Role of MLK Jr and Malcolm X in Civil Rights Fight

MLK, Malcolm X, and Civil Rights

The Civil Rights Movement of mid-20th century in America saw two poles: on the one end was Martin Luther King, Jr. (MLK), and on the other was Malcolm X. MLK adopted the concept of civil disobedience into his Christian ethics to protest a racist structure in America. Malcolm X adopted the concept of militancy and showing the power structure that one is willing to fight back and use violence against violence to beat the same racist structure. MLK initially represented a Christian mindset, coming to the movement as he did from the Christian ministries and as a Christian preacher; Malcolm X represented a militant Islamic mindset, coming to the movement through the Nation of Islam, as a Muslim convert who had spent his youth involved in petty crime. But once they took part in the movement, both were very articulate, rational, forceful, and instrumental in shaping the destiny of America mid-century. They both saw a country in need of change: where they disagreed was on what that change should be and how it should be achieved. MLK wanted equal rights for blacks; Malcolm X wanted black liberation from the white establishment. MLK believed non-violence was the way; Malcolm X believed blacks had the right to defend themselves with force if under threat. Both leaders questioned the establishment in their speeches and conduct. But whereas MLK believed the establishment could be reformed, Malcolm X believed blacks should view it as the enemy.

Malcolm X grew up outside the establishment: a petty crook from Nebraska who hustled in Boston, Detroit and Harlem, Malcolm X was then known as Malcolm Little and had no connections to religion, education, or the establishment. His upbringing had been poor, and his family had relied on welfare. As a young man he tried to make good for himself through a life of petty crime. The closest he got to the establishment was when he went to jail for burglary from 1946 to 1952. But it was in jail that he finally came into contact with serious religion, converting to Islam via the Nation of Islam, which was popular particularly in Detroit at that time. In the Nation of Islam he saw an answer to all the frustration he had experienced in his life up to that point. It represented a new start, a fresh beginning, a way to see himself and the world through new eyes that gave the promise of new freedom and personhood. The Nation of Islam was led by Elijah Muhammad, who taught his followers that blacks were the original race and that Christian imperialism was a threat to their existence. Thus, as Malcolm X converted and adopted these views, he saw the white establishment power structure as directly and inherently opposed to the objectives of the black race. He also viewed MLK as an “Uncle Tom” type of leader—a “false shepherd” who was leading blacks back into the embrace of the white establishment (Howard-Pitney 2). MLK for his part was born into a much different background—a prominent middle class family. He was educated at Morehouse College and Boston University, taking a PHD in philosophy from there in 1953, one year after Malcolm X was released from prison. MLK became a Baptist preacher and a leader of blacks in the Civil Rights Movement because he was willing to get out in front of the movement and be arrested for defying the law to show his community that he cared about the principles they were struggling for. Eventually, Malcolm X broke away from Elijah Muhammad. His path and MLK’s paths converged, and Malcolm X even offered to provide black security to protect MLK’s peaceful protesters (Howard-Pitney 13). And while both men opposed racism, imperialism, and social, economic, political, and religious oppression, they differed on the way forward. MLK believed in non-violent protest based on the civil disobedience model. Malcolm X viewed this approach as inherently flawed because everyone had the right to self-defense. He thought that blacks would only win independence if they truly took up a posture that showed they could not be pushed around.

Another difference between the two is that MLK wanted integration whereas Malcolm X believed separation and independence was the better path forward. MLK said in his 1963 speech, “The Ethical Demands for Integration”: “We must always be aware of the fact that our ultimate goal is integration, and that desegregation is only a first step on the road to the good society” (59). Malcolm X on the other hand was quite clear on this matter: following the teachings of the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X stated in the 1963 book The Black Revolution: “God wants us to separate ourselves from this wicked white race here in America because this American House of Bondage is number one on God’s list for divine destruction today” (69). Malcolm X was not advocating for integration the way MLK was—and that is why Malcolm X was vocal about MLK being a false shepherd, one who was leading blacks astray by urging them to integrate themselves into the white establishment. Both leaders believed that blacks were being mistreated by the establishment, but Malcolm X did not see integration as a good thing. His spiritual orientation was more militantly directed toward separation. He would change this orientation over time, but after his initial conversion his main view was that blacks and whites were separate peoples with separate histories, and that whites could not be trusted as friends.

Malcolm X was also convinced that Islam was the religion that blacks should practice, seeing Christianity as the religion of the white establishment. His goal therefore was different from MLK’s in that he wanted to awaken the minds of black men so that they could see more clearly how Allah wants them to live. He stated in his interview from 1964 in the Monthly Review that “When the black man in this country awakens, becomes intellectually mature and able to think for himself, you will then see that the only way he will become independent and recognized as a human being on the basis of equality with all other human beings, he has to have what they have and he has to be doing for himself what others are doing for themselves. So the first step is to awaken him to this, and that is where the religion of Islam makes him morally more able to rise above the evils and the vices of an immoral society” (72). Malcolm X believed that equality would not come by integrating with the white establishment but only be becoming independent from that establishment and empowering blacks to do for themselves what whites do. MLK, on the other hand, believed blacks and whites and all communities should live in harmony with one another, and stated so in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” in 1963: “I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states…We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny” (75). Of course, MLK was trying to justify his presence in Birmingham when he was not from there—his critics were accusing him of intruding into a movement that was not organically his. But he saw all communities as his community, and therefore the fight of all as one that also belonged to him. But more than this he also saw the interconnectedness of the races as important in America, because as one nation all had to live under one flag, under one government, not with separate ideologies. Of course, it helped that MLK had the same religion as many whites in the establishment and that his religion emphasized fraternity. But Malcolm X did not trust that establishment and did not see anything good to be had by joining it. He saw the establishment and the white culture of America as corrupt, immoral, and dangerous to the soul. That is why he refused to accept that one could merrily try to join in with that culture. That is why he insisted on waking up Black America.