US History Standard III
Objective 1:
Investigate reform movements and their prominent leaders.
a. Examine the problems faced by American farmers that were created
by the new market economy and the rise of the Populist Party.
b. Analyze the growth and influence of political machines; e.g.,
muckrakers, Progressives.
c. Investigate the emerging civil rights movements for women and
African Americans.
Objective 2:
Assess the growth and development of labor unions and their key
leaders.
a. Trace the development of national labor unions.
b. Determine the impact of collective bargaining.
c. Analyze the development of socialism in the United States.
Dropping Prices and Debt
The Populist movement was a revolt in the 1880’s
by farmers in the South and Midwest against the
Democratic and Republican Parties for ignoring their
interests and difficulties. For over a decade, farmers were
suffering from crop failures, falling prices, poor
marketing, and lack of credit facilities. Many farmers
were in debt due to a drought that affected the Midwest
in the 1880s. At the same time, prices for Southern
cotton dropped. These disasters, combined with
resentment against railroads, money-lenders, grainelevator owners, and others with whom farmers did
business, led farmers to organize.
The Populist Party
Farmers began joining a political group called the
Farmer’s Alliance and rallied for agricultural and
other reforms. After gaining such wide-spread
support, the Farmer’s Alliance became The Populist
Party and began to rally for it’s own candidate for
President of the United States. The Party called
upon the federal government to buffer economic
depressions, regulate banks and corporations, and
help farmers who were suffering hard times.
Presidental Candidate
In 1892 the Populist presidential
candidate, James B. Weaver, won more than
1,000,000 popular votes. The party elected
several members to Congress, three governors,
and hundreds of minor officials and legislators,
nearly all in the Midwest. In the South, they
challenged white supremacy by forming
coalitions with black farmers in common cause.
In the South
In spite of the popularity of the Populist Party
and its ideals of racial equality the South held to its
support of Democrats. Using fraud and violence,
and rallying support by appealing to white
supremacy, the Democrats held on to their power
in many Southern states. Many Democrats refused
to endanger white supremacy by voting against the
Democratic Party in favor of the Populist Party.
Perseverance paid off when in 1896 the Populists
fused into the Democratic Party, changing the
Democratic party forever.
Muckraker
The term "muckraker" was taken from the
fictional character in John Bunyan's Pilgrim's
Progress, a man who was consigned to rake
muck endlessly, never lifting his eyes from his
drudgery. President Theodore Roosevelt,
frustrated by writer’s who wrote incessantly
about societal abuses and inefficiencies berated
those whose writings fervently called for reform
in a speech given in April of 1906.
Speech
In Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" you may recall the description of the Man with the
Muck Rake, the man who could look no way but downward, with the muck rake in his
hand; who was offered a celestial crown for his muck rake, but who would neither
look up nor regard the crown he was offered, but continued to rake to himself the filth
of the floor.
In "Pilgrim's Progress" the Man with the Muck Rake is set forth as the example of him
whose vision is fixed on carnal instead of spiritual things. Yet he also typifies the man
who in this life consistently refuses to see aught that is lofty, and fixes his eyes with
solemn intentness only on that which is vile and debasing.
Now, it is very necessary that we should not flinch from seeing what is vile and
debasing. There is filth on the floor, and it must be scraped up with the muck rake;
and there are times and places where this service is the most needed of all the
services that can be performed. But the man who never does anything else, who
never thinks or speaks or writes, save of his feats with the muck rake, speedily
becomes, not a help but one of the most potent forces for evil. -Theodore Rooservelt
The Power of the Pen
People in the United States had long been
displeased with the unsafe conditions, political
corruption and social injustice of the industrial age,
but it was not until the late 19th century that
newspapers and magazines began to publish
articles criticizing corrupt or unsafe industries.
Writers, called muckrakers, directed their criticisms
against oil, beef and tobacco industries and wrote
about prison conditions, the exploitation of natural
resources, the tax system, the insurance industry,
pension practices and food processing, among
others.
Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle
Upton Sinclair published The Jungle in 1905 to
expose labor abuses in the meat packing industry. But
it was food, not labor, that most concerned the public.
Sinclair's horrific descriptions of the industry led to the
passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat
Inspection Act, not to labor legislation.
Reform
Although muckrakers attracted a great deal
of negative attention, their writings often
brought about reform that otherwise may not
have been as speedy or widespread.
