Leaders

• Booker T Washington was invited to the White House by President Roosevelt in 1901 and he became an informal advisor to both Roosevelt and Taft.
• Randolph contributed the power of non-violent mass demonstration.
• King background:

  • son of a minister - gave him a moral vocabulary
  • taught about non-violence and tactics by Randolph
  • organising in an era when society was more eager for change than Du Bois and Garvey
• King supported the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955.
• King formed the Southern Church Leadership Conference in 1957. He saw the moral power of Ghandian tactics and visited India in 1959. Unlike Garvey, he also aimed at links with white supporters.
• King was aware of the importance of modern media and using national and international television to achieve publicity.
• King took a major role in marches and demonstrations and was arrested 29 times.
• King found that achieving constitutional rights often didn’t solve fundamental economic and social issues.
• After 1965, King’s campaigns for economic equality and withdrawal from Vietnam were considerably less successful, as the aims were wider and less achievable.
• King was assassinated in Memphis in April 1968.
• Malcolm X background:

  • son of a civil rights activist, minister and follower of Garvey
  • Family suffered racial persecution and father killed in 1931
  • mother had mental breakdown in 1937 and Malcolm became a professional criminal in Boston
  • imprisoned from 1947 to 1952 and converted to Islam in this time, joining the NOI
• Malcom X’s gift for speaking and writing responsible for growth in NOI membership from 400 in 1952 to possibly 40,000 or more by 1960.
• Malcom X preached violent revolution, linking socialism, pan-nationalism, anti-colonialism and radical Islam.
• Malcom X broke with the NOI in 1964 and his focus became less committed to violence and more to purely spiritual values.
• Malcolm X was assassinated in a meeting in Manhattan in 1965.