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During the 1963, King was not the only influential black leader making a dynamic impact on the black community. Malcolm X, a preacher and organizer for the Nation of Islam, had been preaching his message since the 1950s. Malcolm X was a part of the black Muslims that proved to be crucial in a switch to the more violent movements during the 1960s. The Nation of Islam was led by Elijah Muhammed and believe that whites had systematically and immorally denied blacks their rights and that blacks therefore had no reason to act peacefully or lovingly. The Nation of Islam believed that whites should repay the blacks for slavery. Malcolm X became famous for his speech Chickens Coming Home to Roost Speech which he delivered on December 1, 1963. Malcolm X based that speech off of the assassination of Kennedy. The media remained biased against the Nation of Islam and Malcolm X and used that speech to show Malcolm X s hatred for the American government. To avoid public detestation, the Nation of Islam silenced Malcolm X for ninety days. Malcolm X was called a hateful speaker as his rhetoric was filled with angry references to white people, and he exemplified an undeniable rage that most black people felt. Power movements such as X s came from the idea that the non-violent protests that King advocated might not be working as well as well as hoped. The Black Power movement sought a new method for which the black would gain rights.

In 1964, King is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Soon after, he along with the SNCC and SCLC went out to test whether the South was complying with the new Civil Rights Act. The SNCC and the SCLC organized a massive voter registration in Selma, Alabama. Again, this demonstration resulted in massive retaliation from the white supremacists as the Selma sheriff Jim Clark beat a black woman waiting in line to register to vote. Demonstrators began a fifty-mile march from Selma to Montgomery. On that march, state troopers attacked the protesters giving it the name of Bloody Sunday. This action in Selma led Johnson to introduce the Voting Rights Bill. This bill allowed the federal observers to ensure that all who were eligible to vote would be allowed to vote. The bill was signed into an Act in 1965.

Following these actions, the Civil Rights Movement began to fragment. King began on a new crusade in the north that would combat social racism instead of institutional racism. All agencies began to look toward dismantling racism and poverty since the segregation battle was won. The SNCC abandoned the principals of non-violence and became more radical and militant. As a result of these changes, the Civil Rights Movement lost several of their white sympathizers. The Civil Rights Movement returned to the North to combat two new enemies: poverty and the unwillingness of Northern whites to acknowledge their own racism. In 1966 and 1967, King campaigned in Chicago for better housing for blacks. King faced new problems in Chicago that could not be solved by simply desegregation. These issues no longer revolved around laws, but instead the revolved around social and economic issues that could not be solved as easily as eliminating laws. In 1967, King organized the Poor People s Campaign that was supposed to improve the condition of the poor. King made several demonstrations in Washington D.C. that he hoped would spur the government to help the poor.

During the long, hot summer of 1967, massive race riots ensued in Northern cities that only reflected the move toward militancy by the Civil Rights Movement. Under the leadership of Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown, the SNCC continued to radicalize. Carmichael coined the term black power. Also in 1967, Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale organized the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California. The Panthers advocated violence in response to white violence. They attempted to reach black economic stability, yet they were perceived by the public as terrorists.

The Civil Rights Movement faced a monumental loss as James Earl Jones killed Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968. King was about to start his non-violent campaign against poverty when King went down to Memphis to support black sanitation workers. Stokely Carmichael asked that the shops and businesses be shut down for the day to mourn over the loss over King. Just shortly after, political fanatic Sirhan Sirhan assassinated Robert Kennedy, a Civil Rights activist and Presidential candidate. The death of King proved to be one of the largest contributing factors that led to increase in the Black Power movement. The black community grew even more angry over the death of the lost leader. The resistance which these Black Power groups had toward Vietnam War gained much sympathy. However, with the end of the Vietnam War, the protests died, and eventually the Black Power movement died. Because of their extreme violence, the government made many programs such as Cointelpro to monitor the Black Power groups such as the Black Panthers. Despite the tremendous revolutions that occurred in the areas of Civil Rights during the fifties and sixties, racism still exists in one for or another.

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