How Far Do You Agree That the Black Power Movement Hindered the Black Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s

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The Black Power movement was a new era of ideals and methods to end racial segregation and inequality in America in the 1960s. They used a variety of different methods and attained to different ideals than Martin Luther King. Malcolm X was a main leader of the movement and he heavily pushed home the ideas of separatism, self-defence and Black Nationalism claiming that blacks would never be treated as equals under the current white system. It could be argued that Black Power did hinder the civil rights movement in the 1960s. It brought about the mass fragmentation of the movement and saw two main civil rights campaigners SNCC and CORE split from the cooperation of the NAACP and SCLC. This significantly reduced the momentum of the movement, which was at its peak between 1945-1960. The two fragments of the movement were now in strict competition for media space and funds for their protests. SCLC and NAACP suffered greatly with their membership numbers being reduced which made it almost impossible to organise any strong national campaigns that would enforce de facto change. The introduction of the Black Panthers, which dominated a vast section of the Black Power movement, could arguably be accused of hindering the civil rights movement. They produced much negative influence in their more violent methods. Their intense emphasis on separatism, self defence and Black Nationalism could have debatably caused further racial tension due to its polarising effect of the black and white communities. This could be seen as a regression of the movement and although it is what the Black Powers wanted it did not have the desired effects. The Black Panthers were also consistently accused of encouraging a gang mentally across America. The encouragement of guns saw the number of blacks with criminal records rocket. This in turn has a significant knock on effect on the amount of
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