Quote:
Originally posted by librasoul22
Dag, it's like that? lol
Can I get you to elaborate?
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Certainly.
Malcolm and Martin worked in two vastly different areas which dictated their tactics. They were two vastly different types of people with vastly different backgrounds and history.
Malcolm was a self admitted criminal and drug addict who CHOSE his life of CRIMINALITY over COLLEGE. When he began his crusade to empower the Black Man, he was so marginalized that he was able to act outside of the corridors of power without any repercussions. Malcolm lived in the urban North where Blacks did not fear lynchings, bombings, and reprisals for speaking out. Even being a former criminal, Malcolm was never arrested or jailed again for anything. Not for sedition, for inciting riots, unlawful assembly, for speaking out against the government with its hand in the assassination of Lumumba, the president, even at his assassination!!Because he was financed by a private organization, he did not need the good will of those outside his organization to get agenda presented. His Hajj to Mecca enlightened him as to all of the deceptions that he had been taught by Elijah and that he needed to modify some of his doctrines based upon the truths that he discovered. Instead of thinking of the Blacks like King, who worked within the system, as "toms", he decided that it was easier to get change by getting coalitions to apply pressure. His new movement included non-muslims and was amenable to receiving some help from sympathetic whites.
Because Martin was middle class and educated, he had neither the hate nor bitterness that fueled Malcolm's speeches. Also, because he knew all whites were not inherently evil, that a few could be trusted and would be allies in engaging the sympathies of the larger white community who had the ultimate power in EFFECTING change, Martin did not take an adversarial position. As a Minister, he knew that his power lay in moral authority, not militancy. Because his rural, southern constituents were not nearly as educated, empowered, or as economically free as Malcolm's, a militant stance would have been implosive to the Freedom Movement. It takes a great deal of Moral Strength and Dignity to subjugate one's natural violent and defensive reflexes to sacrifice for the greater, unseen goal. It was this tool of "humility with dignity" that enabled power structures to fall, to enable "Brown v BOE", to liberate buses, water fountains, hotels, cafeterias. Remember, Malcolm was sexing white women in Boston at the same time that the Emmitt Till's of the South were being lynched for even whistling at a white woman. Martin was fighting for the dignities and courtesies that Northern Blacks never even considered. Malcolm was speaking and lecturing at Harvard before a Black was even admitted to the Universities of Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia!!!
Yes, Malcolm taught us all how to give it to the white man verbally, with boths guns blazing. Pride in knowing our history, who we were are without the white man's whitewashing of history. Its easy to sit here 30 to 40 years later when we can go where we want, do whatever we please, say anything without impunity and say "yeah, Malcolm did it the way I would", "He aint take ish from the White Man!!" Of course thats easy to say when someone else already spilled their blood for you and did your jail time, received your blows and indignities in the Montgomery's, Birminghams's and Little Rock's.
Neither is greater than the other, although I believe that what Martin did took significantly more courage and moral strength, and his agenda and tactics have measurable results (laws, govt policies, etc)