Martin And Malcolm example essay topic

When people hear the word Civil Rights Movement, two men automatically come to their minds, Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. While both these men had very different views and ideas, they also shared similarities. Part of the reason for their different views was because one was in the South and the other was in the North. Martin saw a Dream that could be fulfilled in the South and Malcolm saw a Nightmare, which would never end in the North. Martin and Malcolm were raised in very different homes. Martin Luther King Jr. grew up in Atlanta; his family status was that of the middle class, he never experienced poverty or hunger like Malcolm did. Martin was raised in a loving and supporting environment.

His parents instilled in him the importance of self-respect and self-help. They taught Martin and his other siblings that they could make something out of their lives despite the fact that the color of their skin was black. Martin's father was a prominent preacher for the Ebenezer Baptist Church. His mother was member of the choir. Family and church were a big part of Martin's childhood, and influenced his adult life and they way he chose to lead it.

Unlike Martin's supportive family, Malcolm Little, better known as Malcolm X, grew up in a home that never knew what it meant to be in the middle class; Malcolm's family grew up in the ghettos of the North. His parents never taught their children to love themselves and be proud of who they were, because they themselves had lost their self-respect. Malcolm's parents were very abusive to their children and to each other, making the home environment just as volatile as the surroundings outside. Malcolm's parents were big supporters of Marcus Garvey's teachings. His father was the president of the Omaha branch of the UNI A, which was started by Garvey, and his mother was the reporter for the meetings. Not only were their religious backgrounds different and their social class standings different, their educational history was also very different.

Malcolm dropped out of school when he was in the eighth grade. His parents never stressed the importance of getting a good education and so he was never motivated to stay in school. The rest of Malcolm's education came from the ghettos of Boston and New York, and eventually from the Charlestown Prison. Martino n the other hand not only graduated from high school but also went on to Moore House College. Martin not only went to college, but he was a child prodigy, he went to college at age fifteen.

He also went to Croze r Seminary in Pennsylvania. His parents also gave him the support he needed to motivate him to stay in school. Going to school was not always easy for either Malcolm or Martin. Malcolm grew up in Lansing, Michigan, where schools were integrated. At his junior high school, Malcolm frequently heard the words, 'Nigger', 'coon', 'darkie', and 'Rast us. ' He heard these epithets so often they ceased to be insulting; he thought of them as actual names.

' 1 The name-calling was not the worst of it though. One of the most devastating moments for Malcolm was when he was in the eighth grade. He told his English teacher that he wanted to be a lawyer when he grew up. His teacher's response was that a better career for him might be carpentry. This of course was very insulting and was the main reason why he left school. Although Martin never had to grow up in the integrated North, he did have to go to school in the segregated schools of Montgomery.

Martin's experiences with white people when he was young were not bad. He even had a white friend whom he played with until he entered school. After he entered school he, which was all black, he did not have the same kind of exposure to white people as he had had before. It did not really seem to effect Martin that much until the day the parents of his white friend said that he could no longer play with their son. They told Martin the reason why the two children could not play together anymore was because they were white and he was colored.

Martin told his parents what happened and in response his mother told him, 'You must never feel that you are less than anybody else. You must always feel that you are somebody. ' 2 Another incident that impacted him happened when he and his teacher were asked give their seats up to white passengers; they had to stand up for the entire trip which was ninety miles long. Different forms of education, different family lifestyles, different religious backgrounds and different environments, these events set the stage which made Martin believe in his Dream and Malcolm believe in his Nightmare. These events helped shape the philosophies that each developed, Martin " sn on-violent direct action and Malcolm's non non-violence. Martin King believed in the power of loving your enemy.

He preached and taught that loving one's enemy was the only real way to fight the white man's hate. He believed that " non-violence was the only tactical weapon black people had at there command. ' 3 As well as believing in non-violence, Martin also believed in the integration of blacks and whites in the South. King addressed the issue of segregation as being 'a tragic evil which is utterly un-Christian.

' 4 He preached both the message of non-violence and the message that segregation was evil, at Dexter Church which he was pastor for. In his preaching, Martin instilled five aims to strive for in order to ultimately better black peoples lives. These five objectives were brought up many times throughout his life, they are as follows: 'self-respect, high moral standards, whole-hearted work, leadership, and non-violence. ' 5 While Martin was in the South with his dream of integration, Malcolm was living the nightmare of poverty in the North.

The early years of his life were spent in the streets where he was the leader of an organized burglar ring which gave him the money he needed to support his cocaine habit. Malcolm was arrested and sentenced to eight to ten years at Charlestown. While in prison, Malcolm took the opportunity to improve his reading ability. He used a dictionary 'as an encyclopedia a swell as a vocabulary-building device,' 6 by copying the words down on sheets of paper. It was there in prison that Malcolm was introduced to the teachings of Elijah Muhammad. Through Muhammad's teachings, Malcolm reformed himself.

He stopped smoking and drinking, he no longer ate pork, and he obeyed every rule and regulation that was set by Muhammad. Thus, he was paroled and went to live with Muhammad and preach to his followers. Since Malcolm joined the Nation of Islam, his philosophies were based on the Nation's philosophies. It was during this time that Malcolm developed his non-nonviolence self-defense philosophy.

Malcolm did not believe in the turn the other cheek method that Martin used. Malcolm believed in the eye for an eye method. Malcolm also preached heavily the need for self-love. He believed that in order for change to occur black people must first love themselves as who they are.

'All of us are black first' he told African Americans, 'and everything else second. ' '7 Word spreads quickly; Martin and Malcolm were thrown into the limelight and took up the roles they received. Martin and Malcolm both became national leaders, but only Martin transcended the United States and became a global leader. For King, he was cast into the national spotlight after the Montgomery Bus Boycott. He became an international leader not long after that.

'People sough this advice not only regarding the " Negro Problem' but also about the problem of injustice in many parts of the world. ' 8 Malcolm, too, became a national leader. Many people followed him in the North, but were against him in the South, as was the opposite with Martin. Martin and Malcolm might not have agreed with each other, but they did compliment each other nicely.

Each had something that countered with the other. For instance, non-violence could not work in the North, as Martin saw, and Malcolm knew that self-defense in the South was not a good idea. As Martin and Malcolm neared what was the end of their lives, they both had started to move towards the other's philosophies. Martin moved to the North after the assignation on Malcolm and realized that the nightmare that Malcolm had always talked about was there. In fact, if one takes a closer look at the South, the nightmare was there too, just not as easy to see.

The lives of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X will always be remembered. King will be remembered as the main moral leader of the Civil rights movement, and Malcolm will always be associated with the Nation of Islam and it's militant teachings and beliefs. These two men inspired a nation to take a stand against oppression and hate. They taught blacks everywhere to stand up for themselves, whether with civil non-violent direct action, or with separatist self-defense. They taught that the most important element was self-respect or self-love. Maybe if Martin and Malcolm had put their differences with each other aside they could have combine the strengths of both their philosophies and united to gain amore secure force against the white society.

At the end of their careers as leaders they were starting to do just that, but unfortunately someone took it into their own hands to make sure unity between the two men would never happen.

Bibliography

Cone, James H. Martin and Malcolm and America. New York: Orbis Books, 1991.
Franklin, Robert Michael. Liberating Visions: Human Fulfillment and Social Justice in African-American Thought. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990.
Perry, Bruce. Malcolm: The Life of a Man Who Changed Black America. New York: Station Hill Press, 1991.
Williams, John A. The King God Didn't Save. New York: Coward-McCann, Inc., 1970.