DESERET NEWS NEW YORK (UPI) -- National civil rights leaders were shocked almost to disbelief Friday by the advice of militant Negro leader Malcolm X that Negroes should form "rifle clubs."
Most said they agreed that the break-away leader of the Black Muslim movement could endanger civil rights progress and domestic peace with his urging that Negroes begin to "fight back in self defense.""I can't believe he's serious," said James Farmer, national director of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE.) He said that to unleash such violence could be "ultimately suicide."
Malcolm Thursday opened formally his announced campaign to organize a politically oriented black nationalist movement.
"There will be more violence than ever this year," he said at a news conference in a hotel here. "White people will be shocked when they discover that the passive little Negro they had known turns out to be a roaring lion."
All over America, blacks who had the same desires at heart found themselves in different camps. The pacifist sentiments of such men as Martin Luther King found a violent counterpart in the leadership of men like Malcolm X. Such internal wrangling diffused the civil rights efforts to a degree.