Adeyemo Idowu
History 157
11/19/2014
THE STRUGGLES OF PROMINENT BLACK U.S LEADERS
African-American has had it rough right from the beginning, most of them were kidnapped and forced into a life of slavery, made to suffer and treated badly by the southerners. The civil war gave blacks a ray of light but that hope gradually disappeared when racial discrimination put them right back where they were before, although they were free on paper but in reality they were by no means free men. After decades of enduring the hardship, discrimination, segregation and unnecessary violence from whites, black activists gradually started speaking out on behalf of African-Americas. The two major activists on the time were Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. The documentaries “Citizens King” and “Malcolm X” by PBS which was produced in 2004 by Orlando Bagwell and W. Noland Walker, gives an insight into the personal lives and struggles of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. This essay gives a comparative analysis between these two most prominent black activists, their roles on civil right movements, their influence on African-Americans and on the American government as a whole.
“Citizen King” is a documentary about the pivotal last 5 years of the life of Martin Luther king using archived videos and materials, and hundreds of sources. It follows the life of Martin Luther King from the time of the Birmingham movement in 1963 to the time of his death in 1968. The documentary “Malcolm X” focused on the life of Malcolm X, his tumultuous upbringing, his struggle with racism, his Muslim conviction and his civil right movement. Understanding the upbringing of these two men will give a better understanding of their individual paths as activist. According to the documentary “Malcolm X”, Malcolm Little had a though childhood, he was born to rural farmer Earl Little and wife Louise Little, coming from an underprivileged home, he grew up in an environment of...