Progressives
Progressives were social reformers who were
focused on using politics to help those facing
harsh conditions at home and at work.
American Presidents who embraced the
progressive platform were Theodore Roosevelt,
Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and
Lyndon Baines Johnson.
Origins of Progressive Movement
• Organized originally by Theodore Roosevelt,
the Progressive Party lobbied for tariff reform
(tax on imports imposed to keep American
goods a strong market), stricter regulation of
industrial combinations (businesses who
merge ideas or industry for a mutual benefit),
women’s suffrage, prohibition of child labor,
and other reforms.
Civil Rights for Women
Women’s suffrage is the right of women to vote
and to run for office. The movement to gain
these rights for women was born around the
turn of the century.
Suffragists
Several generations of woman suffrage
supporters lectured, wrote, marched, lobbied,
and practiced civil disobedience to achieve what
many Americans considered a radical change in
the Constitution. Militant suffragists used tactics
such as parades, silent vigils, and hunger strikes.
Victory
Passed by Congress June 4, 1919, and ratified on
August 18, 1920, the 19th amendment
guarantees all American women the right to
vote. Achieving this milestone required a
lengthy and difficult struggle; victory took
decades of agitation and protest. Few early
supporters lived to see final victory in 1920.
Civil Rights for African Americans
Black Codes of Reconstruction Era
13th Amendment
14th Amendment
15th Amendment
Plessey v. Ferguson
Birth of a Nation
Jim Crow Laws
Marcus Garvey: “Return to Africa” movement
Universal Negro Improvement Association
The Black Church
Southern Baptist Convention
African Methodist Episcopal Church
AME Zion Church
Historically black colleges and universities
WEB Dubois
NAACP
Booker T. Washington
Tuskegee Institute
The Crisis
A.Philip Randolph: “The New Negro”
The Great Migration
The Scottsboro Boys and the Communist Party
The Double V Campaign
Nation of Islam
Malcolm X
Racial Equality
Black Americans’ quest for official racial equality began the
moment Reconstruction ended in the late 1870s. Even though
Radical Republicans had attempted to aid blacks by passing
the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the Ku Klux Klan Act, the Civil
Rights Act of 1875, as well as the Fourteenth Amendment and
Fifteenth Amendment, racist whites in the South ensured that
blacks remained “in their place.” The black codes, for
example, as well as literacy tests, poll taxes, and widespread
violence kept blacks away from voting booths, while
conservative Supreme Court decisions ruined any chances for
social equality. The Compromise of 1877 effectively doomed
southern blacks to a life of sharecropping and second-class
citizenship.
spark notes
http://www.sparknotes.com/history/american/c
ivilrights/summary.html
Black Codes of Reconstruction Era
The Black Codes were laws in the United States after the
Civil War with the effect of limiting the civil rights and civil
liberties of blacks. Each endeavored to secure a steady supply of
cheap labor, and continued to assume the inferiority of the freed
slaves.
In many states, if unemployed, blacks faced the potential
of being arrested and charged with vagrancy. Codes dictated
their hours of labor, duties, and the behavior assigned to them
as agricultural workers. Even the freedom to chose a type of
work was often regulated.
Often blacks were prohibited from entering towns without
permission. A note was required, and it had to state the nature
and length of the visit. Any black found without a note after ten
o'clock at night was subject to imprisonment.
By 1866, Black Codes were suspended by federal officials.
Louisiana Black Code
(1865)
Louisiana
Introduction
After the region's slaves were freed, Southern communities passed laws
called "black codes" to control black citizens. The first states to pass black
codes were Mississippi and South Carolina; other Southern states soon
followed. Exact provisions of these laws varied from state to state, but their
effect was similar. Read the following provisions of a Louisiana parish's black
codes and evaluate their impact.
Questions to Consider
(use next two slides to answer these questions)
Questions to Consider
What were the black codes?
List some of the restrictions placed on black citizens in this Louisiana parish.
Why were these black codes so restrictive?
Speculate about how these laws were enforced.
What impact would these laws have had on the black community?
Source : Louisiana Black Codes
. . . Sec. 1. Be it ordained by the police jury of the parish of St. Landry, That no negro
shall be allowed to pass within the limits of said parish without special permit in
writing from his employer. Whoever shall violate this provision shall pay a fine of two
dollars and fifty cents, or in default thereof shall be forced to work four days on the
public road, or suffer corporeal punishment as provided hereinafter. . . .
