What Woukd Have Happened If They Didn’t Die?

MLK, Malcom X, and the lesser known Huey Newton of the Black Panthers where all major players in the 60s civil rights era and all three of them were killed one after the other it almost seems. When i read through and analyze their work in class I can’t  help but wonder what would have happened if they where not murdered, would black people be any better off today? Martin Luther King is the poster boy of the civil rights movement but reading some of his later speaches in class and some of his more radical ideas later in life makes me wonder instead of a pedestal would America try to simplify him like they have done to Malcom. Then I think about this article with MLK and wonder if he lived would someone have come forward against him in a sort of METOO Bill Cosby sense, can you condem a dead man? Then that leads me to even more questions about what would have happened if Malcom lived, would there be a separate black state would we be better off with him as the face of the civil rights movement. The 60s saw a resurgence of black leadership and also saw the ruthless killing of black leadership, like in the case of Huey Newton where his home was invaded and he was shot to death in his bed next to his pregnant wife. The total and utter execution, exile, and or imprisonment of black leaders in the 60s has had a devastating effect on the African American Community that we are just now starting to recover from, the absence of black leadership. So I wonder what would have happened if America had not crippled black leadership in America, what would it look like today?

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  1. Sarah ByrneApril 14, 2019 at 12:36 PM

    After reading this post I began to wonder what would have happened during the Civil Rights movement if these people did not die so early during the movement. I am not familiar with Huey Newton, but I have heard of the Black Panthers. In school we are not taught about them to the extent that we should. This goes the same for MLK and Malcolm X. When I was taught about MLK it is only peaceful king, and not the more radical things he began to believe later in his life, he is taught to show that he had never done wrong. When I was taught about Malcolm X or the Black Panthers, I was told that they were bad people who took radical extremes to fight for civil rights and they wen't about it in the wrong way. I wonder if they wouldn't have died during the movement, if the things they were fighting for would have worked. If what they were fighting for, and the way they were fighting for it would have changed history. I wonder if the African American community would be thriving and not be having to fight against some of the same things they were fighting for then. I also wonder what the education would look like if these leaders would have survived. Would we be taught about their work and look at them and see the good that they were trying to do, and not pick and choose what we wanted to remember? Overall, I wonder if society would look any different today if these people were alive today or in recent years.

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