Black males in the civil rights movement

The civil rights movement has had a tremendous impact on American life and history. Its public policy impact includes the landmark Supreme Court decision of 1954, the comprehensive Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, to name a few. Although much has been written about the civil rights movement, there is a paucity of comparative in-depth analyses of the leadership role of African American men. This article seeks to fill this gap in the literature. It focuses on five nationally and internationally recognized African American male civil rights leaders of the twentieth century: W.E.B. Du Bois, A. Philip Randolph, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Kwame Toure (formerly Stokely Carmichael). Notwithstanding the vast differences in their backgrounds, leadership styles, tactics, philosophies, and strategies, they had a common goal and shared vision for America, the land of the free. Their legacies are immortal.