ABSTRACT
Nonviolence in its civil rights phase, had reached the peak of its influence and effectiveness in America. Nonviolence as a philosophy was driven on to the defensive, and whilst King remained a paramount figure in the black community, his ideas became more marginal to the New Left as an activist movement. Nonviolence in the civil rights movement, despite its link to the universalisee ideas of love and brotherhood - of Gandhianism, Christianity or socialist internationalism - had a curiously restricted and piecemeal character. Nonviolence has been advocated as a tactic for organised demonstrations in a society where Negroes are a minority and the majority controls the police. The swing towards violence in the Negro leadership can in particular be seen as part of the growing violence of a society involved in the brutalities of the SE Asian conflict.
