Thank you for all of the lovely comments about the great Stan Lee.
Did Jack Kirby do the artwork for that Silver Surfer, sum1?
Well, to be honest, Stan Lee did admit that the reason for creating mutants had more to do with the fact that it became increasingly difficult to keep coming up with new and original origin stories and reasons for people acquiring their powers, so just having some characters born superhuman made things a lot easier.
The civil rights stuff was in addition to that. But I've always felt that mutants weren't a really good analogy for civil rights, since most of their powers were weaponized and far more dangerous than a person with a rifle. It's a bit of a conundrum.