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The Civil Rights Movement: Tactics, Strategies, and Disagreement Zahid Husain History 3J03: United States in the 1960’s January 30, 2023

The fight for equality is one that is still ongoing in our society today. At the forefront of the fight was the Civil Rights Movement which began after the second world war and continued for 25 years thereafter. Remnants of the civil rights movement and the parties and organizations formed during its time still exist to this day, many of them branching out to further continue fighting such as the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) which merged with the Black Panther party in the 1970’s. There were two main goals of the Civil Rights Movement, first was to desegregate in the Southern United States and the second was to acquire voting rights for all of its citizens. The many strategies and tactics used by the movement were crucial in building support from people all across America. The Civil Rights Movement used a multitude of legal strategies and tactics to help turn the tide in their favor throughout the 25 year long campaign including the use of mass media, boycotts and sit-ins. The use of these diverse strategies led to the eventual arrests of thousands of people, many of them occurring at nonviolent, peaceful protests. In fact, during a rally in Birmingham in which Martin Luthar King attended, many of the arrested were children. The idea behind this is that children were not at risk of losing jobs if they were protesting. The final tally of arrested citizens at this rally was around 2500 people and it later became known as the ‘Children's Crusade.’ In the end, these arrests at nonviolent protests only helped to garner sympathy and eventual support from the public. The magnitude of these rallies could be felt throughout the government institutions as well, as many prisons began to overpopulate themselves with the arrests in such high quantities. The many strategies and tactics used by the movement proved to be beneficial for the most part. Organizers knew they had to continuously show wins and victories for their party to ensure their supporters don’t lose faith in their cause.

Their efforts to accomplish this daunting task sometimes led to disagreements amongst key organizers. Many of the disagreements stemming from the movement's decision to take a nonviolent approach. Chuck McDew was an activist and organizer in the SNCC foundation. In an interview with Joseph Mosnier for the ‘Civil Rights History Project’ he recalls a time of disagreement with his fellow organizers when it came to the nonviolent philosophy conducted by the Civil Rights Movement as a whole. McDew got an invitation from Martin Luthar King himself asking him and a group of students McDew frequented with if they would attend a speech in South Carolina where Martin Luthar King would be speaking to students in the South. In his speech Martin Luthar King stated they should all consider joining SCLC and take a nonviolent philosophy of attempting change. The philosophy was founded on the idea of how Gandhi promoted change in India. However, McDew disagreed with King and in the aforementioned interview he stated “You cannot make a moral appeal in the midst of an immoral society…We live in a society that is immoral and as such nonviolence will not work”. McDew did not agree with totally taking a nonviolent approach. As the speech ended, he and his fellow students broke off into a discussion. Many of them were against joining the SCLC but they felt a nonviolent approach could work in some facets (This was later acknowledged in the name Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee). McDew says in the interview that the conversation that happened in the hallway following Martin Luthar King’s speech was what laid the groundwork for the formation of the SNCC. Disagreement came in all forms throughout the Civil Rights Movement, both in big and small accounts. The aforementioned example is a larger disagreement which brought on the creation of a movement which exists in nature still to this day. An example of a smaller

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