Along with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X was one of the best known and most powerful and influential leaders of the African-American community during the height of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s. This essay will examine the views presented by this leader and the impact of Malcolm X's call for racial separatism as the only possible response to the oppression and discrimination to which Blacks had been subjected in America. Malcolm X focused on protesting the status quo. He was aware of the fact that American society was in many ways racist and devalued people of color and individuals from a wide assortment of different national, racial, ethnic, and linguistic minority groups (Branham 121). For Malcolm, religion became, according to Roger Branham (121), a key source of inspiration and of the evidence each man needed to identify his own agenda for change. Malcolm X drew heavily upon the teachings of the Nation of Islam which positioned blacks as the original people, whites as a failed experiment who had become devils, and American society as unlikely ever to change sufficiently to justify African-Americans' acceptance of inclusion.
Daniel Pipes (22) described Malcolm X as having become a ward of the court after his mother was institutionalized for psychological problems. Malcolm X was raised by white guardians in any number of reform schools and foster homes and as a young high school student he attempted to become "white." However, during his early adulthood, Malcolm X became involved in criminal activity and drug use, developing calls negative attitudes toward all authority Branham (120). While serving a prison term for burglary, Malcolm X became attracted to the ideology of Elijah Muhammad and joined the Nation of Islam, abandoning his "slave name" and assuming the name of Malcolm X. He went on to become the nation's best known advocate of separatism and, according to Daniel Pipes (31), was fully commi...