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The leadership of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. Within the conceptual framework of this research, we will compare and evaluate the leadership provided by Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. Their approaches to a multitude of issues will be contrasted, and thoughts on different events discussed. It is apparent from the analysis of those two civil rights movement leaders that both had a profound influence on the African Americans fight for their freedom. Martin Luther King, Jr. 's early life is central to understanding his thoughts and leadership approach as an adult. He was born into the relative security of the black middle class in Atlanta, Georgia, surrounded by the ideas and examples of the black bourgeoisie of his father and Auburn Avenue.
When he returned to the South after his doctoral studies at Boston University, it was to a black middle-class congregation, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. Martin's differences with his father, however, began with his calling to the ministry in high school. He felt a strong desire to serve humanity, in particular the disinherited he had first seen standing in bread lines during the Great Depression. More than anything he read in college or seminary, it was the black church tradition which shaped his predisposition toward the poor. While on summer breaks from Morehouse College, from which he graduated at the age of nineteen, he chose to work as a manual laborer. "Daddy" King wanted him to work for black businesses, but Martin refused, feeling called instead to learn about the plight of the African American worker. These summer experiences showed him how blacks were humiliated by white co-workers and foremen and exploited by their bosses. (Cone, 1992) Unlike Martin King, Malcolm Little was born into a poor family.
His father, a black Baptist minister, never served a prestigious church or even had a permanent parish. His family was economically devastated by his death. Malcolm recalled that they had been "so hungry we were dizzy" and often ate boiled dandelions. (Cone, 1992) The welfare workers drove his mother insane and split up the children after she was committed to a mental institution. These experiences were the seed bed of his distrust in America.
When Malcolm moved to Roxbury, and then to Harlem, he learned how black self-hatred perpetuated economic exploitation. The quest for such status symbols as Florsheims and Cadillacs takes money out of the African-American community. (Cone, 1992) The ghetto was created by the white man for a cheap supply of labor and soldiers. This survival environment generated values which made a burglar a local hero. (Cone, 1992) In order for many to survive they depended on the immorality of white men. His former dependence on drug trafficking and pimping shaped his understanding of the necessity of the strict morality of the Nation of Islam. For the first time he became aware of the class conflict between poor and middle class blacks. This awareness shaped his views of civil rights leaders, whom he saw as middle class.
He also saw that the overcrowded housing of the poor causes stress and domestic violence; escape through drugs siphons off income from the African American community; a "vicious cycle" of poverty is created from which some middle class African Americans rise but do not return to help others. (Cone, 1992) While in the Nation of Islam he embraced separatism and the "shopkeeper capitalism" of Elijah Muhammad. (Cone, 1992) For all of the Nation's anti-American sentiments, their hope for black entrepreneurship was an American dream. It echoed the Jeffersonian ideal of a nation of independent shopkeepers and farmers. The Black Muslim solution was a return to Africa or a separate homeland in North America. The government would give blacks land and economic aid for twenty to twenty-five years in order for blacks to develop their own agricultural base.
The goal of returning to Africa was an echo of the Garveyism he had heard from his father. The goal of land also had roots in Booker T. Washington's separatism, which also influenced King. The Nation's dream was not revolutionary, in the sense that it did not advocate an overthrow of capitalism. It was apocalyptic, in that it called for a retreat from a corrupt world which would soon be judged by God. For Malcolm, African Americans deserved the land as reparation for the generations of unpaid labor.
He recognized the necessity of slave labor for the development of white America. African Americans "have sweated blood to help the white man build a country so rich that he can today afford to give away millions-even to his enemies. " (Cone, 1992) Malcolm also preached a Muslim work ethic which was a part of the Muslim definition of gender roles. To be a good husband and father a man should stop squandering his income on immoral pursuits and provide for his family. Malcolm was using capitalist values to prepare African Americans for separation.
His thoughts came out of his desire to develop self-esteem in the black community. Black Muslim showed "what black people could do for themselves. " (Cone, 1992) Self-esteem required separation from white America, and Malcolm made a distinction between segregation and separation. Segregation was a division which allowed whites to retain control over the black community and keep blacks begging. Separation implied self-control. This distinction explains his admiration for and criticism of Jews. For Malcolm, the self-sufficiency of the Jewish community was a goal for blacks to emulate.
