Compare And Contrast Martin Luther King Jr And Malcolm X

During the 1960s Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X were both highly regarded activists for the civil rights movement. Through this era African Americans struggled with gaining rights that were taken away from them centuries ago. Humiliation and discrimination of the black population poisoned the United States that preached “justice for all”. African Americans at this time needed leaders who would help them gain civil rights in the country that had broken so many promises. King and X both rose up among black leaders of the era as the most influential and impactful. Through their speeches and public actions during the 60s they both formed public images that appealed to two different types of people: the Christian population and the black nationalist

King used Christianity as a key tool to justify the civil rights movement in both his I Have A Dream Speech and in his letter he wrote from Birmingham jail. King is mostly viewed as the peaceful and nonviolent leader of the civil rights movement because of his commitment to civil disobedience instead of aggressive action. In his letter from Birmingham jail he discusses the importance of morality. What King saw as moral came from the law of God, he believed that if laws went against what was morally right in the eyes of God then they were unjust and should not be followed (King). That being said, he used this as a justification for resisting laws that promoted segregation and inequality. Separation promotes the idea that some people are first class citizens while others (African Americans), are left at the bottom as second-class citizens. Second-class citizenship was not to be tolerated and thus, direct action needed to take place in order to award African Americans the rights they deserved as citizens. King also attempted to get the American people to understand the position and struggle of African Americans by trying to give the rest of the

X was seen as an extremist during the civil rights movement and promoted black nationalism and back unity. Unlike King, he did not desire for the black people in the United States to be unified with the white Americans. Malcolm X viewed freedom as the ability for the black community to be run by black people, socially, politically and economically, without the interference and manipulation of white Americans (X). He believed that the United States government was never looking out for the interest of black Americans and they never will, so in order to have freedom, black people must separate themselves. “This is why I say the ballot or the bullet. It’s about liberty or it’s death. It’s freedom for everybody or freedom for nobody” (X).In his speech that was delivered on April 12, 1964, in Detroit, he used the metaphor of the ballot or the bullet to explain what needs to be done by the black community. The black community must fully unify as one in order to be fully free, and without the unification of the whole community freedom would not be possible. Through his speeches it is clear that he is anti-integration with the rest of the United States and holds resentment towards the white community. However, he also holds black people who do not see white people as the enemy accountable for the black communities lack of freedom. He calls these black people