In both Martin Luther King, JR's "Letter from Birmingham Jail" and Nelson Mandela's "I Am Prepared to Die", the authors present their idealistic views of racial equality and their ideas of how that equality should be achieved. In his letter, King states, "I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to injustice everywhere" (224). With these statements, King concentrates on the injustice around him and how that prejudice affects King and his people everywhere. He chooses to peacefully strive to achieve the goal of a socially and racially equal society. In his statement in the Pretoria Supreme Court, Mandela says,

I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if it needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die. (267)

Here Mandela states that he has, as does King, an idealistic notion of a racially equal society, but that he

But he ultimately recognized this method as the only successful means of allowing his people to be heard. Mandela "felt that without violence there would be no way open to the African people to succeed in their struggle against the principle of white supremacy" (249). Mandela uses the method of violent activism because he found that all other forms of protest had failed to earn him the results he was searching for. Unlike King, Mandela does not keep a steadfast focus on nonviolence, but rather often resorts to violence to achieve his goals.

Martin Luther King, JR spent his days of activism engaging in a peaceful battle with the white supremacists of his time: a method which he deemed satisfactory and necessary to achieve his ideal. He stresses this need for nonviolence and his opposition of anything else:

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Nelson Mandela's speech illustrates his use of violent activism to achieve his ideal of equal opportunities for all members of society. He may not have initially planned on a violently forceful barrage:

I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. [...] We must see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that

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Approximate Word count = 862
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)