Is the civil rights movement dead?
I don’t really think it died with King. I think that was like an old person having a stroke… it never had the same strength or capacity for action, but the goals and efforts lasted beyond King. The big leadership problem after King was more generational than an issue of capability. King ran the middle of the road. He could speak to the struggles of older constituents, and the fears of younger constituents. When he died, the choices were Abernathy, who young folks felt didn’t care about Vietnam, which was a huge issue for young adults because of the draft. Older adults weren’t as hard over on Vietnam, and Abernathy was old-time religion which was their bread and butter. Jackson was much more energetic at the time, but too much so. He scared the old guard of black society because he wanted to do too much. That’s what caused alot of the rift between him and Abernathy, which lead him to break away and create PUSH. PUSH’s goals and sense of urgency inflated Jackson’s importance and visibi
