On September 18, 1895, Booker T. Washington delivers the Atlanta compromise speech. The Atlanta compromise was an agreement struck in 1895 between Booker T. Washington, president of the Tuskegee Institute, other African-American leaders, and Southern white leaders. The agreement was that Southern blacks would work and submit to white political rule, while Southern whites guaranteed that blacks would receive basic education and due process in law. Blacks would not focus their demands on equality, integration, or justice, and Northern whites would fund black educational charities. Supporters of Washington and the Atlanta compromise were termed the "Tuskegee Machine". It was first supported, and later opposed by W. E. B. Du Bois and other African-American leaders. Du Bois believed that the Atlanta race riot of 1906 was a consequence of the Atlanta Compromise. The agreement was never written down.
After the turn of the 20th century, other black leaders, most notably W. E. B. Du Bois and William Monroe Trotter – (a group Du Bois would call The Talented Tenth), took issue with the compromise, instead believing that African-Americans should engage in a struggle for civil rights. W. E. B. Du Bois coined the term "Atlanta Compromise" to denote the agreement. The term "accommodationism" is also used to denote the essence of the Atlanta compromise.After Washington's death in 1915, supporters of the Atlanta compromise gradually shifted their support to civil rights activism, until the Civil Rights Movement commenced in the 1950s.
During the 1950s and early 1960s, nonviolent protesters challenged legalized racial segregation and discrimination in the only two places on earth where such blatant manifestations of white supremacy could be found—the southern United States and the Union of South Africa. Comparing these movements gives us a better perspective on the recent history of black liberation struggles in the two societies. The African National Congress’s (ANC) “Campaign of Defiance Against Unjust Laws” in 1952 resulted in the arrest of approximately 8000 recently enacted apartheid legislation. Whereas in the US, the nonviolent phase of the American civil rights movement was a coalition of SNCC, COPE, SCLC, the URBAN LEAGUE, and the NAACP, which began with the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-56 and culminated in the great Mississippi and Birmingham and Selma,
Alabama, campaigns of 1963-65. Dr. Martin Luther King served as president of this group.
The Civil right Bill, introduced in the House by Emanuel Celler (D–NY) on June 20, 1963, had the longest filibuster in U.S. Senate history, and only came to bear fruit after a bloody, long civil rights struggle which highlights the career of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, Malcolm X, Mohammed Ali, John Louis, Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier, as well as a gave birth to a new African consciousness of socio-cultural empowerment. Senate passed the act 73-27 in July 1964. It became law less than a year after President John F. Kennedy's assassination, and was signed into law by the truest friend of African people to ever occupied the White House, Lyndon B . Johnson. In his first speech as the group's president, King declared, "We have no alternative but to protest. For many years we have shown an amazing patience. But we come here tonight to be saved from that patience that makes us patient with anything less than freedom and justice.“ The bus boycott would be 382 days of walking to work, harassment, violence, and intimidation for the Montgomery's African-American community. On March 9, 1965, a procession of 2,500 marchers, both black and white, set out once again to cross the Pettus Bridge and confronted barricades and state troopers. Instead of forcing a confrontation, King led his followers to kneel in prayer, and they then turned back. King too is often misunderstood as naively weak or pacifistic during the civil rights movement. King’s philosophy and doctrine provides much room for study as ideology combines element of Stoicism (courage, self-control, endurance, fortitude ) and Satyagraha, (non-violent method to enforce truth). This in itself is a theory of attaining justice through offensive peace. The principle is based on the notion that a person of "moral and intellectual perfection“ is above anger, envy, fear or suffer controllable emotion. There are six specific tenets of Nonviolent Resistance or Offensive Peace according to King.:
First, he argued that even though nonviolence may be perceived as cowardly, it was not. In fact, it was a method that did resist. According to King, a nonviolent protester was as passionate as a violent protester. Despite not being physically aggressive, "his mind and emotions are always active, constantly seeking to persuade the opponent that he is mistaken.
Second, the point of nonviolent resistance is not to humiliate the opponent, but instead to gain his friendship and understanding. Further, the use of boycotts and methods of non-cooperation were the "means to awaken a sense of moral shame in the opponent. The result was redemption and reconciliation instead of the bitterness and chaos that came from violent resistance.
The third point King advanced was that the battle was against the forces of evil and not individuals. Tension was not between the races, but was "between justice and injustice, between the forces of light and the forces of darkness. And if there is a victory it will be a victory not merely for fifty thousand Negroes, but a victory for justice and the forces of light. Thus, tension only existed between good and evil and not between people.
Fourth, nonviolent resistance required the willingness to suffer. One must accept violence without retaliating with violence and must go to jail if necessary. Accordingly, the end was more important than safety, and retaliatory violence would distract from the primary fight. King believed that by accepting suffering, it led to "tremendous educational and transforming possibilities" and would be a powerful tool in changing the minds of the opponents.
King's fifth point about nonviolent resistance was that the "universe was on the side of justice." Accordingly, people have a "cosmic companionship" with God who is on the side of truth. Therefore, the activist has faith that justice will occur in the future.
King's sixth point was central to the method of nonviolent resistance. He believed the importance of nonviolence rested in the fact that it prevented physical violence and the "internal violence of spirit." Bitterness and hate were absent from the resisters mind and replaced with love.