Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X

Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X were two black leaders who greatly influenced the civil rights movement during the 1960s. While they both wanted equal rights for black people, they often differed in their ideas and methods of achieving this goal. Martin Luther King was a strong advocate of racial integration and Malcolm X believed in racial separatism.

Martin Luther King hoped that someday blacks would share in the social and economic opportunity that whites had. For example, in his speech, "I Have a Dream," King stated that he dreamed of a day that the sons of former slaves and sons of former slave-owners would be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. He dreamed of a day when black people would be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character (King 104).

In this speech, King beseeched blacks not to satisfy their desire for freedom by being consumed with feelings of bitterness and hatred. It was important for blacks to conduct themselves with dignity and discipline in their struggle for civil rights. Above all, they should not be guilty of physical violence. King cautioned that the "marvelous new militancy" which had engulfed the black community must not lead them to a distrust of all white people. King had the vision to understand that many white people wanted blacks to have freedom and that whites would be instrumental in helping blacks achieve this freedom. Accordingly, King believed that the struggle for civil

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there was no such thing as a peaceful revolution. When he said that his examples were not turn-the-other-cheek revolutions, one can infer that he was alluding to Martin Luther King's nonviolent creed. Furthermore, Malcolm X stated that the only revolution that was nonviolent was the Negro revolution. The only revolution where the goal was loving one's enemy was the Negro revolution. It was the only revolution where the goal was the desegregation of public and private property. However, that was no revolution. A real revolution was based on land, and land was the basis of all independence (Malcolm X 9). Malcolm X believed that the black revolution was sweeping Asia, Africa, and even Latin America. He considered the Cuban Revolution as one where the people overturned the system. A revolution, to accomplish its goals, must be bloody and hostile. It overturns and destroys everything that gets in its way. It made little sense to link arms and sing "We Shall Overcome" during a revolution, because a revolution was based on land and the fight for it--singing was, therefore, a waste of time. In contrast, Malcolm X believed that the Negro revolution, as espoused by Martin Luther King, was not about asking for any land, it was a

Category: History - M