McKissick and Carmichael questioned the worth of
nonviolence as a tactic and the value of integration as a goal. When
the marchers reached Greenwood, Mississippi, a S.N.C.C. stronghold,
Carmichael seized the microphone, and instead of using the traditional
civil rights slogan of "Freedom Now" he began chanting "Black Power!"
Many whites assumed that the phrase meant black violence, and they
assumed further that black violence meant black aggression. They
conjured up pictures of bloody retaliation. Others saw it as a
rejection of white allies, and they insisted that the freedom struggle
could not be won without white help. To Carmichael, the Civil Rights
Movement as it existed was "pleading and begging." It also had been
wrong, he said, in assuming it was possible to build a working
coalition between a group which was strong and economically
secure--middle-class white liberals--and one which was insecure--poor
blacks. In his opinion, "there is in fact no group at present with
whom to form a coalition in which blacks will not be absorbed and
betrayed." Two such differing groups had different sets of
self-interest in spite of their similar sentiments.
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