African American Civil
Rights Leaders
Examine the roles of civil rights advocates
Lesson Objective
Examine the roles of civil rights advocates
including the significance of Martin Luther
King, Malcolm X, Thurgood Marshall, Rosa
Parks, and Philip Randolph.
Advocates = supporters
Civil Rights Leaders
Thurgood Marshall
Supreme Court Justice
Philip Randolph
Defense industry worker
Rosa Parks
NAACP member
Malcolm X
Black Muslim leader
Martin Luther King Jr.
Reverend (pastor) and leader of the civil rights
A. Philip Randolph
Organized the first successful
AA labor union in 1925
Planned march in Washington
D.C. in 1941
Roosevelt (FDR) banned
discrimination in hiring
defense industries to avoid
protest
Helped plan march on
Washington in 1963 
Thurgood Marshall
African American Lawyer
Director of the NAACP Legal Defense
Fund
Lead lawyer in Brown v. Board of
Education
Overturned school segregation
Appointed as federal judge in 1961
Supreme Court justice in 1967
Strong defender of civil rights as a
judge in Supreme Court
Rosa Parks
Female Activist
Member of the NAACP
Montgomery Bus Boycott
Refused to move to the back of the
bus so a white man could sit down
Sparked a 381- day boycott
Blacks in Montgomery refused to
ride the bus
Supreme Court ruled desegregation
of buses in the South
Examine the impact of Rosa Park’s
action in the Civil Rights
movement.
Stokely Carmichael
Leader of SNCC (“snick”)
Tired of being passive
Militant approach to civil rights
“Black Power” movement (without help from
whites)
Supported the Black Panthers
Militant activist group
Martin Luther King Jr.
Reverend (pastor/priest)
President of Southern Christian
Leadership Conference
Civil Rights leader
Philosophy of nonviolent
resistance
Adopted from Gandhi 
“Letter from Birmingham Jail” 
Explained the urgency of protesting
against brutal and unfair
punishment
Explain MLK’s response to
injustices
MLK
Led the Montgomery bus
boycott in 1956
Helped organize March on
Washington DC in 1963
200,000 people marched
“I Have a Dream” speech
Expressed his vision of blacks
and whites living together
Equality and peace
Malcolm X
Grew up in foster homes
Was imprisoned for 8 years
Converted to Islam
Followed the teachings of Elijah
Muhammad
Strong leader within the Black Muslims
Believed separation from whites was better
than integration
Later separated from this group
Differed with MLK on importance of
nonviolence
Often called for revolution
Published “Autobiography of Malcolm X”
Mecca
Malcolm X
Took a trip to Mecca
Returned to the US with a new attitude
towards whites
Believed in racial equality
“I have prayed with fellow Muslims
whose eyes were the bluest of blue,
whose hair was the blondest of blonde,
and whose skin was whitest of white.”
Created split with the Black Muslims
Shot and killed in Harlem while giving a
speech.
MLK on the dangers of black
supremacy.
Somebody must have sense enough to meet hate with love. Somebody must
have sense enough to meet physical force with soul force, and yet at the
same time win the hearts and souls of those who have kept these conditions
alive. We have been trampled over so long. I know the temptation that
comes to all of us. We’ve seen the viciousness of lynching mobs with our
own eyes. I understand why there are some who have been a little
misguided and they ended up feeling that the problem can’t be solved, so
they talk about racial separation, rather than racial integration. I must say
to them in patient terms, that dark supremacy is as dangerous as white
X on black supremacy: The Honorable Elijah Muhammad teaches us that
the black man is the original man and has the independent ability to
produce a brown man, red man, yellow man, or white man, which the very
fact that he can produce all of the others and none of them can produce
him makes him a man far superior with far more potential than the other
men. And Mr. Muhammad says that in the end, the same black man who
X on violence: And I pray that all the fear that has ever been in your heart
will be taken out. And when you look at that man and you know he is
nothing but a coward, you won’t fear him. If he wasn’t a coward, he
wouldn’t gang up on you, he wouldn’t need to sneak around here. This is
how they function. They function in mobs. That’s a coward. They put on a
sheet so you won’t know who they are. That’s a coward. No, the time will
come when that sheet will be ripped off. If the Federal Government doesn’t
X on violence: Any time you demonstrate against segregation and a man
has the audacity to put a police dog on you, kill that dog… I’m telling you,
kill that dog. I’ll say it if they put me in jail tomorrow, kill that dog.
