Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
research in african american literature
African American literature essay
research in african american literature
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: research in african american literature
Martin Luther King and Malcolm X
The past and present African Americans literature must be read In order to understand the idea of being black and free in the United States. Throughout early American Literature freedom and the desire to be free has been written and spoken about by many. People think that any African American person could speak for the whole black community, which is not true. The black community is like any other communities. There are many different opinions and views within the community and among the group. Therefore, just by looking at some writings by black leaders will show how the concept of being black and free changes from one to another. On the other hand, all of them agreed to the idea of equalizing black and white people. However, this paper will show the differences and similarities between Martin Luther King and Malcolm X on violence, education and religion.
Martin Luther King believed in nonviolence action, but Malcolm X had different believes. Dr. King believed that the only way of freedom is through nonviolence and civil disobedience. Successfully, he taught the black community the right path for freedom.
…show more content…
chose nonviolence activates to use to free black people. Dr. King said “Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence” (108). Responding with violence is counterproductive. It gives the oppressors more of a reason to oppress individuals. Only love, he believed, can break the vicious cycle that entraps us. Loving the people who oppress you may seem strange, but hate is unproductive and destructive. Love, on the other hand, heals, and wins both hearts and minds. When Dr. King wrote the “Letter from Birmingham jail”, he was explaining why he came to Birmingham city. He did not choose to be violence or to be aggressive toward his situation and why he was
The 20th century was a definitive time period for the Black civil rights movement. An era where the status quo was blatant hatred and oppression of African Americans, a time when a black son would watch his father suffer the indignity of being called a “boy” by a young white kid and say nothing in reply but “yes sir”. Where a Black person can be whipped or lynched for anything as little as not getting off the sidewalk when approaching a white person, for looking into their eyes, or worse, “for committing the unpardonable crime of attempting to vote.” In the midst of the racial crises and fight for social equality were Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. who despite their difference in philosophies were “icons of social justice movement both in the United States and around the world” .
The Civil Rights movement was a movement against racial segregation and discrimination in the southern States that became nationally recognized in the middle of the 1950s. Though American slaves were given basic civil rights through the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments of the Constitution, African Americans still had a hard time trying to get federal protection of their newly found rights. A man by the name of Martin Luther King Jr. was one of the American Civil rights Leaders who used nonviolence in order to reach a social change. He used nonviolent resistance to overcome injustice against African Americans like segregation laws. He wasn’t just fighting for the equality of all African American but was also fighting for the equality of all men and women. Malcolm X is another great leader who fought for what he believed in. He was a black activist who, unlike King, promoted a little violence. Malcolm X wanted the nation (African Americans) to become more active in the civil rights protests. Both Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. had different methods for gaining civil rights. I believe that Martin Luther King Jr. method was more effective thanMalcolm X methods. In King “’Letter from Birmingham Jail” King defends himself on writing about why he is using nonviolent resistance to racism. Throughout the letter he shows his reasoning using logic, emotion, and ethics. Throughout his life King used this same method to reach how to hundred of thousands of African Americans.
The forceful subjugation of a people has been a common stain on history; Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail was written during the cusp of the civil rights movement in the US on finding a good life above oppressive racism. Birmingham “is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of brutality is widely known,” and King’s overall goal is to find equality for all people under this brutality (King). King states “I cannot sit idly… and not be concerned about what happens,” when people object to his means to garner attention and focus on his cause; justifying his search for the good life with “a law is just on its face and unjust in its application,” (King). Through King’s peaceful protest, he works to find his definition of good life in equality, where p...
Martin Luther King and Malcolm x are both strong representations of two different approaches to a common goal. Martin Luther King Jr. preferred a nonviolence approach to the situation. Whereas, Malcolm X handled racism in a violent approach. However, both man believed African Americans deserved their human rights and equal say. Martin Luther King Jr. believed in an integrated society while Malcolm X wanted African Americans to have their segregated neighborhoods just as good as the whites.
On the other hand, Malcolm X believed in the utilization of any denotes indispensable to reach his goals. The one area is the kindred attributes between the two. In fact, one could verbalize that Martin Luther King and Malcolm X were consummate antitheses. Martin Luther King was able to enlighten the world an edification. He showed us that goals can be reached without violence. Although , Malcolm X may have reached his goals, but he engendered nonessential violence along the way.. You may argue that even though Martin Luther King’s protests were halcyon, violence still occurred. The difference in my opinion is that the Hangings and attacks that African Americans faced were out of their control. It was the decision of those that they were protesting against to bellicosity beat them and kill them. Malcolm X on the other hand was many times the initiator of violence. He brought violence to his protests and ergo engendered extra violence, which can be deemed to be nonessential. At the terminus of the day many would favor of the lessons which Martin Luther King Jr uplifted as his decisions and outcomes can influence the decisions of future generations in times of conflict. Malcolm X’s conception of doing anything to reach his goals is not a good representation for future generations as it remotely
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 change”(Walton 78).