He criticized the Jewish businesses, nevertheless, for taking money out of Harlem. He chided Jewish leaders involved in the civil rights movement for not teaching blacks how to become economically self-sufficient. He thought that the Jews wanted racism to continue because it deflected prejudice away from their communities and businesses. (Cone, 1992) He criticized black church leaders for failing to see how self-esteem required separation. He railed at black Christians for building churches rather than businesses. "Then after you build the church you have to go and beg the white man for a job. " (Cone, 1992) Begging is the antithesis of self-esteem, and integration-minded blacks were begging white America to let them into the "white man's house. " (Cone, 1992) Getting a better job in a white man's factory was, at best, a "temporary solution. " (Cone, 1992) Integration was nothing but an attempt by "upper class" blacks to win approval from whites. This disdain for the middle-class African Americans ran throughout his messages, as is typified by his story of the "house negro" and the "field negro. " (Cone, 1992) King shared Malcolm's criticism of the black church, at least in terms of its materialism, but he did not share his pessimism toward integration. Integration was the great hope for blacks, and during the early period of King's life (1955 - 1966) the optimism of imminent integration pervaded his message.
This optimism was inspired by the recent independence of Ghana and the freedom movements in Africa. (Cone, 1992) The accommodationist attitude he inherited from Atlanta's black bourgeoisie also blinded him to the limits of America's prosperity. Unlike Malcolm, the early King was unable to see the necessity of the underdevelopment of black America for the creation of America's prosperity. King believed that legal segregation was the major obstacle that prevented blacks from getting a slice of the economic pie, and the economy itself was not the primary cause of black oppression. In a speech to the National Urban League during this period he described the new sense of pride among blacks and said that this was the result, in part, of the "significant strides that have been made" in the economy of the black community. (Cone, 1992) The task for African Americans was two-fold: one, tear down Southern segregation; two, prepare for integration by raising blacks's tankards of hygiene, morality, and artisanry.
In a 1957 speech King uncritically accepted the stereotypes whites had of blacks. White people "say some things about us, and maybe there is some truth in them. " (Cone, 1992) King advocated hard work, more savings, and acceptance of one's position in the economic system. All of these values, like Malcolm's, are rooted in a capitalist ethic. King, however, did not completely abandon his earlier skepticism of capitalism.
He saw in it the "danger of inspiring people to be more concerned about making a living than making a life" and that it led to a "practical materialism. " (Cone, 1992) Capitalism also generated an extreme individualism which blinds us from seeing our connection to the poor and the common destiny that all humans share. One can hear the language of personalism coming out in his thoughts. Personalism gave academic expression to the Biblical principles he learned in the black church. The criticism of capitalism during this early period was directed more toward the effect it has on the individual rather than the inherent dysfunction of the system. Thus his thinking from this period could fit neatly into a liberal capitalist point of view as well as a non-Marxian socialist perspective. For King a boycott was not meant to challenge the ideas of capitalism but to "put justice in business. " (Cone, 1992) Often the issue of fair hiring practices slowed down negotiations.
In Birmingham the number of black salesclerks to be hired was a key sticking point and was never resolved. (Cone, 1992) In the St. Augustine campaign one can see how economics and the appeal to Northern white liberals coincided. The nonviolent protests in that city were designed to shut down the tourism industry which was dependent on Northern tourists, and these tourists in turn would be moved by compassion to bring pressure on Southern segregationists. Overall, King was too optimistic about boycotts as a means of moral suasion. In most cases white business leaders favored changes which restored order rather than any real movement toward equality, even though in the long run desegregation would increase the number of consumers.
During this period he began to see how economic exploitation could become a common interest bringing blacks and poor whites together. He criticized labor unions for their history of racism, but he believed that blacks and labor unions shared a "duality of interests. " (Cone, 1992) Malcolm criticized King and other leaders for receiving money from and opening membership to whites. For him the civil rights leaders were nothing more than puppets controlled by the contributions of wealthy white liberals. The 1963 march on Washington was an example to Malcolm of the compromise created by white money. (Cone, 1992) His criticism of civil rights leaders as well as many other thoughts did not change after he broke with the Nation of Islam.
