Spiritual Pilgrimage of Malcolm X & of Jane Addams

The vital importance of education is emphasized again and again in The Autobiography of Malcolm X, as is the need for a better understanding of the development of a black identity in American society. Malcolm X grew up in a world where being black was a handicap. It could even lead to one's death at the hands of an angry mob, something he knew from his childhood. At the time, this implanted in his mind a subtle sense of shame at his blackness, something he could not have articulated but which influenced his development as a human being and his choices as a young man. He tried to be as white as he could both culturally and physically, a choice which led him into criminal activity that only empha

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eration, standing in contrast to the message of Martin Luther King and thus representing one of the two major strands of black political philosophy to this day. On the one side was King's vision of peaceful cooperation and integration into American society. On the other was the vision adopted by Malcolm X from the writings of Elijah Muhammad of the Nation of Islam in which the white man was not a brother but an antagonist to be overcome. The crimes Malcolm X discovered could be attributed to white society meant that that society had to be cast out of the world's civilized society, and integration with whites was unthinkable. In time, though, this view would prove too harsh for Malcolm X, and he broke with the Nation of Islam in 1963 and reevaluated his perception of all white people as blue-eyed devils. It was then that he began to link the struggles of African-Americans with those of Africa and other Third World countries and created a new activist organization, the Organization of Afro-American Unity. This black nationalist approach has special value for this very reason--it sees all blacks as one and attempts to forge a consensus that will enable them to achieve complete liberation and autonomy. Black nationalists find
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1991
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)

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