The Real Generation Gap: King vs. Malcolm

"These were the young radicals who saw Dr. King as another "Tom" giving into the establishment by not taking up arms against the oppressors. They formed groups like Students Nonviolent Coordinating Committee ...The Black Panther Party and molded the Nation of Islam into a force for change."

HUDSON, OH -- There are many reasons why being a black family in the 50's and 60's was difficult. As a child of those years most of the challenges were hidden from us by well-meaning parents and a distilled media. But there were many signs that the two Americas were moving along on different paths and at different speeds.

The Civil Rights Era coexisted with the Beat Era and the Vietnam Era, the Drug Era and about a half-dozen lesser periods of history. Yet the problem of segregation and inequality predated and outlasted anything that so moved this country.

Inside those families that the movement affected most, families like mine, there was a different kind of argument. It could be summed up like this: nonviolence or by whatever means necessary. Generally the older generation followed the words, actions and teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the only Black American honored with a true national holiday. But the younger tended to hang on the words of Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown, Bobby Seals, Huey P. Newton and Malcolm X. These were the young radicals who saw Dr. King as another "Tom" giving into the establishment by not taking up arms against the oppressors. They formed groups like Students Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (often forgetting about the second descriptor), The Black Panther Party and molded the Nation of Islam into a force for change.

There was hardly a unified front among those demanding equality.

To this day there are some who revere Dr. King, and rightly so, while secretly wishing the revolution had taken place. What revolution? The one openly called for by these men and women who let hatred and anger distort their view and pervert their intelligence - many were quite intelligent - the impatient ones.

As The Last Poets once proclaimed: The Revolution will not be televised, it will be live.

And so it is. Again, you can argue, but borrowing from Dr. King's famous words we are more likely to be judged by the content and quality of our character rather than the color of our skin. We are, finally, closer to being a unified America dealing with economic, health and the microscopic battles of living and working with others. A black president is a real possibility and white America is on the verge of becoming just another minority in a nation of minorities. There are still strata of privilege and power and there always will be. There are the poor and the oppressed of all races, but there is also compassion and opportunity. There is the struggle and the road ahead.

And there always will be.