Sec. 3. . . . No negro shall be permitted to rent or keep a house within said parish. Any
negro violating this provision shall be immediately ejected and compelled to find an
employer; and any person who shall rent, or give the use of any house to any negro, in
violation of this section, shall pay a fine of five dollars for each offence.
Sec. 4. . . . Every negro is required to be in the regular service of some white person, or
former owner, who shall be held responsible for the conduct of said negro. But said
employer or former owner may permit said negro to hire his own time by special
permission in writing, which permission shall not extend over seven days at any one
time. . . .
Sec. 5. . . . No public meetings or congregations of negroes shall be allowed within said
parish after sunset; but such public meetings and congregations may be held between
the hours of sunrise and sunset, by the special permission in writing of the captain of
patrol, within whose beat such meetings shall take place. . . .
Sec. 6. . . . No negro shall be permitted to preach, exhort, or otherwise declaim to
congregations of colored people, without a special permission in writing from the
president of the police jury. . . .
Sec. 7. . . . No negro who is not in the military service shall be allowed to carry firearms, or any kind of weapons, within the parish, without the special written
permission of his employers, approved and indorsed by the nearest and most
convenient chief of patrol. . . .
Sec. 8. . . . No negro shall sell, barter, or exchange any articles of merchandise or traffic
within said parish without the special written permission of his employer, specifying
the article of sale, barter or traffic. . . .
Sec. 9. . . . Any negro found drunk, within the said parish shall pay a fine of five dollars,
or in default thereof work five days on the public road, or suffer corporeal punishment
as hereinafter provided.
Sec. 11. . . . It shall be the duty of every citizen to act as a police officer for the
detection of offences and the apprehension of offenders, who shall be immediately
handed over to the proper captain or chief of patrol. . . .
Plessey v Ferguson
“Separate but Equal”
In 1890, Louisiana passed a statute called the
Separate Car Act declaring that all rail
companies carrying passengers in Louisiana
must provide separate but equal
accommodations for white and non-white
passengers. The penalty for sitting in the wrong
compartment was a fine of $25 or 20 days in jail.
Plessey
A group of black citizens joined forces with the East
Louisiana Railroad Company to fight the Act. In
1892, Homer Plessey, who was one-eighth black,
purchased a first-class ticket and sat in the whitedesignated railroad car. Plessey was arrested for
violating the Separate Car Act and argued in court
that the Act violated the Thirteenth and Fourteenth
Amendments to the Constitution. After losing twice
in the lower courts, Plessey took his case to the U.S.
Supreme Court, which upheld the previous
decisions that racial segregation is constitutional
under the separate but equal doctrine.
The Great Migration
As a result of worsening conditions in the South,
and primarily because of the Plessey v. Ferguson ruling,
blacks began to head to the Northern United States by
the millions. Racism, while still a serious obstacle, was
considered much less brutal there than in the South. In
addition, the North granted all adult men with the right
to vote; provided better educational advancement for
African-Americans and their children; and offered greater
job opportunities as a result of World War I and the
industrial revolution. This phenomenon, known as the
Great Migration, brought more than seven million
African-Americans to the North.
13th Amendment:
Passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, and
ratified on December 6, 1865, the 13th
amendment abolished slavery in the United
States and provides that "Neither slavery nor
involuntary servitude, except as a punishment
for crime whereof the party shall have been duly
convicted, shall exist within the United States, or
any place subject to their jurisdiction.".
14th Amendment:
Forbids states from denying any person "life,
liberty or property, without due process of law"
or to "deny to any person within its jurisdiction
the equal protection of the laws.” By directly
mentioning the role of the states, the 14th
Amendment greatly expanded the protection of
civil rights to all Americans and is cited in more
litigation than any other amendment.
15th Amendment:
"the right of citizens of the United States to vote
shall not be denied or abridged by the United States
or by any State on account of race, color, or
previous condition of servitude." One day after it
was adopted, Thomas Peterson-Mundy of Perth
Amboy, New Jersey, became the first African
American to vote under the authority of the 15th
Amendment.
