This paper will focus on Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King jr. because they are both strong representations of two different approaches to a common goal. Perhaps their different approaches of violence and nonviolence stem from their original opinions of how capable the whites are of being good.
Of the many African American leaders and authors of the sixties, they shared similar feelings towards the white run American society in which they lived. They all blamed the whites for the racism which existed.
However, they agreed that it was up to the black society to end this problem. Using the black society, each of the leaders had their own idea of how racism could be stopped. Unfortunately, for some, such as Malcolm X, this involved the use of violence, while others, such as King, favored the non-violent approach.
Not all of the whites involved in the problem of racism supported it. Some were actually trying to help fight for the blacks. Unfortunately, it took Malcolm X a long time to figure that out.
In both the stories by Malcolm X and also by Martin Luther King Jr. Both men are in prison writing to people on the outside. King is writing to the Birmingham clergy who criticized him in the "Letter From Birmingham Jail", where as Malcolm X is writing and learning in Charlestown Prison during the writing of "A Homemade Education". Malcolm X himself says at one point that he "In fact, up to then, I never had been so truly free in my life" (X 135). King talks about his overestimating of goodness in "Letter from Birmingham Jail". "I guess I should have realized that few members of a race that has oppressed another race can understand...the deep groans and passionate yearnings of those that have been oppressed" (King 89). Yet, even after he found that he did not receive as much white support as he had hoped for. King never lost faith in the white community.
Now Malcolm says that "The teachings of Mr. Muhammad stressed... [continues]
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