In 1956, sociologist C. Wright Mills wrote, The Power Elite, in an effort to publicize his hypothesis concerning what had gone wrong with American democracy. Mills believed that powerful and wealthy elites had been able to gradually take control of our government and that that process had been facilitated by "ordinary men" whose ambivalence and lack of understanding of the functions of a democracy had allowed this situation to occur. The elite have been able to consolidate their hold on government because government itself had gradually transformed in the last hundred or so years from a decentralized, servant of the people into an oversized, bureaucratized, and over-centralized behemoth (Mills, 1956). Furthermore, he felt that the ordinary men who comprised the bourgeoisie lacked the abilities and desire to take their government back and infuse true democratic principles into their constitution. In short, the common man was like a child who was only interested in his tiny, narrow, instant gratifications and the small rewards meted out by the powerful elite who controlled the overwhelming majority of this nation's wealth.
In his book, Why We Can't Wait (1964), Martin Luther King Jr. took issue with Mills by arguing that social and political change occur when initiated at the grassroots level. Martin Luther King Jr. believed the "Negro Revolution of 1963" showed that the ordinary man can affect change but only through direct, non violent action (King, 1964, 26). By taking the dignified, non violent road, King argued that black people exposed the truly evil nature of their opponents while highlighting the moral righteousness of their cause. He pointed out that using dignified and righteous direct action also has the effect of negating many of the powerful tools available to the elite (such as violence and legal chicanery).
Malcolm X has been viewed as the only true rival to Dr. King for black political and social leadership...