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Origins Of Funk Music

In the 1960s it was a hard time for black Americans. There was a revolution being driven by two well know black civil rights leaders. The first phase of the revolution was driven by a young Islamic black man, Malcolm X, who was a spokesperson for the Nation of Islam. Malcolm X was adamant that blacks needed to take care of their own business. In the issue of black integration in American culture. Malcolm X had the ability to reach any one member of the black nation in America. This revolution was cut short on a sad day in February of 1965, when Malcolm X was assassinated. This left a void in the hearts of the people who he had touched upon in his revolt. This was where things began to get funky.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the revolution there was a young man known Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The revolution in which he was leading was a revolution rather different than the one of Malcolm X. Dr. King's revolution was one in which all blacks and all whites could work together. He spoke of this in his infamous speech I Have A Dream. Though the two leaders were rather different, they fed off each other's roles, which in turn provided possibly the strongest leadership since the Harlem Renaissance, until the death of Malcolm X.

After the death of Malcolm X the movement started to get funky. It seemed as though after the assinaition of Malcolm
X, the revolution's focal point began to change. The movement began to head towards a more intense, and nitty gritty level. It seemed as though all the non-violent organizations such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Congress of Racial Equality, as well as the Christian Leadership Conference had little hold on what was about to happen to the movement. The death of Malcolm X brought a new direction in the movement. In a society of a violent system it was hard for young blacks to take charge in an non-violent organization, it seemed to be a hypocrisy. And the idea of tolerance was wearing thin for...