Martin Luther King Jr / Malcolm X How did these two civil rights leaders view the different tactics and goals of the movement? What they said about… M a r t i n L u t h e r K i n g J r M a l c o l m X On Sit-in’s Martin Luther King, Jr. described the student “Once you change your philosophy, you change sit-ins as an ‘‘electrifying movement of Negro your thought pattern. Once you change your students [that] shattered the placid surface of thought pattern, you change your – your campuses and communities across the South,’’ attitude. Once you change your attitude, it and he expressed pride in the new activism for changes your behavior pattern and then you go being ‘‘initiated, fed and sustained by students’’ into some action. As long as you gotta sit-down philosophy, you’ll have a sit-down thought pattern, and as long as you think that old sit- down thought you’ll be in some kind of sit- down action.” 1964 He ridiculed sit-ins. “Anybody can sit. An old women can sit. A coward can sit…it takes a man to stand.” On Singing as a form “The freedom songs are playing a strong and “This is part of what’s wrong with you – you do vital role in our struggle. They give the people too much singing. Today it’s time to stop of passive-aggressive new courage and a sense of unity. I think they singing and start swinging. You can’t sing up communication keep alive a faith, a radiant hope, in the future, on freedom, but you can swing up on some particularly in our most trying hours’’ freedom.” 1964 Dr. King referred to the songs as “the soul of the movement.” On one another “I met Malcolm X once in Washington, but Although Malcolm rejected King’s message of circumstances didn't enable me to talk with him nonviolence, he respected King as a “fellow- for more than a minute. He is very articulate ... leader of our people,” sending King articles on but I totally disagree with many of his political the Nation of Islam early as 1957 and inviting and philosophical views — at least insofar as I him to participate in mass meetings throughout understand where he now stands. I don't want to the early 1960s. While Malcolm was seem to sound self-righteous, or absolutist, or particularly interested that King hear Elijah that I think I have the only truth, the only way. Muhammad’s message, he also sought to create Maybe he does have some of the answer. I don't an open forum for black leaders to explore know how he feels now, but I know that I have solutions to the “race problem”. King never often wished that he would talk less of violence, accepted Malcolm’s invitations, however, because violence is not going to solve our leaving communication with him to his problem. And in his litany of articulating the secretary. Despite his repeated overtures to despair of the Negro without offering any King, Malcolm did not refrain from criticizing positive, creative alternative, I feel that Malcolm him publicly. “The only revolution based on has done himself and our people a great loving your enemy,” Malcolm told an audience disservice. Fiery, demagogic oratory in the in 1963, “is the Negro revolution . That’s no black ghettos, urging Negroes to arm revolution” themselves and prepare to engage in violence, as he has done, can reap nothing but grief.” Since the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955- 1956, Malcolm X had criticized Martin Luther To Malcolm X’s widow, Dr. King wrote: King Jr as a “traitor to the Negro people,” “While we did not always see eye to eye on disparaging his nonviolence as “this little methods to solve the race problem, I always had passive resistance or wait-until-you-change- a deep affection for Malcolm and felt that he your mind-and-then-let-me-up philosophy,” and had the great ability to put his finger on the he did not hesitate to ridicule a national existence and root of the problem” movement build on sit-ins and Freedom Rides. On Democrats and “Actually, the Negro has been betrayed by both “If it did not take senators and congressmen and Republicans the Republican and the Democratic party. The presidential proclamations to give freedom to Democrats have betrayed him by capitulating to the white man, it is not necessary for legislation the whims and caprices of the Southern or proclamation or Supreme Court decisions to On pursuing legal resolutions Dixiecrats. The Republicans have betrayed him give freedom to the Black man. You let that by capitulating to the blatant hypocrisy of white man know, if this is a country of freedom, reactionary right wing northern Republicans. let it be a country of freedom; and if its not a And this coalition of southern Dixiecrats and country of freedom, change it.” 1964 right wing reactionary northern Republicans defeats every bill and every move towards “Being here in America doesn't make you an liberal legislation in the area of civil rights.” American. Being born here in America doesn't make you an American. Why, if birth made you American, you wouldn't need any legislation; you wouldn't need any amendments to the Constitution; you wouldn't be faced with civil- rights filibustering in Washington, D.C., right now.” 1964 The patience necessary “I do not want to give the impression that “We want freedom now, but we're not going to to witness civil rights nonviolence will work miracles overnight. When get it saying 'We Shall Overcome.' We've got to the underprivileged demand freedom, the fight to overcome" cultural change privileged first react with bitterness and resistance. Even when the demands are couched in nonviolent terms, the initial response is the same. So the nonviolent approach does not immediately change the heart of the oppressor. It first does something to the hearts and souls of those committed to it. It gives them new self-respect; it calls up resources of strength and courage that they did not know they had. Finally, it reaches the opponent and so stirs his conscience that reconciliation becomes a reality.” "It is the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually time is neutral. It can be used either destructively or constructively. We must come to see that human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and persistent work of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation." On nationality “We are here in a general sense because first “We are African, and we happened to be in America. We are not American. We are people and foremost we are American citizens, and we are determined to apply our citizenship to the who formerly were Africans who were fullness of its meaning. We are here also kidnapped and brought to America. Our because of our love for democracy, because of forefathers weren't the Pilgrims, we didn't land our deep-seated belief that democracy on Plymouth Rock, the rock was landed on us. transformed from thin paper to thick action is We were brought here against our will. We were the greatest form of government on earth. “ not brought here to be made citizens. We were 5 December 1955 not brought here to enjoy the constitutional gifts that they speak so beautifully about today.” 1965 On racial separation “Integration, cooperation and respect.” “…to bring about the complete independence of v. integration people of African descent here in the Western "The ultimate aim of SCLC is to foster and Hemisphere, and first here in the United States, create the ‘beloved community’ in America and bring about the freedom of these people by where brotherhood is a reality. SCLC works any means necessary. That's our motto. We for integration. Our ultimate goal is genuine want freedom by any means necessary. We want intergroup and interpersonal living – justice by any means necessary. We want integration." 1957 equality by any means necessary.” 1964 “I believe in recognizing every human being as a human being, neither white, black, brown nor red. When you are dealing with humanity as one family, there's no question of integration or intermarriage. It's just one human being marrying another human being, or one human being living around and with another human being.” 19 January 1965 “I am not a racist. I am against every form of racism and segregation, every form of discrimination. I believe in human beings, and that all human beings should be respected as such, regardless of their color.” January 1965 On assistance of “I must make two honest confessions to you, my “Anytime you beg another man to set you free, other races in gaining Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must you will never be free. Freedom is something confess that over the past few years I have been that you have to do for yourself.” 1963 freedom gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion “You’re living at a time of extremism, a time of that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride revolution, a time when there’s got to be a toward freedom is not the White Citizen's change. People in power have misused it, and Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white now there has to be a change and a better world moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to has to be built and the only way it’s going to be justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the built is with extreme methods.