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Martin luther king and malcolm x comparison

Martin luther king and malcolm x comparison

During the tweeteeth century Black people faced a huge amount of discrimination from the whites and found it very difficult to achieve civil rights. They were at one stage deprived of voting, being intitled the same things as blacks and going to a white school. In order for blacks to achieve civil rights they really needed someone to follow, they needed a leader. Many black leaders did emerge for the fight for civil rights, some had some ways of thinking some had others. Two of the most powerfull and influencial leaders of the twenteeth century had to Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. These two leaders had different approaches, and different views towards white people, but fought for the same thing.
In this question I have been asked to explain the similaritys and differences between these two leaders.
Malcolm X was Born Malcolm Little in 1925 in Omaha, Malcolm was six years old, when his father was murdered by the Black Legion, a group of white racists belonging to the KKK. He changed his name to Malcolm X while in prison.He went to prison because of a robbery and was serving ten years. Also while in prison he became a follower of Elijah Muhammad. Muhammad was the leader of an organization called the Nation of Islam. During the 1950's, Malcolm became the primary spokesman for the Nation. He also came of the surveillance of the FBI along with Elijah Muhammad. As was Dr. King's, Malcolm's every move was followed and documented.
Malcolm became a powerful speaker in the movement. As King captured the spirit of the Southern Black, Malcolm became the messiah of the ghettos of Harlem, Chicago, Detroit, and Los Angeles. Initially a small group, the Nation grew rapidly under Malcolm's leadership. He not only spoke the words of the Koran and his spiritual mentor, Elijah Muhammad, but he also lived it to its fullest. As the crowds grew to hear him speak, so did the opposition to his rising stardom.
Malcolm taught a message of self help and personal responsibility. This was and still is the message from the Nation of Islam. Like the Nation, he also spoke of a separate nation for Blacks only, which was also the view of Marcus Garvey, a leader that Malcolm followed, and also the view that Black is beautiful.
.The beginning of Malcolm’s problems with the Nation of Islam was whether or not to participate in the civil rights march on Washington in August 28, 1963. He wanted the Nation to because he thought it could be used to show that the Nation was proactive in trying to create change. Unfortunately, Elijah Muhammad forbade it.. All of this led to the Nation taking advantage of a comment that Malcolm made after the assassination of John F. Kennedy that "Kennedy never foresaw that the chickens would come home to roost so soon."
But, it all came to an end for Malcolm X on February 21, 1965, when he was assassinated at a OAAU rally in New York, New York, by men allegedly connected with the Black Muslims.
Malcolms death didn’t really end his views, his beliefs, and his way of achieving civil rights. The black Panthers were a group which were formed to achieve civil rights for the blacks.Armed with sincerity, the words of revolutionaries such as Malcolm X, law books, and rifles, The Black Panther Party fed the hungry, protected the weak from racist police, and presented a new paradigm of Black political and social activism. Founded in October 1966 by Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton in Oakland, Ca., the Party grew to at least 5,000 members nationwide, with chapters in more than half of America and an international branch in Algeria.
Its "survival programs"-such as food giveaways, free health clinics and free breakfast programs for children-were popular fixtures in Black neighborhoods in the early 1970s, but for the white power structure and the vast majority of the white public, the Panthers represented only anti-government militancy; a view which engendered the anger of the police and FBI and led to the murder of several Party members by law enforcement.
Martin Luther King was one of the world's best known advocates of non-violent social change strategies, Martin Luther King, Jr., created ideas drawn from many different cultural traditions and was a christian Pasifist. He was Born in Atlanta on January 15, 1929, and was the son of a preacher.

Dr. King and the other African-American community leaders held a meeting to organize future action for Blacks. They named their organization the Montgomery Improvement Association and elected Dr. King as its president.
On the 1st of December 1955, Mrs. Rosa Parks, a African-American, was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama for not standing and letting a white bus rider take her seat.
The police were called and Mrs. Parks was arrested Mrs. Parks was not the first African-American to be arrested for this "crime." But she was the first to be arrested who was well know in the Montgomery African-American community. She was once the secretary to the president of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People).
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other African-American community leaders felt a protest of some kind was needed. A meeting was called and an overflowing crowd came to the church to hear his words. Dr. King told the crowd that the only way they could fight back would be to boycott the bus company.
On January 30, 1956 Dr. King's home was bombed. His wife and their baby daughter escaped without injury. When Dr. King arrived home he found an angry mob waiting. Dr. King told the crowd to go home.
"We must learn to meet hate with love" he said.
This basically showed America how much this man was determained to achieve civil right for black people non-violently. This movement and this incident showed us that Martin Luther King was a wise man he knew what to do and how do it.
.The boycott had lasted 381 days, it was a success. This part in the civil rights movement attracted more followers towards Martin Luther king for example in 1963, 200,000 people, black and white, rich and poor, educated and non-educated , took part in a mass marching Washington to demand jobs and freedom.
In 1957, seeking to build upon the success of the Montgomery boycott movement, King and other southern black ministers founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and king was elected president of the orginisation. He also toured India, to increased his understanding of Gandhian non-violent strategies.

FBI director J. Edgar Hoover's large efforts to weaken King's leadership were increased during 1967 as urban racial violence escalated and King criticized American intervention in the Vietnam war. He was assassinated on April 4, 1968, while seeking to assist a garbage workers' strike in Memphis.After his death, King remained a controversial symbol of the African-American civil rights struggle, revered by many for his martyrdom on behalf of non-violence and condemned by others for his militancy and insurgent views.


So overall Martin Luther King was much more educated then Malcolm X. He had
seen life the easy way compared to Malcolm. Martin Luther King hadn’t been through what Malcolm had been through, while Malcolm x was busy being a criminal, Martin Luther King was busy doing his Phd. Malcolm X spent about ten years of his life in jail, which in that time he learned to hate the white man, his belief towards whites was they were ‘blue-eyed devils’.
I think towards the end King became more radical because he became more critical of the government, mainly because King had seen laws being passed and civil rights being achieved politically but still socially he felt that black people hadn’t achieved civil rights.
The case for malcolm X is not however the same, while his journey to Mecca Malcolm finds out there are white muslims, therefor discover that not all white people are devils.