It's now known that during the rise of the modern civil rights movement, the government, led by Attorney General Robert F Kennedy, was spying on the movement and its leadership. In the 1970's, the "Cointelpro" disruption operations by the government against the civil rights movement, the antiwar movement, and radicals and socialists, during that period, also became public knowledge. Under "Cointelpro" the different United States spy agencies used informers, agents, and agent provocateurs to disrupt organizations. One purpose of this program was to "neutralize" Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and Elijah Muhammad," in order to prevent the development of a "Black Messiah," who would have the potential of uniting and leading a mass organization of Black Americans in their quest for freedom and economic equality.
At the end of his life, King also stated what he was planning in the struggle for economic equality:
"There is nothing but a lack of social vision to prevent us from paying an adequate wage to every American citizen whether he be a hospital worker, laundry worker, maid, or day laborer.
. . . ."There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities... The coalition of an energized section of labor, Negroes, unemployed, and welfare recipients may be the source of power that reshapes economic relationships and ushers in a breakthrough to a new level of social reform.
"The total elimination of poverty, now a practical responsibility, the reality of equality in race relations and other profound structural changes in society may well begin here."
At that time, the stock market was below 1,000 points. Today, it is above 10,000 points, and yet there still is no social vision for paying an adequate wage.
Unlike Malcolm X, whose assassination cut short his organizing plans, King was organizing a movement to obtain his stated goals when he was assassinated. In fact, he was in Memphis to build that "coalition of an energized section of labor, Negroes, unemployed, and welfare recipients" in support of striking municipal sanitation workers.
If such a force had been launched, the whole power of the antiwar and civil rights movement in the 1960s could have transformed the labor movement and become "the source of power that reshapes economic relationships and ushers in a breakthrough to a new level of social reform."
To combat the rise of the Civil Right Movement, the "war on poverty" was first launched in 1965 along with the concept of "Black Politicians". Malcolm X described this process in his Jan. 7, 1965 speech "The Prospects for Freedom", at the Militant Labor Forum, in New York City:
"They have a new gimmick every year. They're going to take one of their boys, black boys, and put him in the cabinet so he can walk around Washington with a cigar. Fire on one end and fool on the other end. And because his immediate personal problem will have been solved he will be the one to tell our people: 'Look how much progress we're making. I'm in Washington, D.C., I can have tea in the White House. I'm your spokesman, I'm your leader.' While our people are still living in Harlem in the slums. Still receiving the worst form of education.
"But how many sitting here right now feel that they could [laughs] truly identify with a struggle that was designed to eliminate the basic causes that create the conditions that exist? Not very many. They can jive, but when it comes to identifying yourself with a struggle that is not endorsed by the power structure, that is not acceptable, that the ground rules are not laid down by the society in which you live, in which you are struggling against, you can't identify with that, you step back.
"It's easy to become a satellite today without even realizing it. This country can seduce God. Yes, it has that seductive power of economic dollarism. You can cut out colonialism, imperialism and all other kind of ism, but it's hard for you to cut that dollarism. When they drop those dollars on you, you'll fold though."
After the assassination of Martin Luther King and the subsequent rebellions in the inner cities protesting his assassination, the Democratic Party's "war on poverty" started laying dollars on any potential Black leaders and grooming Black Candidates.
John Lewis, formally of SNCC, became enlightened, he forego the Black Panthers and saw the Democratic Party, symbolized by a jackass, as his party. Most of what W.E. B. Dubois described as the "talented tenth" were bought off by this process. The more radical concepts that Martin Luther King and Malcolm X had developed at the time of their deaths disappeared from the scene. No one took up where they left off. The governmental policy, directed towards the 'leaders' of the civil rights movement, of the carrot (dollarism) and the stick (assassinations) had proven to be successful.
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