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
a 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 UNIA, 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. Martin
on 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 Crozer 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 "Rastus." 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's
non-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 as
well as a vocabulary-building device,"6by 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 sought
his 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 a
more 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.