Civil rights movement

=== Malcolm X joins the movement, 1964–1965 ===
{{Main|Malcolm X|Black Nationalism|The Ballot or the Bullet}}

In March 1964, [[Malcolm X]] (el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz), national representative of the [[Nation of Islam]], formally broke with that organization, and made a public offer to collaborate with any civil rights organization that accepted the right to self-defense and the philosophy of Black nationalism (which Malcolm said no longer required [[Black separatism]]). [[Gloria Richardson]], head of the [[Cambridge, Maryland]], chapter of [[SNCC]], and leader of the Cambridge rebellion,<ref>{{cite web |title=Cambridge, Maryland, activists campaign for desegregation, USA, 1962–1963 |url=http://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/cambridge-maryland-activists-campaign-desegregation-usa-1962-1963 |website=Global Nonviolent Action Database |publisher=[[Swarthmore College]] |access-date=January 13, 2015}}</ref> an honored guest at The March on Washington, immediately embraced Malcolm's offer. Mrs. Richardson, "the nation's most prominent woman [civil rights] leader,"<ref name="BAA"/> told ''[[The Baltimore Afro-American]]'' that "Malcolm is being very practical...The federal government has moved into conflict situations only when matters approach the level of insurrection. Self-defense may force Washington to intervene sooner."<ref name="BAA">{{cite web |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=1mY8AAAAIBAJ&pg=1694,6977757&dq=gloria%20richardson%20malcolm%20x&hl=en |title=Baltimore Afro-American|via=Google News Archive Search |access-date=July 29, 2016}}</ref> Earlier, in May 1963, writer and activist [[James Baldwin]] had stated publicly that "the Black Muslim movement is the only one in the country we can call [[grassroots]], I hate to say it...Malcolm articulates for Negroes, their suffering...he corroborates their reality..."<ref>[https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/mlk/sfeature/sf_video_pop_04c_tr_qry.html "The Negro and the American Promise,"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161225033405/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/mlk/sfeature/sf_video_pop_04c_tr_qry.html |date=December 25, 2016 }} produced by Boston public television station WGBH in 1963</ref> On the local level, Malcolm and the NOI had been allied with the Harlem chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) since at least 1962.<ref>Harlem CORE, [http://harlemcore.com/omeka/items/show/162 "Film clip of Harlem CORE chairman Gladys Harrington speaking on Malcolm X"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304204921/http://harlemcore.com/omeka/items/show/162 |date=March 4, 2016 }}.</ref>

[[File:MLK and Malcolm X USNWR cropped.jpg|thumb|left|[[Malcolm X]] meets with [[Martin Luther King Jr.]], March 26, 1964|alt=Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. speak to each other thoughtfully as others look on.]]

On March 26, 1964, as the Civil Rights Act was facing stiff opposition in Congress, Malcolm had a public meeting with Martin Luther King Jr. at the Capitol. Malcolm had tried to begin a dialog with King as early as 1957, but King had rebuffed him. Malcolm had responded by calling King an "[[Uncle Tom]]", saying he had turned his back on black militancy in order to appease the white power structure. But the two men were on good terms at their face-to-face meeting.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/malcolm-x|title=Malcolm X|date=June 29, 2017|website=The Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute}}</ref> There is evidence that King was preparing to support Malcolm's plan to formally bring the U.S. government before the United Nations on charges of human rights violations against African Americans.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RownbjVryWIC&pg=PT429|title=Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention|first=Manning|last=Marable|date=2011|publisher=Penguin|isbn=978-1-101-44527-3|via=Google Books}}</ref> Malcolm now encouraged Black nationalists to get involved in voter registration drives and other forms of community organizing to redefine and expand the movement.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/blackspeech/mx.html |title=Say it Plain, Say it Loud&nbsp;– American RadioWorks |first=American Public |last=Media |access-date=July 29, 2016}}</ref>

