The modern American concept emerged from the Civil Rights Movement in the early 1960s . Beginning in 1959 , Robert F. Willams , president of the Monroe , North Carolina chapter of the NAACP , openly questioned the ideology of nonviolence and its domination of the movement 's strategy . Williams was supported by prominent leaders such as Ella Baker and James Forman , and opposed by others , such as Roy Wilkins ( the national NAACP chairman ) and Martin Luther King Jr . In 1961 , Maya Angelou , Leroi Jones , and Mae Mallory led a riotous ( and widely covered ) demonstration at the United Nations in order to protest against the assassination of Patrice Lumumba . Malcolm X , national representative of the Nation of Islam , also launched an extended critique of nonviolence and integrationism at this time . After seeing the increasing militancy of blacks in the wake of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing , and wearying of Elijah Muhammad 's domination of the Nation of Islam , Malcolm left that organization and engaged with the mainstream of the Civil Rights Movement . Malcolm was now open to voluntary racial integration as a long-term goal , but he still supported armed self-defense , self-reliance , and black nationalism ; he became a simultaneous spokesman for the militant wing of the Civil Rights Movement and the non-separatist wing of the Black Power movement
16th Street Baptist Church bombing
16th Street Baptist Church bombing
Black Power