With arms linked, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Stokely Carmichael walked down the highway as they continued the March Against Fear in 1966. As a patrol officer reared up like a bull towards the two leaders, Carmichael prepared to meet the officer when, to his surprise, King was bowled over instead by the officer of the law. Enraged, Carmichael pulled an arm free to go after him with only King’s clinging arm to hold him back. Stokely Carmichael gave a detailed account of that first day of the March Against Fear, which was also known as the Meredith March in his book, Ready for Revolution. King’s hold on Carmichael paralleled the larger role King played in trying to prevent Carmichael’s radical new slogan from taking hold. Carmichael used the
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At the meeting, King and the Congress of Racial Equality’s (CORE) McKissick with Carmichael and his associates, Sellers and Wise, awaited the arrival of NAACP’s representative Roy Wilkins and the Urban League’s Whitney Young. Peniel E. Joseph, a prominent researcher of the Civil Rights and Black Power era, described the latter two men as “two of America's most prominent civil rights leaders, they possessed tremendous influence, their range of contacts stretching from business and civic groups all the way to the White House.” As such, they commanded a presence in the room that was promptly challenged by Carmichael and his associates. Wilkins pledged NAACP’s support to the March as long as it would “focus national attention on achieving congressional passage of the Johnson administration’s new civil rights bill.” Carmichael was immediately contentious stating that the March should actually focus on criticism of the bill and a call for its strengthening, and he wanted the inclusion of armed self-defense by having the Deacons for Defense in the March. An interesting analysis of the meeting is presented by David Garrow, a celebrated biographer of King’s life. According to Garrow, Carmichael “purposely wanted to maneuver Wilkins and Young into refusing to go along with the March.” As
At the meeting, King and the Congress of Racial Equality’s (CORE) McKissick with Carmichael and his associates, Sellers and Wise, awaited the arrival of NAACP’s representative Roy Wilkins and the Urban League’s Whitney Young. Peniel E. Joseph, a prominent researcher of the Civil Rights and Black Power era, described the latter two men as “two of America's most prominent civil rights leaders, they possessed tremendous influence, their range of contacts stretching from business and civic groups all the way to the White House.” As such, they commanded a presence in the room that was promptly challenged by Carmichael and his associates. Wilkins pledged NAACP’s support to the March as long as it would “focus national attention on achieving congressional passage of the Johnson administration’s new civil rights bill.” Carmichael was immediately contentious stating that the March should actually focus on criticism of the bill and a call for its strengthening, and he wanted the inclusion of armed self-defense by having the Deacons for Defense in the March. An interesting analysis of the meeting is presented by David Garrow, a celebrated biographer of King’s life. According to Garrow, Carmichael “purposely wanted to maneuver Wilkins and Young into refusing to go along with the March.” As