Macolm X Vs King Leadership Style

Macolm X Vs King Leadership Style



The dissimilarities in the upbringing of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X contributed to their different views on which approach was more effective in fighting for equal rights. Malcolm X once said, “All of our experiences fuse into our personality. Everything that has happened to us is an ingredient.”1 King deeply believed in bringing social change through nonviolence; Malcolm advocated social change through any means necessary. The nonviolent approach was not widely accepted by angry, frustrated African Americans who experienced inequality and discrimination on a daily basis. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee lead by Stokely Carmichael were those frustrated African Americans who lost faith in the nonviolent movement and began to embody Malcolm’s “need to defend themselves against violence"2 Malcolm’s approach was more successful for the black community because he represented their pain and struggles; King’s method proved to be more acceptable for white America because he acted accordingly to a way white America would be respond. In other words king knew, “To destroy anything, a person or property, can’t bring us closer to the goal that we seek.”3 The civil rights act of 1964 and the voting rights act of 1965 was the product of King’s approach to nonviolence whereas Malcolm X’s approach gave African Americans an alternative to King’s approach and resulted in self-respect and black pride.4
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s., early childhood development set the foundation for the righteous leader he evolved into. King came from a loving middle class family in Atlanta, Georgia where church was the center of their lives.5 “My parents would always tell me that I should not hate the white man, but that it was my duty as a Christian to love him.”6 King attempted to comprehend the contradiction of loving a race that hates him based on the pigmentation of his skin; he adapted a nonviolent and peaceful ideology of living life as a black man in...

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