iency, as more realistic for dealing with racism in the United States. They also appreciated Malcolm's emphasis on black pride and self-assertion. The national media reported Black Power as a new and dangerous development in the civil rights movement, and the slogan immediately drew condemnation from whites for its racially separatist message. Leaders of the other national civil rights organizations also denounced Black Power. The slogan helped to undermine what had once been a national consensus for civil rights. In 1967 Carmichael and his successor as chairman of SNCC, H. Rap Brown, became national symbols of black radicalism. Whites condemned them as instigators of racial division and violence. Opposition became stronger in 1968 when the Black Panther Party began promoting Black Power. The Panthers advocated violence to achieve their goals and battled police in Chicago and Oakland. Several of its leaders were killed, and others were imprisoned for killing policemen. Many people claim that the civil rights movement ended in 1968 with the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. I believe that it was actually after the Selma march, because after Selma the movement there really wasn’t any significant change. Some, especially blacks, argue that the movement is not over yet because the goal of full equality has not been achieved. This not true, full equality has been reached. There will always be racism, but for the most part, there are no more black civil rights to fight for. A few racial problems did still exist in the United States after King’s death. Urban poverty represented a worsening problem and remained very high among blacks. A major controversy in the 1970s was desegregation of public education, where achieving a racial balance often required busing students outside of their school districts. A broader question concerned equal opportunity for blacks, an issue which affirmative-action programs attempted to address. T...