Birth of a Nation
The racism that African Americans experienced in both the South
and the North during the war years could be glimpsed in many arenas of
American life, including the movies. It is not surprising, perhaps, that The
Birth of a Nation, which appeared in March 1915, was both one of the
landmarks in the history of American cinema and a landmark in American
racism. The film is based partly on the novel and play The Clansman
written by Thomas Dixon in 1906 and portrays the violence and racism of
the time as is indicated in the following sentiment expressed by its
author:
“My object is to teach the North, the young North, what it has
never known-the awful suffering of the white man during the dreadful
Reconstruction period. I believe that Almighty God anointed the white
men of the South by their suffering during that time . . . to demonstrate to
the world that the white man must and shall be supreme.”
Jim Crow Laws
A term for racist laws and social orders in the
South that kept blacks separate from and
subordinate to whites. The Jim Crow laws that
appeared after the Plessey v. Ferguson ruling of
1896 forced blacks to sit, eat, sleep, study, and work
in separate facilities (although these Jim Crow laws
were not as harsh as the black codes of the
Reconstruction era).
See www.youtube.org: The History of Jim Crow
Part 1, 2 and 3
Jim Crow Laws
See: www.ferris.edu: Jim Crow Museum
Jim Crow
See youtube.org
Jump Jim Crow
Throughout the 1830s and '40s, the
white entertainer Thomas Dartmouth Rice
(1808-1860) performed a popular songand-dance act supposedly modeled after a
slave. He named the character Jim Crow.
Rice darkened his face, acted like a
buffoon, and spoke with an exaggerated
and distorted imitation of African American
Vernacular English. In his Jim Crow
persona, he also sang "Negro ditties" such
as "Jump Jim Crow."
Black Face
When performing as minstrels, white performers
used burnt cork and greasepaint or shoe polish to darken
their skin and red or white makeup to exaggerate their lips.
They also wore woolly wigs and ragged clothes to
imitate and ridicule African Americans. Ironically, by the
1840s, even some black entertainers were darkening their
already dark skin and performing in blackface as minstrels.
Marcus Garvey: “Return to Africa” movement and
Universal Negro Improvement Association
Garvey was a Jamaican-born black nationalist who created a 'Back to
Africa' movement in the United States.
He became an inspirational figure for later civil rights activists. He
returned to Jamaica in 1914 and founded the Universal Negro Improvement
Association (UNIA). In 1916, Garvey moved to Harlem in New York where UNIA
thrived. By now a formidable public speaker, Garvey spoke across America. He
urged African-Americans to be proud of their race and return to Africa, their
ancestral homeland and attracted thousands of supporters.
To facilitate the return to Africa that he advocated, in 1919 Garvey
founded the Black Star Line, to provide transportation to Africa, and the Negro
Factories Corporation to encourage black
economic independence.
Garvey also unsuccessfully tried to
persuade the government of Liberia in west
Africa to grant land on which black people
from America could settle.
The Black Church
The Southern Baptist Convention, African Methodist Episcopal
Church, AME Zion Church and other African American churches have
long been the centers of communities.
They served as school sites in the early years after the Civil War, have
taken up social welfare functions, such as providing for the indigent,
and going on to establish schools, orphanages and prison ministries.
As a result, black churches have fostered built strong
community organizations and provided spiritual and political
leadership, especially during the civil rights movement.
Black Colleges and Universities
There are 105 historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in the
United States, including public and private, two-year and four-year institutions,
medical schools and community colleges. A Historically Black College or University
had the mission of educating Blacks while being open to all.
Spelman College
Howard University
Morehouse College
Hampton University
Fisk University
Xavier University of Louisiana
Tuskegee University
Founded in 1881,
Claflin University
Spelman College is an all-girls
liberal arts college.
Dillard University
Florida A&M University
Booker T. Washington
Booker Taliaferro Washington was an African-American educator, author, orator, and
advisor to Republican presidents. He was the dominant leader in the African-American
community in the United States from 1890 to 1915. In 1881, he founded the Tuskegee Normal
and Industrial Institute in Alabama (now known as Tuskegee University), which grew immensely
and focused on training African Americans in agricultural pursuits. A political adviser and writer,
Washington clashed with intellectual W.E.B. Du Bois over the best avenues for racial uplift.
In 1881, the Alabama legislature approved $2,000 for a "colored" school, the Tuskegee
Normal and Industrial Institute (now known as Tuskegee University). General Armstrong was
asked to recommend a white man to run the school, but instead recommended Booker T.
Washington. Classes were first held in an old church.
