Three decades after their deaths, Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. still symbolize opposing ideological positions that divide African-Americans. Their clashes set the tone for internecine battles that have continued to disrupt Black communities. Which path to social justice is correct? By any means necessary? Or nonviolence? Integration or separation? (Carson 1998 440).
How did these two men see the law as hindering the upward mobility of black people? Malcolm X, formerly a career criminal, found some sort of solace in the Muslim movement while in prison. Until his journey to Mecca, and his resignation from Elijah Mohammed's movement, he was an extreme militant, searching for a way to create a black nation, whether in America or elsewhere. He urged racial unity, and even before that famous March on Washington, Malcolm claimed that "the nation's racial crisis 'might erupt into an uncontrollable explosion'" (Carson 1998 45). Malcolm was a firebrand, willing to cause the sort of eruption he predicted, while King was moirT a moderate, willing to control sit-ins and the famous march on Selma. It was a way of avoiding the law's most strict rules, but still, King was willing to go to jail for disobeying local laws in the South.
To this very day, there are African-Americans who dispute whether Malcolm X or Martin Luther King, Jr. deserves to be regarded as the major black "hero" of the Twentieth Century. "His (Malcolm's) image as a killer with a gun is way out of line" (Jones 1990 282). Malcolm was a true rabble rouser, a militant, willing to break the laws in order to achieve some sort of respect for Blacks. Justice, as he saw it, was white justice.
King, on the other hand, was more a moderate, considered a leader by the black middle class, rather than the lower classes to whom Malcolm preached on street corners. King could bend the law, but not completely break it. Malcolm saw the law not as color-blind (someth...