Civil Rights Movement In The 1960s And 1960s

The 1960s and 1970s were times of great upheaval in the United States. New social movements were born and strong and powerful conservative counter-reactions to these movements arose.

On August 28, 1963, more than 200,000 people gathered in Washington D.C. to march for equal rights for all people regardless of race. The march ended with Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I have a dream” speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

King was a Baptist minister and founder and president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, he organized many boycotts and non-violent demonstrations. His belief in peaceful resistance and his call for equality for all resonated with African Americans as well as many white

In 1964 Malcolm X argued for a separation of African Americans from white America and a creation of a Black Nation. Stokely Carmichael, a student leader and later a leader of the Black Panther political party, was influenced by Malcolm X and the teachings of the Nation of Islam. Carmichael advocated racial pride and coined the phrase “Black Power.” Like Malcolm X, Carmichael believed that African Americans should separate themselves from white America. In an essay in the Massachusetts Review, Carmichael wrote

Today NOW is the largest national organizations. With all the social changes and movements happening in the 1960s, i.e., the civil rights movement, feminism, anti-war movement, the rise in crime, and drug use, a backlash among many white middle-class Americans was growing. Richard Nixon narrowly won the1968 presidential election campaigning on a law and order platform and appealing to those he called the silent majority. Forced to resign in his second term due to the Watergate scandal, the country was becoming more disillusioned with