Booker T. Washington called on white America to provide jobs and industrialagricultural education for Negroes. In exchange, blacks would give up demands for social equality
and civil rights. His message to the Negro was that political and social equality were less
important as immediate goals than economic respectability and independence. Washington
believed that if blacks gained an economic foothold, and proved themselves useful to whites,
then civil rights and social equality would eventually be given to them. Blacks were urged to work
as farmers, skilled artisans, domestic servants, and manual laborers to prove to whites that all
blacks were not liars and chicken thieves. Washington wrote Up From Slavery.
See mini-bio on www.biography.com
Tuskegee Institute
The Tuskegee Negro Normal Institute was opened on the 4th
July, 1888. The school was originally a shanty building owned by the
local church. The school only received funding of $2,000 a year and
this was only enough to pay the staff. Eventually Booker T. Washington
was able to borrow money from the treasurer of the Hampton
Agricultural Institute to purchase an abandoned plantation on the
outskirts of Tuskegee and built his own school.
The school taught academic subjects but emphasized a
practical education. This included farming, carpentry, brickmaking,
shoemaking, printing and cabinetmaking. This enabled students to
become involved in the building of a new school. Students worked
long-hours, arising at five in the morning and finishing at nine-thirty at
night.
Tuskegee Airmen of WWII
Before 1940, African Americans were barred from flying
for the U.S. military. Civil rights organizations and the black press
exerted pressure that resulted in the formation of an all AfricanAmerican pursuit squadron based in 1941 at the Tuskegee
Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama. They became known as the
Tuskegee Airmen.
View: “Red Tails” film on Tuskegee Airmen.
WEB Dubois
Du Bois was born and raised in Massachusetts, and graduated in 1888 from Fisk University, a
black liberal arts college in Nashville, Tennessee. During the summer, he taught in a rural school
and later wrote about his experiences in his book THE SOULS OF BLACK FOLK. All of his efforts
were geared toward gaining equal treatment for black people in a world dominated by whites
and toward marshaling and presenting evidence to refute the myths of racial inferiority.
In 1905 Du Bois was a founder and general secretary of the Niagara movement, an African
American protest group of scholars and professionals. Du Bois founded and edited the Moon
(1906) and the Horizon (1907-1910) as organs for the Niagara movement. In 1909 Du Bois was
among the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
and from 1910 to 1934 served it as director of publicity and research, a member of the board of
directors, and editor of the Crisis, its monthly magazine.
Du Bois was active in pan-Africanism and concerned with the conditions of people of African
descent wherever they lived. In 1900 he attended the First Pan-African Conference held in
London, was elected a vice president, and wrote the "Address to the Nations of the World."
See www.biography.com
Booker T. vs. W.E.B.
Booker T. Washington, educator, reformer and the most influential black leader of his time
(1856-1915) preached a philosophy of self-help, racial solidarity and accommodation. He urged blacks
to accept discrimination for the time being and concentrate on elevating themselves through hard work
and material prosperity. He believed in education in the crafts, industrial and farming skills and the
cultivation of the virtues of patience, enterprise and thrift. This, he said, would win the respect of
whites and lead to African Americans being fully accepted as citizens and integrated into all strata of
society.
W.E.B. Du Bois, a towering black intellectual, scholar and
political thinker (1868-1963) said no--Washington's strategy would
serve only to perpetuate white oppression. Du Bois advocated political
action and a civil rights agenda (he helped found the NAACP). In
addition, he argued that social change could be accomplished by
developing the small group of college-educated blacks he called "the
Talented Tenth:"
Booker T. and W.E.B.
Booker T. Washington and W.E.B.
DuBois
By Dudley Randall
"It seems to me," said Booker T.,
"It shows a mighty lot of cheek
To study chemistry and Greek
When Mister Charlie needs a hand
To hoe the cotton on his land,
And when Miss Ann looks for a cook,
Why stick your nose inside a book?"
"I don't agree," said W.E.B.
"If I should have the drive to seek
Knowledge of chemistry or Greek,
I'll do it. Charles and Miss can look
Another place for hand or cook,
Some men rejoice in skill of hand,
And some in cultivating land,
But there are others who maintain
The right to cultivate the brain."
"It seems to me," said Booker T.,
"That all you folks have missed the boat
Who shout about the right to vote,
And spend vain days and sleepless nights
In uproar over civil rights.
Just keep your mouths shut, do not grouse,
But work, and save, and buy a house."
