revolutionary action movement (ram) - Michael Schwartz Library

47
During the next five years, Malcolm X was Muhammad's best trouble shooter
and organizer for the Nation of Islam . Malcolm was virtually becoming a
myth inside the nationalist movement in the black community .
In
1959, Malcolm established a monthly newspaper which later became
known as Muhammad Speaks . By the early 1960's through TV talk shows with
Malcolm and debates with all of the major spokesmen of the civil rights
organizations, Malcolm X became a household word . Malcolm X and the Nation
of Islam, now 40,00 strong, had become a challenge to the civil rights movement
. 41
During the late fifties and early sixties, two mass movements were
developing simultaneously, one integrationist/non-violent in the South and
the other separationist/unarmed self-defense in the North . Both movements
had religious overtones . The movement in the South had strong ties to the
Black Christian church and the Northern movement was an Islam movement .
A third trend which was a secular political tendency was presented by
Robert F . Williams . Williams, in 1957, as president of the Union County,
North Carolina branch of the NAACP, armed the
black community against KKK
attacks .
Williams also used direct action mass demonstration of the civil
rights groups, but his demonstrations were protected with armed guards .
His
open advocation of armed self-defense and public statements of "meet violence
with violence" led to his
suspension as local NAACP branch president
in 1959 . Through overwhelming support of the membership, he was reinstated
in 1960 . Williams was the forerunner of the revolutionary nationalist
movement . He fought hard against racial injustices in the legal system,
41 Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X (New York, New York :
Grove Press, 1964) .