African Americans, that they have been wronged by white people, and they must militant to achieve equality.  Though he later became more tolerant towards other races after his pilgrimage to Mecca, he was nevertheless a major driving force in the embracement of “Black Power.”  Malcolm X predicted that the Johnson administration was corrupt and should not be supported.

During the Vietnam War, more African Americans enlisted in the military, but few achieved rank as an officer. Most were place in combat units, increasing the likelihood of casualties. At first, the NAACP and the Urban League supported the opportunity to be integrated; but this did not promote equality in the United States.  Martin Luther King Jr.’s advisors wanted him to maintain a neutral policy regarding the Vietnam War, but he finally took an anti-war stance. President Johnson’s “black epigones” set out to “vilify” King. “And in the light of subsequent congressional testimony and historical research on his death, King’s unfinished search for more radical reforms in America may have been the central reason he was killed” (103). The Black Panther Party was a group of militant and educated African Americans, aimed at radical reform.  Their “Ten Point Program” inspired African Americans and progressive whites to fight for equality, stop police brutality, and help African Americans rise above poverty.  However, black nationalists viewed the Black Panthers with suspicion because of their association with progressive whites and other races.

The FBI monitored and stalked “Black Power” groups and J. Edgar Hoover’s stated that any “illegal acts of suppression” against the Black Panthers were justified “greatest threat to the internal security of this country” (110).  What began with the charismatic leader Malcolm X, disintegrated with the Nixon administration in 1968.  For openly supporting desegregation, Nixon’s U.S. commission of education, James A. Allen was fired in 1970.  The civil rights efforts of the mid-twentieth century were not completely squelched, but greatly wounded.