How far was the effectiveness of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s limited by internal divisions? (30 marks)
During the Civil Rights Movement great improvements were made gradually for the small minority groups in USA, for example Black African Americans, Hispanic groups and also women. However, from the very beginning there were internal divisions within the civil rights movement as well as external divisions. These partitions were caused by four major factors; methods such as peaceful protest and violence, ideology, effects of tension from jealousy and rivalry and lastly personalities of the different civil rights organisations and their leaders as they were competing for media attention and public recognition. These divisions did limit the effectiveness of the civil rights movement as they slowed down the process and cause many complications. These divisions were extremely clear thought out the 1960s as there was the development of Black Power and their methods of violence which is a contrast to Martin Luther King’s approach which was peaceful protest.
In the early 1960s many successes came about for the civil rights movement especially for SNCC and of Martin Luther King. The Greensboro sit-ins led by SNCC in 1960 is an example of a triumph as they demonstrated that civil rights campaigns could spread quickly and also showed that other organisations could work together as the sit-ins attacked all aspects of segregation and it lead to the extending of the existing NAACP campaigns against segregation in education. This was also the case in 1961 during the Freedom Rides. The significance of the Freedom Rides was that they marked a new high point of co-operation within the civil rights movement as they involved CORE, SNCC which was led by Stokely Carmichael and the SCLC as it was such a momentous victory. It is thought that these protests were only victories due to the methods used by the leaders and their organisations. Martin Luther King and the SCLC proved the effectiveness of peaceful protest and direct action as their methods were based on his heartfelt belief in Christianity. It was not only SCLC that adopted these techniques, but SNCC and CORE also organised campaigns using peaceful protest as their commitment to peaceful methods was pragmatic rather than ideological and they thought they worked. Additionally, they believed that non-violent tactics were compatible with self-defence
As time went on during the 1960s, civil rights organisations become impatient at the rate of which black African Americans rights were improving they decided to use more radical methods to speed the process up. This meant groups such as SNCC and CORE moving away from the non-violent approach. Radicals were critical of non-violent protest and disagreed with the principle on which it was based. Malcolm X, for example, argued that black African American people should be prepared to use any means to fight white oppression. Stokely Carmichael, the leader of SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee), due to the shooting of James Meredith in 1966 prompted SNCC to emphasise its commitment to self-defence and he argued that Meredith’s shooting underlined the need for black people to use violence to defend themselves. SNCC became even more radical in 21968 as Carmichael proposed using revolutionary violence against the US government. CORE also moved away from non-violence during the late 1960s, prompting the registration of CORE’s leader James Farmer. There was also a clear divide between the different organisations and black activists when the Vietnam War came around during the 1960s. Leaders of the NAACP supported the war whereas radicals in the SNCC believed that the war was a racial war and were therefore highly critical of the war. As Martin Luther King did not agree with the war are he felt it necessary to speak out in 1967 causing tension between himself and the NAACP. These tensions created had a negative impact as they made it difficult to fight for black freedom effectively. Tensions also created a divide between civil rights groups, for example groups such as SNCC and CORE were no longer prepared to work with the NAACP, the SCLC or NUL and the fragmentation of the movement meant that it was difficult to organise national campaigns.
Also, by the mid 1960s Black Power had been fully established and contradicted all of the peaceful protest methods used previously by other groups and also it influenced some groups to adopt the same approach as them. They had similar views as Malcolm X who argued that black people should be prepared to use violence in order to get equal rights. Unlike other organisations, the black power movement did not agree with equality between black and white people and instead fought for black supremacy. This challenged the whole of peaceful protest for equality and the whole of Martin Luther King’s philosophy.
In conclusion the apparent unity of the civil rights movement in the early 1960s was a disguise concealing personal rivalries and political disagreements. The breakdown of the civil rights coalition was due to the radicalisation of some civil rights organisations such as CORE and SNCC and also the development of Black Power and Malcolm X. These issues limited the effectiveness of the civil rights movements to a certain extent as they were not able to make as much of a difference if they were all using different methods. If all the groups worked together they would have had a quicker and easier process when fighting for their civil rights.