A Comparison of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X Essay

Martin Luther King and Malcolm X: Different Men With the Same Goal      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Martin Luther King jr. and Malcolm X are still highly controversial African-American leaders.   Martin, a Christian integrationist, and Malcolm, a Muslim nationalist have been a powerful force against racial injustice.   Each man sacrificed his life for the freedom of his people; however, Martin and Malcolm had taken very different approaches in achieving equality and identity for African-Americans in the land of their birth.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   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.   â€Å"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 (spi ritual love) with nonviolent action would elicit change†(Walton 78). It is quite easy for me to think of a God of love mainly because I grew up in a family where love was central and where lovely relationships were ever present.   It is quite easy for me to think of the universe as basically friend... ... cowardice. For many blacks nonviolence was the only option because violence would have cost them their jobs, their homes, and even their lives.   It was a creative way that an African-American could fight for freedom and at the same time avoid genocide, the logical consequence of racism.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚         Works Cited    Goldman, Peter.   The Death and Life of Malcolm X.   2nd ed.   Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1979.    Hamilton, Charles V.   The Black Experience in American Politics. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1973.    Samuels, Gertrude.   â€Å"Two ways: Black Muslim and N.A.A.C.P†.New York Times Magazine, 12 May 1963, pg 87.    Walton, Hanes Jr,.   The Political Philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr.   New York: Greenwood Press, 1971.    X, Malcolm and Alex Haley.   The Autobiography or Malcolm X. New York: Ballantine Books, 1973