Martin Luther King and Malcolm X

Different Men With the Same Goal

Martin Luther King jr. and Malcolm X are still highly controversial African-American leaders.  Martin, a Christian integrationist, and Malcolm, a Muslim nationalist have been a powerful force against racial injustice.  Each man sacrificed his life for the freedom of his people; however, Martin and Malcolm had taken very different approaches in achieving equality and identity for African-Americans in the land of their birth.
        In order to better understand why King and X took the course of action each took, one must take into account a little bit of their background.  Martin Luther King jr., was born in Atlanta, Georgia into a middle-class family.  The church was his source of leadership development and it helped provide him with moral values.  Home and church were the most important influences in the early life of King.  In both contexts, he was introduced to the integrationist values of protest, accommodations, self-help and optimism as they were related to the religious themes of justice, love and hope.  He was introduced to the value of education as a potent way of helping him assert his self-worth to become a church and community leader and to fight racism in the larger society.  “King’s basis for his campaign of nonviolence originated in the highest type of love - love for people who hate you. King preached that the combination of agape (spiritual love) with nonviolent action would elicit c!
hange” (Walton 78).


It is quite easy for me to think of a God of love mainly because I grew up in a family where love was central and where lovely relationships were ever present.  It is quite easy for me to think of the universe as basically friendly mainly because of my uplifting hereditary and environmental circumstances.  It is quite easy for me to lean more toward optimism than pessimism about human nature mainly because of my childhood experiences.  It is impossible to get at the roots of one’s religious attitudes without taking in account the psychological and historical factors that play upon the individual.  (Hamilton 19).





        In contrast to King’s origin in the southern African-American middle class, Malcolm X was a product of the Northern poor African-American masses.  Born in Omaha Nebraska, Malcolm was the son of a Baptist preacher.  However, Malcolm became a minister of the religion of Islam.  Malcolm X joined Elijah Muhammad and created a movement that focused around the word power, not love and virtue. “Psychologically they argued that violence was a healthy way to release the pain of oppression and that to love people who hate you is unnatural” (Walton 90).  
Like Martin, Malcolm spent many years preparing for his vocation as a minister and public speaker, but unlike Martin, who earned his doctorate, Malcolm’s formal education ended in eighth grade.  Malcolm often introduced himself for public debates by starting off with, “Gentlemen, I finished the eighth grade in Mason, Michigan.  My high school was the black ghetto of Roxbury, Massachusetts.  My college was in the streets of Harlem, and my master’s was taken in prison” (X and Haley 282).
Martin Luther King had a dream.  “A dream of equality of opportunity, of privilege and property widely distributed; a dream of a land where men no longer argue that the color of a man’s skin determines the content of his character; the dream of a land where every man will respect the dignity and worth of human personality-this is the dream” (Hamilton 78).  King’s thinking was defined as, “optimistic belief,” that justice could be achieved through love, which he identified with non-violence.  King urged African-Americans to follow his example and to accept non-violence as a way of life.  Violence, he thought, would not achieve freedom for blacks.  It would merely cause unnecessary tragedy.  “The reason I can’t follow the old eye-for-an-eye philosophy is that it ends up leaving everybody blind” (Hamilton 160).
During the time King was preaching his, “American Dream,” Malcolm X retaliated with his, “American Nightmare.”  “What is looked upon as an American dream for white people has long been an American nightmare for black people”  (X and Haley 89).  However, unlike King, Malcolm’s idea of justice was defined by the concept of, “an eye for an eye.”  X and Muhammad believed that “violence was as, ‘American as apple pie,’ and that the only way to equality was to rise as a separate strong entity not willing to compromise, but to fight” (Walton 90).  Malcolm urged his listeners to help themselves and to start fighting for their freedom because they had been, “sitting long enough.”  
Integrationism and nationalism represent the two broad streams of black thought in response to the problem of slavery and segregation in America.  To King, integration not only meant, “a beautiful symphony of brotherhood,” but also getting whites to accept blacks into their communities.  He equated freedom with the recognition of dignity and worth of black people as human beings.  Basically, King’s view was that integration was essential for the full development of blacks.  “If it had been possible to give Negro children the same type of buildings as white children, the Negro children would have still confronted inequality in the sense that they would not have had the opportunity of communicating with all children” (Hamilton 109). 
Malcolm’s thought of integration however, was the complete opposite of King’s.  Malcolm’s thought that, “Any Negro trying to integrate is actually admitting his inferiority, because he is admitting that he wants to become a part of a ‘superior’ society” (Samuels 87).  The media and civil rights leaders presented Malcolm as a black segregationist; however, he was not a segregationist, he was a separatist.  “We want Separation, but not segregation.  Segregation is that which is forced upon inferiors by superiors; but separation is that which is done voluntarily” (110 ,36).  Malcolm opposed King’s views on integrated schools by raising the question, “if white children can go to an all-white school and not be affected by the absence of black children, then why should black children be affected by all-black schools?” (X and Haley 248)
The most important and most evident similarity however, between King and X was the goal for which they fought.  They both sought the unqualified liberation of African-Americans from the bonds of segregation and discrimination to self-determination as a people, from a feeling of inferiority to an affirmation of themselves as human beings. Respect as human beings was also the central theme of both Malcolm and Martin in the black freedom struggle.  They complemented each other in that they spoke to different groups of people in their community.  King addressed his message primarily to southern black Christians; Malcolm to northern blacks who were either indifferent to or alienated from Christianity.  





Martin and Malcolm are both important and respected leaders in American history because they symbolize two necessary ingredients in the African-American struggle for justice and equality in the United States.  Both leaders made important contributions to the identity of African-Americans and just as importantly to America in general.  Racial justice was the area in which Martin and Malcolm made their mark.  Malcolm was right to insist that African-Americans should take their freedom “by any means necessary,” refusing absolutely to let white exploiters shape the ethics of resistance to exploitation.  “A black man has the right to do whatever is necessary to get his freedom that other human beings have done to get their freedom” (X and Haley 303).  Malcolm felt that this point especially needed to be made to white people.  Since whites themselves were not nonviolent when they perceived their humanity was being violated, why should they expect blacks to be nonviolent?  King, ho!
wever, was also right in his claim that nonviolent direct action is resistance and not passivity or cowardice. For many blacks nonviolence was the only option because violence would have cost them their jobs, their homes, and even their lives.  It was a creative way that an African-American could fight for freedom and at the same time avoid genocide, the logical consequence of racism.     





WORKS CITED




Goldman, Peter.  The Death and Life of Malcolm X.  2nd ed.  Urbana: University           of Illinois Press, 1979.


Hamilton, Charles V.  The Black Experience in American Politics.                   New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1973.


Samuels, Gertrude.  “Two ways: Black Muslim and N.A.A.C.P”.  New York Times Magazine, 12 May 1963, pg 87.


Walton, Hanes Jr,.  The Political Philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr.           New York: Greenwood Press, 1971.


X, Malcolm and Alex Haley.  The Autobiography or Malcolm X.                     New York: Ballantine Books, 1973