He still criticized the black middle class as an ineffective group for bringing about change because they were controlled by "the man downtown. " (Cone, 1992) After visiting Africa in the Spring of 1964 his critique of the current situation took on more urgency. From meeting non-black Muslims he began to see how oppression and the struggle for liberation crossed racial lines. He began to move away from the apocalyptic ism of the Nation of Islam toward a revolutionary view of society. His thoughts reflected this shift. The philosophy of the Organization of Afro-American Unity reflected the old "shopkeeper capitalism" of the black Muslims, but reshaped it in an aggressive, activist way. The OAAU would organize rent strikes and form coalitions to improve housing conditions.
Education on economic issues was being planned. (Cone, 1992) Part of gaining economic self-control was to get rid of the vices which drain money out of the community. There was an interconnection among the political, social, and economic philosophies of' the OAAU which could be summed up in the term "self-control": "Nobody's going to straighten out Harlem but us. Nobody cleans up your house for you... Harlem is your house; we " ll clean it up. But when we clean it up, we " ll also control it. " (Cone, 1992) He was also moving beyond the need for self-control toward embracing revolution. He began to question the system with more urgency. "A Chicken cannot produce a duck egg" and so a system which was rounded on black exploitation cannot produce freedom for blacks. (Cone, 1992) All his life Malcolm asserted that not only did a system thrive on or fail to respond to black underdevelopment, but that America's prosperity was the necessary consequence of this exploitation.
The hope for an alliance between poor whites and blacks was one of the few things that did not change in King's thoughts. In a 1966 SCLC retreat King distinguished a pre- 1966 phase of the movement which did not cost white America much, and a new phase which would cost them plenty because it was going to challenge America's violations of the human fight to a decent standard of living. (Cone, 1992) King admitted that the early phase was dominated by middle class concerns even though he had seen the Montgomery boycott as a movement which transcended class interests. (Cone, 1992) There were several events and people who influenced his renewed interest in oppression. Foremost was the Watts riot which revealed to him the limited gains the civil rights movement had made. The 1966 campaign in Chicago reinforced the lesson of Watts. The unmet promises of the War on Poverty also shattered his earlier optimism. "The nation talks about a war on poverty, but... it does not even make a good skirmish against poverty. " (Cone, 1992) The Kerner Commission supported his feelings that the riots were the results of the economic deprivation of racism. (Cone, 1992) Another often ignored influence on King's later thoughts was the black power movement.
After 1966 King increasingly relied on black history in the same way Malcolm did. King often initiated a critique of contemporary exploitation of blacks by recalling how the Constitution declared blacks to be " 60 percent human. " (Cone, 1992) He emphasized that the roots of black oppression go back to slavery and the lack of land for blacks after the Civil War. (Cone, 1992) His attention to African-American history was the indirect result of the emerging rhetoric of black power activists who had been influenced by Malcolm X. King's reassessment of power and a new emphasis on black identity marked the influence of black power. Like Malcolm, he came to see that black integrity were a source of inspiration. (Cone, 1992) He also came to see the efficacy of temporary separation in order to develop black people's political, economic, and social power. "There are times when we must see segregation as a temporary way-station to a truly integrated society. (Cone, 1992) The second phase of King was marked by his criticism of the Vietnam War. One of his chief criticisms of the war was the money it drained from the War on Poverty. (Cone, 1992) For King there were three evils -- racism, economic exploitation, and militarism -- which were interrelated. He opposed any attempt to deal with them as separate issues.
King's vision during this period was a "grand alliance" between poor whites and blacks, though he recognized the tremendous appeal racist politics had among poor whites. The SCLC initiated Operation Dialogue to begin to build bridges with poor white communities. The Poor People's Campaign was to be the first major attempt at creating this alliance. It was to be a campaign of the poor themselves, but the non-poor could play a "supportive role. " (Cone, 1992) It was intended to create the kind of massive civil disobedience that was originally envisioned for the first march on Washington. In many ways the Poor People's Campaign can be seen as the fulfillment -- and the failure -- of the 1963 march. Both Martin and Malcolm died just as their thinking and organizing around race issues started to blossom, and it is impossible to speculate where they might be today.
Their witness to us resides not so much in the conclusions of their ever-changing thoughts but in the spirit of their inquiry and commitment. They were open to new ideas and criticism, and both carried a passion for all people who suffer oppression. Bibliography 1. Cone, J. Martin & Malcolm & America: A Dream or a Nightmare. Orbis Books, 1992.
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Research essay sample on Martin Luther King Jr Civil Rights Leaders
