page_title: Civil Rights Movement
section_title: Malcolm X joins the movement (1964)
hierarchical_section_title: Civil Rights Movement / Important events / Malcolm X joins the movement (1964)
caption_attribution_description: English: Martin Luther King and Malcolm X before press conference, March 26, 1964
context_page_description: The Civil Rights Movement was a social movement in the United States that tried to gain equal rights for African Americans. The movement is famous for using non-violent protests and civil disobedience. Activists used strategies like boycotts, sit-ins, and protest marches. Sometimes police or racist white people would attack them, but the activists never fought back.
  However, the Civil Rights Movement was made up of many different people and groups. Not everyone believed the same things. For example, the Black Power movement believed black people should demand their civil rights and force white leaders to give them those rights.
  The Civil Rights Movement was also made of people of different races and religions. The Movement's leaders and most of its activists were African-American. However, the Movement got political and financial support from labor unions, religious groups, and some white politicians, like Lyndon B. Johnson. Activists of all races came to join African-Americans in marches, sit-ins, and protests.
  The Civil Rights Movement was very successful. It helped to get five federal laws and two amendments to the Constitution passed.
context_section_description: Malcolm X was an American minister who converted to Islam in prison, around 1948. He became a member of the Nation of Islam.p. 138 This group believed in black supremacy - that the black race was the best of all. They believed that blacks should be completely independent from whites, and should eventually return to Africa.pp. 127–128, 132–138pp. 149–152 They also believed that black people had the right to fight back and use violence to get their rights. Because of this, Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam did not support the civil rights movement, because it was non-violent and supported integration.pp. 79–80
  However, in March 1964, Malcolm X was kicked out of the Nation of Islam, because he had disagreements with the group's leader, Elijah Muhammad. He offered to work with other civil rights groups, if they accepted that blacks had the right to defend themselves.
  On March 26, 1964, Malcolm met with Martin Luther King, Jr. Malcolm had a plan to bring the United States before the United Nations on charges that the U.S. violated African Americans' human rights. Dr. King may have been planning to support this.
  Between 1963 and 1964, civil rights activists got more angry and more likely to fight back against whites. In April 1964, Malcolm gave a famous speech called "The Ballot or the Bullet." ("The ballot" means "voting.") In the speech, he said that if the U.S. government is "unwilling or unable to defend the lives and the property of Negroes," then African Americans should defend themselves.p. 43 He warned politicians that many African Americans were not willing "to turn the other cheek any longer."p. 25 Then he warned white America about what would happen if blacks were not allowed to vote:
  “
  [I]f we don't cast a ballot, it's going to end up in a situation where we're going to have to cast a bullet. It's either a ballot or a bullet. ... There's new strategy coming in. It'll be Molotov cocktails this month, hand grenades next month, and something else next month. It'll be ballots, or it'll be bullets. p.30”
caption: Malcolm X meets with Martin Luther King, Jr., March 26, 1964
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