MLK Jr. vs. Malcolm X: Civil Rights Strategies
Martin Luther King Jr. vs. Malcolm X: Contrasting Approaches to Civil Rights
Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X were both prominent civil rights leaders during the 1960s but held different ideologies on how civil rights should be won. They both fought for what they stood for, albeit in very different ways. Their beliefs blossomed from their households, the societies they came from, and how they grew up. MLK grew up in a middle-class family and was well-educated, while Malcolm X grew up in an underprivileged and hostile environment with barely any schooling. As a result of these different upbringings, their approaches to reaching racial equality throughout America and fighting for civil rights differed drastically.
Martin Luther King Jr. was always against violence. Throughout his entire ministry, he always stood his ground, and he stood out because even though he may have been physically attacked, he never reacted with violence. Martin Luther King Jr. followed the Christian faith. On the other hand, Malcolm X was a Muslim and believed in Muslim principles. His most famous line was “By any Means Necessary.” He believed in fighting back physically. Whatever had to be done to get freedom, he was all for it, whether it be violence or nonviolence.
Religious Influences on Civil Rights Activism
In addition to this, the religions that they followed also impacted and shaped the way that they fought for civil rights in America. For example, MLK, always interested in civil rights, was heavily influenced by Gandhi’s policy of non-violence when he visited India with his wife and met with *Muhammad Ali Jinnah*. His involvement with the Black civil rights movement was closely related to his Protestant faith. After gaining a major victory in the Bus Boycott of 1956, when the boycotting of the bus services by Black people led to their de-segregation, he became president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957. The ideals for this organization came from Christianity, but the method of non-violence came from Gandhi.
On the other hand, Malcolm X converted to Islam when he was sent to prison. Believing his true lineage to be lost when his ancestors were forced into slavery, he took the last name “X.” When Malcolm X made his personal conversion, Elijah Muhammad soon recognized his talents and made him a leading spokesperson for the Black Muslims. He delivered a different message from MLK: that whites were not to be trusted. He called on African Americans to be proud of their heritage and to set up strong communities without the help of white Americans. He promoted the establishment of a separate state for African Americans in which they could rely on themselves to provide solutions to their own problems. Violence was not the only answer, but violence was justified in self-defense.
The Limitations of the Civil Rights Movement: A Womanist Perspective
While both MLK and Malcolm X were fighting for important causes during the civil rights movement and for equal rights among races in America, they did not do enough for gender equality at the same time, and womanists would have felt this. Alice Walker coined the term “Womanist” in her 1983 book In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose. Walker defined a womanist as “Having or expressing a belief in or respect for women and their talents and abilities beyond the boundaries of race and class; exhibiting feminism that is inclusive, especially of Black American Culture.”
The Civil Rights Movement overshadowed the abuse of women that was going on at the time, and neither Malcolm X nor MLK did enough to fight for this issue. The sexual exploitation of Black women by white men had its roots in slavery but continued, often unpunished, through the better part of the twentieth century. White men lured Black women and girls away from home with promises of steady work and better wages, attacked them on the job, abducted them at gunpoint while traveling to or from home, work, or church, and raped them as a form of retribution or to enforce rules of racial and economic hierarchy.