African American Civil Rights Speech

Throughout history, African Americans have been one of the most influential people to change the unequal and unjust society around them. They took actions to expose the problem to everyone in the nation and show a different solution to the issue. African Americans fought to have equal rights for everything from voting and education to employment and housing. However, the way some people went about this was different than others. Some people chose to fight this battle peacefully through sit-ins, walk outs, boycott, and speeches to promote peace. Others chose to use violence which included more times than not riots and un-peaceful speeches. Using different methods to have their voices heard, the African American community started to concur the

He was also known to speak about obtaining these rights, peacefully. Martin Luther King Jr spoke at Montgomery, Alabama during the bus boycott in 1955. Martin Luther King Jr. did not promote violence, only peaceful protesting. One can see this in his speech in Montgomery, Alabama, “I want to say, that we are not here advocating violence. We have never done that…. We believe in the teaching of Jesus. The only weapon that we have in our hands this evening is the weapon of protest….There will be no white persons pulled out of their homes and taken out to some distant road and lynched…” (Lilienthal Foner 953). His words encouraged people not to give up on their cause, but to keep fighting the way that they are. Not to give in to the violence that people are committing on them, instead obey the law. However, as said before, King’s followers were not always greeted and treated with the same respect. “In May, King made the bold decision to send black schoolchildren into the streets of Birmingham. Police chief Eugene ‘Bull’ Connor unleased his forces against the thousands of young marchers” (Foner 971). These unarmed adults and children were beaten with nightsticks, high pressured fire hoses and attack dogs. This lead President Kennedy to ratify the African American Civil Rights

Malcolm X protested for the civil rights for African Americans in the United States in the 1960s. He is often blamed of encouraging violence because of his use of radical language. He threatened the use of violence by his people as a warning to those who would use it on them. “Most whites considered him an apostle of racial violence. However, his call for blacks to rely on their own resources struck a chord among the urban poor and younger civil rights activists” (Foner 984). He urged his people to not stand aside but to stand up for themselves. He believed peaceful protesting would only get his people so far, then they would need to start fighting fire with fire. Malcolm X “became a spokesman for the Muslims and a sharp critic of the ideas of integration and nonviolence, and of King’s practice of appealing to American Values. ‘I don’t see any American dream,’ he proclaimed. ‘I see an American nightmare” (Foner 984). This shows that he was not wanting to conform to how white people lived, much like Martin Luther King Jr. did. Instead, he wanted African American people to take pride in