An unlikely combination of Muslims, militants, and J. H. Jackson loyalists walked out to convene an alternative Grass Roots Leadership Conference. What united them against Franklin was an aversion to nonviolence and to King’s eagerness for fellowship with white people. “I’m sick and tired of singing ‘We Shall Overcome,’” declared one preacher. Conservative Baptists preached racial pride, SNCC veterans such as Gloria Richardson wondered what virtue of integration could induce black people to give up the right of self-defense, and keynote speaker Malcolm X declared that integration was a
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