"I don't agree," said W.E.B.
"For what can property avail
If dignity and justice fail?
Unless you help to make the laws,
They'll steal your house with trumped-up
clause.
A rope's as tight, a fire as hot,
No matter how much cash you've got.
Speak soft, and try your little plan,
But as for me, I'll be a man."
"It seems to me," said Booker T.-"I don't agree,"
Said W.E.B.
The Crisis
The Crisis is the official publication of the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). It
features African American commentary on current affairs. In the
past, it has also featured African American literature
prominently, and was one of the major magazines of the Harlem
Renaissance.
Harlem, New York
African-Americans began moving to Harlem, on the
island of Manhatten, New York en masse; between 1900
and 1920 the number of blacks in the New York City
neighborhood doubled. By the time the planned subway
system and roadways reached Harlem, many of the
country's best and brightest black advocates, artists,
entrepreneurs, and intellectuals had situated themselves
in Harlem. They brought with them not only the
institutions and businesses necessary to support
themselves, but a vast array of talents and ambitions. The
area soon became known as “the Black Mecca” and “the
capital of black America.”
Three Headquarters in Harlem
The three groups: NAACP founded by
W.E.B. Dubous, the “Back to Africa Movement,”
begun by Marcus Garvey and the the National
Urban League (NUL) founded by Ruth Standish
Baldwin and Dr. George Edmund Haynes all built
their headquarters in Harlem.
Harlem Renaissance
Instead of using more direct political means
to achieve their goals, African-American civil rights
activists employed the artists and writers of their
culture to work for the goals of civil rights and
equality. Jazz music, African-American fine art, and
black literature were all absorbed into mainstream
culture, bringing attention to a previously
disenfranchised segment of the American
population. This blossoming of African-American
culture in European-American society, particularly
in the worlds of art and music, became known as
The Harlem Renaissance.
NAACP
The NAACP was an organization founded by W.
E. B. Du Bois and several white northerners that
sought to achieve legal victories for blacks,
especially the reversal of the “separate but
equal” doctrine established by the Supreme
Court in the 1896 Plessey v. Ferguson decision.
A.Philip Randolph: “The New Negro”
Asa Philip Randolph was a leader in the African-American civil-rights
movement, the American labor movement and socialist political parties. He
began his efforts on behalf of African-American laborers when, while working
as a waiter on a coastal steamship, he organized a protest against their living
conditions. He organized and led the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the
first predominantly Black labor union.
After WWI, he became more convinced than ever that unions would
be the best way for African-Americans to improve their lot.
In 1925, he founded the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and served as
the president until 1968.
The Double V Campaign
The African-American struggle for full citizenship took
heightened form during the World War II years. The slogan
"Double V"—"victory abroad over Nazism and victory at home
over racism and inequality"—enabled African-American leaders
to build coalitions and garner public support for an ongoing civil
rights campaign. Double V was, however, more than a slogan; it
was an ideology that invoked the necessity of a vigilant fight for
democracy. Organizations and individuals across the political and
programmatic spectrum found common ground under the
ideological umbrella of the Double V.
Malcolm X
Malcolm X, born Malcolm Little and also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, was an
African-American Muslim minister and human rights activist.
In his later years, Malcolm X traveled to Detroit, where he worked with the leader of
the Nation of Islam, Elijah Muhammad, to expand the movement's following among
black Americans nationwide.
Malcolm X became the minister of Temple No. 7 in Harlem and Temple No.
11 in Boston, while also founding new temples in Harford and Philadelphia. In 1960,
he established a national newspaper, Muhammad Speaks, in order to further promote
the message of the Nation of Islam.
Articulate, passionate and a naturally gifted and inspirational orator,
Malcolm X exhorted blacks to cast off the shackles of racism "by any means
necessary," including violence. "You don't have a peaceful revolution," he said. "You
don't have a turn the cheek revolution. There's no such thing as a nonviolent
revolution."
Nation of Islam
A group founded in 1930 to promote black nationalism in
Detroit’s black community during the Great Depression. Under the
early leadership of Elijah Muhammad, the organization appealed to
the poorest urban blacks and quickly spread to the major cities in the
East. Malcolm X emerged as the organization’s chief spokesman in the
early 1950s and continued to push for black independence from
whites and self-reliance in daily life. The Nation of Islam also operated
many stores in urban black neighborhoods throughout America to
promote black economic independence.