Two men, Two Views, One Cause

A detailed Summary of Two men, Two Views, One Cause

Many black authors and leaders of the sixties shared similar feelings towards the white run American society in which they lived. Malcolm X, James Baldwin, Martin Luther King, and Stokely Carmichael 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 authors 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 Martin Luther King, favored the non-violent approach. This paper will focus, for the most part, on Malcolm X and Martin Luther King because they are both strong representations of two different approaches to a common goal. Perhaps their different approaches of violence and non-violence stem from their original opinions of how capable the whites are of being "good".

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. Malcolm's paper, "The Ballot or the Bullet," makes that clear. In his paper, he is constantly criticizing whites as a who

Malcolm X sees the whites as a violent group. He most likely came to his theory, that nothing important could be accomplished without violence, through the reasoning that only violence can be used to stop a violent group. Violent people would not understand the use of peaceful means to reach an agreement. Therefore, it is not really the violence itself which he supports as much as it is the reason for using it. He justifies his use of violence by trying to explain that there is no other way to get through to the white people.

original view of them as heartless and uncaring. One place in Malcolm's "The Ballot or the Bullet," where his categorizing of whites with violence and cruelty can be found, is during a passage in which he compares the white man with a Guerrilla warrior. "You've got to have a heart to be a Guerrilla warrior, and he (the white man) hasn't got any heart" (3).

learned that not all white people are racists' (367).

Yet, while Malcolm learned over a period of time that not all whites are evil, Martin Luther King entered the scene already fully aware that "good" whites existed. In fact, where Malcolm underestimated the goodness in whites, King seems to have overestimated it. He 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 or appreciate the deep groans and passionate yearnings of those that have been oppressed" (1). Yet, even after he found that he did not receive as much white support as he had hoped for, Martin Luther King never lost faith in the white community.

I tried in every speech I made to clarify my new position regarding white

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Approximate Word count = 1169
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: History