X’s views on violence: There’s been a lot of talk said recently because I
was supposed to have said something about Negroes should buy rifles.
White people been buying rifles all their lives, no commotion. We are
peaceful people. We are loving people. We love everybody who loves us. But
we don’t love anybody who doesn’t love us. We’re non-violent with people
who are non-violent with us. But we are not non-violent with anyone who
Martin Luther King on violence: God
is not interested in merely the freedom
of black men, or brown men, or yellow
men. God is interested in the freedom
of the whole human race and the
creation of a society where all men will
live together as brothers. No we need
not hate. We need not use violence.
There is another way. A way as old as
the insights of Jesus of Nazareth. As
modern as the techniques of Mahatma
K. Ghandi.
There is another way. A way as old as Jesus
saying, love your enemies, bless
them that curse you, pray for them that spitefully use you. As modern as
Ghandi saying through Thourea, non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral
obligation as is cooperation with good. There is another way as old as Jesus
saying turn the other cheek. And when he said that he realized that turning the
other check might bring suffering sometimes. He realized that it may get your
home bombed sometimes. He realized that it may get you stabbed sometimes.
He realized that it might get you scarred up sometimes. What he was saying in
substance that it is better to go through life with a scarred up body than a
scarred up soul. There is another way, this is what we are about to see.
Martin Luther King on Integration: We through our struggle, our
suffering, our sacrifice, will be able to achieve the American dream. This
will be the day when all of God’s children; Black men, White men, Jews
and Gentiles, Protestant and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing
in the words of the old negro spiritual, “free at last, free at last, thank god
X on Integration: And when Mr. Muhammad says separate from the white
man you tell the public he is teaching hate. Now when Martin Luther King
says love the white man, and integrate with him, and the white man sicks
dogs on MLK, so what you find out here is the hypocrisy of the white. If
you draw away from him he’ll accuse you of hate, and if you jump up to
him he will accuse you of trying to get too close to him too soon, and he
puts his dogs on you. If the black man lays on his side he is wrong. If the
black man lays on his back he is wrong. If the black man stands up he is
wrong. So the only thing in the face of all that the black man can do is get
X on integration: We don’t want anything to do with any race, any race of
dogs, two-legged dogs, that will sick four-legged dogs on innocent,
harmless, women, children, and babies.
X on the nature of white men: Well, number one, he teaches us that there
never was a real serpent. But as you know the bible is written in symbols
and parables, and this serpent, or snake, is a symbol that’s used to hide the
real identity of the one whom actually was, the white man. He teaches us
that the black man by nature is divine. By nature (the white man) is other
than divine. By nature he is evil.
X: “By any means necessary:” We declare our right on this Earth to be a
man, to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given
the rights of human beings, in this society, on this Earth, on this day, which
we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary. I charge the
white man, I charge him with being the greatest murderer on this Earth…
kidnapper… robber and slaver… adulterer, swine-eater, drunkard, on Earth.
MLK On America: The
marvelous new militancy which
has engulfed the Negro
community must not lead us to a
distrust of all white people, for
many of our white brothers, as
evidenced by their presence here
today, have come to realize that
their destiny is tied up with our
destiny. I have a dream that one
day this nation will rise up and
live
the
true
meaning
of Iits
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that
allout
men
are
created
equal.
have a dream that one day on the red hills creed:
of Georgia, the sons of former
slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together
at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of
Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the
heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and
justice. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a
nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the
content of their character.
X on America: Being here in America doesn’t make you an American. Being
born here in America doesn’t make you an American. Why, if birth made you
an American, you wouldn’t need any legislation or you wouldn’t need any
amendments to the constitution. No, I’m not an American. I’m one of the 22
million black people who are the victims of Americanism. I’m one of the 22
million black people who are the victims of democracy, nothing but disguised
hypocrisy. I see America through the eyes of the victim. I don’t see any
American dream, I see an American Nightmare. If you go to jail so what? If
you were black you were born in jail. In the North as well as the South. Stop
talking about the South. Long as you’re south of the Canadian border, you’re
Compare and contrast Malcolm X and Martin
Luther King’s views on the civil rights
movement.
Common: I Have a Dream
Lesson Objective
Examine the roles of civil rights advocates
including the significance of Martin Luther
King, Malcolm X, Thurgood Marshall, Rosa
Parks, and Philip Randolph.
Write one paragraph (4-5 sentences) describing
today’s lesson on civil rights leaders.