During the 1940s and early 1950s, the Civil Rights mostly focussed on legal challenges to segregation. Right here in Orange County, a case called Menendez v.
Westminster challenged segregation in public schools at the state level and laid the groundwork for the Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. But, everything
changed with the murder of Emmet Till. The Civil Rights Movement became more activist. Martin Luther King, Jr. emerged as an important leader, effectively
challenging legal segregation through civil disobedience and mass protest. In the South, the CRM was successful at bringing to the attention of all Americans
the need to end explicit segregation in the US South and culminated in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. But when the movement
went to the Northern states, where segregation and discrimination were not as explicit, the movement stalled.
Martin Luther King's strategy of peaceful nonviolent protest was effective in the South. But why was it not as effective in the North. What criticism did
organizations like Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) or later Malcolm X have for King's nonviolent movement? What did they propose instead?