Malcolm X always believed that in order to conquer their rightful place in society, the There are many differences between Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X believed that only through force could blacks conquer their rightful place in society. He blamed many of the conditions that blacks in the United States lived in on the whites. Martin Luther King appeared calm and idealistic. Martin insisted blacks to earn their just place in society by attaining a sense of worth, high ethical standards, diligence and leadership, using non-violence as their impartial weapon. He addressed that in God’s sight, people of all races are equals and there is no such thing as a superior or inferior
Numerous leaders have made tremendous impacts throughout the history of the world. In this essay, I will compare and contrast the lives and philosophies of civil rights activists Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X were prominent leaders during the Civil Rights Era. They both had very different philosophies and methods on the racial emancipation of African-Americans. Despite their differences, they shared a common goal to live in a society with equal opportunity and a world free of segregation.
Malcolm X approach to the civil rights issue was completely different from Martin Luther King, Jr. approach. Martin Luther King, Jr approach was to make a peaceful, nonviolent demonstration. In contrary, Malcolm X’s approach was to use violence to force the government to give black people their civil right if the government refuse to. It is “liberty or death” (Malcolm X). “Today it’s time to stop singing and start swinging. You can’t sing up on freedom, but you can swing up on some freedom” (Malcolm X). Malcolm X tried to persuade his audience to go and calm their rights by fire by force from the government.
Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X were the two most influential leaders of the civil rights movement. They inspired the need for change and the conquest for civil liberty. Stylistically, their philosophies, rhetoric, and feedback from the public significantly varied. Some of their tactics were controversial, and they both died in the fight for total freedom. Despite their differences, in the end, civil rights were established for all men, and segregation laws were eradicated. All in all, MLK and Malcolm X used different strategies to fight for civil
Malcolm X was particularly firm in his opinions of the nonviolent strategies advocated by Martin Luther King, Jr. During a November 1963 address, Malcolm ridiculed the theory that African Americans could achieve their freedom nonviolently. "The only revolution in which the goa...
Martin Luther King, Jr. advocated nonviolence to suppress oppression in his essay, “The Power of Nonviolent Action.” King's factual and reasoned approach is intended to win his adversaries over by appealing to their consciences. King realized that the best strategy to liberate African-Americans and gain them justice was to use nonviolent forms of resistance. He wanted to eliminate the use of violence as a means to manage and establish cooperative ways of interacting. Moreover, King states that the “oppressed people must organize themselves into a militant and nonviolent mass movement” in order to achieve the goal of integration. The oppressed must “convince the oppressors that all he seeks is justice, for both himself and the white man” (King, 345). Furthermore, King agreed with Gandhi that if a law is unjust, it is the duty of the oppressed to break the law, and do what they believe to be right. Once a law is broken, the person must be willing to accept the ...
In contrast, Dr. King believed in the change through nonviolent methods, influenced by Gandhi. He also showed his readiness to work with whites toward social justice. However, X and Dr. King, with their two different ideologies, wanted to attain the same goal, Afro-Americans’ freedom (Malcolm X).
Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X were very significant during the Civil Rights Movement. Both were excellent speakers and shared one goal but had two different ways of resolving it. Martin Luther King Jr. chose to resolve the issues by using non-violence to create equality amongst all races to accomplish the goal. Malcolm X also wanted to decrease discrimination and get of segregation but by using another tactic to successfully accomplish the similar goal. The backgrounds of both men were one of the main driven forces behind the ways they executed their plans to rise above the various mistreatments. Martin Luther King Jr. was a more pronounced orator, a more refined leader, and overall saw the larger picture than Malcolm X.
Nearly three centuries ago, black men and women from Africa were brought to America and put into slavery. They were treated more cruelly in the United States than in any other country that had practiced slavery. African Americans didn’t gain their freedom until after the Civil War, nearly one-hundred years later. Even though African Americans were freed and the constitution was amended to guarantee racial equality, they were still not treated the same as whites and were thought of as second class citizens. One man had the right idea on how to change America, Martin Luther King Jr. had the best philosophy for advancing civil rights, he preached nonviolence to express the need for change in America and he united both African Americans and whites together to fight for economic and social equality.