Founded by Ella Baker in 1960, [BLANK-1] was a grassroots Ci…
Founded by Ella Baker in 1960, was a grassroots Civil Rights organization that was inspired by the non-violent protests of Martin Luther King, Jr., the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the students who led the Greensboro Sit-In. Black Christianity also influenced the organization and it was involved in the Albany Movement of 1961. In 1964, the organization participated in the Freedom Summer in Mississippi in an effort to register Black voters in a state that had a long history of racial discrimination. By the late 1960s, a more radical leader named Stokely Carmichael became the most prominent leader of the organization and abandoned interracial efforts to improve Civil Rights and expelled all white members. The organization shifted its focus from the rural south and focused instead on injustices in northern urban areas. Under Carmichael, the group (which was frustrated with institutional tactics) also abandoned its founding principle of non-violence and began to call for Black Power and more aggressive approaches to Civil Rights. Its rejection of non-violence, commitment to Black Power, rejection of moderate approaches, and purge of white members and interracial goals stood in direct contrast to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Freedom Now!” campaign. Following its more radical shift and abandonment of interracial approaches, the organization had fewer tangible goals realized.