Civil rights activists became increasingly combative in the 1963 to 1964 period, seeking to defy such events as the thwarting of the Albany campaign, police repression and [[16th Street Baptist Church bombing|Ku Klux Klan terrorism]] in [[Birmingham campaign|Birmingham]], and the assassination of [[Medgar Evers]]. The latter's brother Charles Evers, who took over as Mississippi NAACP Field Director, told a public NAACP conference on February 15, 1964, that "non-violence won't work in Mississippi...we made up our minds...that if a white man shoots at a Negro in Mississippi, we will shoot back."<ref>Akinyele Umoja, ''We Will Shoot Back: Armed Resistance in the Mississippi Freedom Movement'' (NYU Press, 2013), p. 126</ref> The repression of sit-ins in [[Jacksonville, Florida]], provoked a riot in which black youth threw [[Molotov cocktail]]s at police on March 24, 1964.<ref>Francis Fox Piven and Richard Cloward, ''Regulating the Poor'' (Random House 1971), p. 238; [https://books.google.com/books?id=bBQvmMnKmbcC&pg=PA118 Abel A. Bartley, ''Keeping the Faith: Race, Politics and Social Development in Jacksonville, 1940–1970'' (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2000), 111]</ref> Malcolm X gave numerous speeches in this period warning that such militant activity would escalate further if African Americans' rights were not fully recognized. In his landmark April 1964 speech "[[The Ballot or the Bullet]]", Malcolm presented an ultimatum to white America: "There's new strategy coming in. It'll be Molotov cocktails this month, hand grenades next month, and something else next month. It'll be ballots, or it'll be bullets."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://xroads.virginia.edu/~public/civilrights/a0146.html |title=The Ballot or the Bullet |access-date=July 29, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150110073828/http://xroads.virginia.edu/~public/civilrights/a0146.html |archive-date=January 10, 2015}}</ref>

As noted in the PBS documentary ''[[Eyes on the Prize]]'', "Malcolm X had a far-reaching effect on the civil rights movement. In the South, there had been a long tradition of self-reliance. Malcolm X's ideas now touched that tradition".<ref>Blackside Productions, ''Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Movement 1954–1985'', [https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eyesontheprize/about/pt_201.html"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100423154235/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eyesontheprize/about/pt_201.html |date=April 23, 2010 }}, The Time Has Come", Public Broadcasting System</ref> Self-reliance was becoming paramount in light of the [[1964 Democratic National Convention]]'s decision to refuse seating to the [[Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party]] (MFDP) and instead to seat the regular state delegation, which had been elected in violation of the party's own rules, and by [[Jim Crow law]] instead.<ref>{{cite book |last=Lewis |first=John |title=Walking With the Wind |url=https://archive.org/details/walkingwithwindm00lewi |url-access=registration |publisher=Simon & Schuster |year=1998|isbn=978-0-684-81065-2 }}</ref> SNCC moved in an increasingly militant direction and worked with Malcolm X on two Harlem MFDP fundraisers in December 1964.

When [[Fannie Lou Hamer]] spoke to Harlemites about the Jim Crow violence that she'd suffered in Mississippi, she linked it directly to the Northern police brutality against blacks that Malcolm protested against;<ref>[http://www.crmvet.org/docs/flh64.htm Fannie Lou Hamer, Speech Delivered with Malcolm X at the Williams Institutional CME Church, Harlem, New York, December 20, 1964] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160114204507/http://www.crmvet.org/docs/flh64.htm |date=January 14, 2016 }}.</ref> When Malcolm asserted that African Americans should emulate the [[Kenya Land and Freedom Army|Mau Mau army]] of [[Kenya]] in efforts to gain their independence, many in SNCC applauded.<ref>George Breitman, ed. ''Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements'' (Grove Press, 1965), pp. 106–109</ref>

During the [[Selma to Montgomery marches|Selma campaign]] for voting rights in 1965, Malcolm made it known that he'd heard reports of increased threats of lynching around Selma. In late January he sent an open telegram to [[George Lincoln Rockwell]], the head of the [[American Nazi Party]], stating:
<blockquote>"if your present racist agitation against our people there in Alabama causes physical harm to Reverend King or any other black Americans...you and your KKK friends will be met with maximum physical retaliation from those of us who are not handcuffed by the disarming philosophy of nonviolence."<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EAhHl-0ERn8C&pg=PA92|title=Pure Fire: Self-defense as Activism in the Civil Rights Era|first=Christopher B.|last=Strain|date=2005|publisher=University of Georgia Press|isbn=978-0-8203-2687-0|via=Google Books}}</ref></blockquote>The following month, the Selma chapter of SNCC invited Malcolm to speak to a mass meeting there. On the day of Malcolm's appearance, President Johnson made his first public statement in support of the Selma campaign.<ref>Juan Williams, et al, ''Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years 1954–1965'' (Penguin Group, 1988), p. 262</ref> Paul Ryan Haygood, a co-director of the [[NAACP Legal Defense Fund]], credits Malcolm with a role in gaining support by the federal government. Haygood noted that "shortly after Malcolm's visit to Selma, a federal judge, responding to a suit brought by the [[United States Department of Justice|Department of Justice]], required [[Dallas County, Alabama]], registrars to process at least 100 Black applications each day their offices were open."<ref>Paul Ryan Haygood, [http://www.blackcommentator.com/127/127_guest_malcolm.html "Malcolm's Contribution to Black Voting Rights"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304135106/http://www.blackcommentator.com/127/127_guest_malcolm.html |date=March 4, 2016 }}, ''The Black Commentator''</ref>