Premium Essay

Similarities Between Malcolm X And Martin Luther King Jr

Submitted By
Words 543
Pages 3
Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) and Malcolm X were two fortunate African American leaders who fought for the freedom of Black America. Martin Luther King Jr. was one of a kind just like his “I Have a Dream “speech which explained the injustice and violation of freedom towards African Americans even after slavery had ended it also explains how he wants both African Americans and whites to unite as one. As to Malcolm X, his most famous speech was “God’s Judgement” which also explained the injustice towards the African American race but leans more towards the violent path rather than the peaceful way. Both characters have similarities and differences between their speeches like the imagery they each portray, the tone/mood they present, and the type of character that they each show throughout the speech. The imagery that both speeches portrayed was in a way much different. For Example, MLK’ s “I Have a Dream” speech was intended to portray a world where both African Americans and whites were united and together without judgment and …show more content…
For Example, Martin Luther King’s tone during his speech was inspirational and convincing through the choice of words and the personal effect that he put into his “I Have a Dream” speech. He used many powerful tones in his quotes for instance in the excerpt about MLK’s speech mentioned how powerful and convincing this quote sounded “One day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed!” and because of this quote many whites believed that we should unite. Differing from MLK’s tone/mood Malcolm X had a totally different tone and mood because his speech was full of an aggressive tone because according to Malcolm’s actual speech “God’s Judgment” his use of words in specific quotes were aggressive such as “wicked race” and “race of devils” which he was referring to as the

Similar Documents

Premium Essay

Similarities Between Martin Luther King Jr And Malcolm X

...There has been many prominent figures in the American Civil Rights Movement. Some prominent figures include Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. They both have their own viewpoints of social justice and how to achieve their goal. Martin Luther King, Jr. is more on the nonviolent side, while Malcolm X supports the use of violent if necessary. Malcolm X’s method of achieving social justice is more dominant than Martin Luther King, Jr.’s because Malcolm X’s method teaches people to use their available resources, to fight for what they believe in, and lastly use violence if it is necessary. Malcolm X’s method of achieving social justice teaches people to use available resources. He believes that people should do whatever they could to achieve what they want. Malcolm X indicates the term revolution meaning “a complete overturn-a complete change” (X). He is often called a revolutionist and agrees with the term because he wants change in the society. Malcolm X wants people to destroy the old system and replace it with a new system by all means. He says that “the Negro’s so-called “revolt” is merely an asking to be accepted into the existing system!” (X). Malcolm X, for the most part, is aiming for justice and equality just...

Words: 674 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Similarities Between Martin Luther King Jr And Malcolm X

...Martin Luther King Jr. once said “Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him. To have hatred embedded in the heart and to act with violence was something that Martin Luther King didn’t believe in. He believed in love and peaceful protest was the way to go for change to happen.While on the other side, Malcolm X violence and non peaceful protests were the way to go to get your point across more efficiently. During the 1950s and 1960s, Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X took two different approaches in an attempt to change the way society acted towards African Americans. Malcolm X chose a more aggressive yet passionate route for change. He believed that we shouldn’t just let Caucasian people treat African American the way they do. We should stand up for what and protect each other. King thought the exact opposite, he believed that violence solves problems temporarily and non violence has lasting results. Using violence to fight oppression isn’t ideal because it portrays the cause in a negative light, creates fear and anxiety within a community, and it doesn’t have lasting results....

Words: 517 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Similarities Between Martin Luther King Jr And Malcolm X

...Martin Luther king Jr. and Malcolm X are both very important figures in the African American community. In fact, if asked to name one influential African American, undoubtedly one of these their names are going to come up. one In a time when changes were deemed now or never, these two leaders fought for what they believed in. While the political ideologies of leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcom X were different towards their approach to government policies and violence, they were also similar in their apprehension for the immediate need for civil rights for African Americans. It is said that people are the product of their environment, and this holds true in regards to the upbringing of Martin Luther King and Malcom X. According to Baer Hans, “King grew up in a middle class family and was well educated. While Malcom X grew up in an underprivileged environment that was very hostile with barely any schooling” According to the documentary the Eyes on the prize-the time has come, Kings approach to civil rights and equality was throught “non violence”...

Words: 513 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Similarities Between Martin Luther King Jr And Malcolm X

...Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X were very prominent African American individuals throughout the fight for equality in America. They fought for what they believed in but each in their own way. Their many different views and beliefs are easily a result of the environment they grew up in and the households they came from. MLK grew up in a middle class family and was well educated, while Malcolm X grew up in an underprivileged environment that was very hostile with poor education. Martin Luther King Jr. was always against violence throughout his entire struggle and he always stood his ground. Most importantly, even though he may have been physically attacked, he never reacted with violence. On the other hand, Malcolm X’s most famous line was “By any Means Necessary” he was willing to do whatever it took to fight against the oppressors, whether it is violent or non-violent. The more we learn about each of these men the more we...

Words: 831 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Malcolm X Rhetorical Analysis

...Defense Tactics Malcolm X was not viewed as a peacemaker. In his Liberation by Any Means Necessary speech, he states that “1964 will be America’s hottest year; a year of much racial violence and much racial bloodshed. But it won’t be blood that’s going to flow from only one side. The new generation of black people that have grown up in this country ...are already forming an opinion, that if there is to be bleeding, it should be reciprocal” There Malcolm is saying that he predicts that there will be violence between the races, and that black people will fight back. In another speech, Malcolm says: “The black people in this country have been the victims of violence at the hands of the white man for 400 years and following the ignorant negro preachers we had thought it that it was god like to turn the other cheek to the brute that was brutalizing us...just as the white man and any other person on this earth has god given rights, natural rights,...

Words: 609 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Malcolm X

...02 March 2016 MLK Jr vs Malcolm X Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X had many similarities and differences when it came to their roles in the civil rights movement. A huge similarity of the two is they fought hard for their people with getting treated bad. They both wanted to see black people in the best position possible. Risking their lives everyday for the rights they felt they deserve. They were both assassinated because of their leadership role positions they played during this time. Even though they had different beliefs/religions, both their religions played a significant role in their approaches. They both had the greatest impact on the civil rights movement during the 1960s. One of the main reasons why Malcolm X and MLK Jr is different is their approach to the civil rights movement. While MLK Jr wanted to keep the peace and have a non-violent protest, Malcolm X was very opposite. Malcolm X felt that if they wanted to be violent then so should his people. Also, MLK Jr thought more of people being equal and Malcolm X was more for his people being in high power and being controlled by themselves. Also, their religion was a extremely huge difference and had an impact on the way they went about things. MLK Jr grew up in a Christian home where his parents stressed necessary things such as education and religion. Malcolm X converted to Islam after being arrested for drugs and burglary. His outlook on things were far more violent than MLK Jr. MLK Jr believed that black...

Words: 599 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

The Civil Rights Movement: The Rise Of Non-Violence

...in order to maintain it, African Americans must assert it, not become passive. As Malcolm X said, “The only way to defend yourself from a man with a rifle and club is to use a rifle and club yourself.” However, the two approaches did have similarities, with similar end results being blacks and whites live in harmony. Both demanded equality not just in theory but also in societal life. Where they differed most was in the methods used and the time each group was willing to wait. The non-violence method was rooted in religion and common sense. To succeed non-violent protest required not just the support of the black population, but that population's...

Words: 1032 - Pages: 5

Premium Essay

Comparing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter To A Birmingham Jail

...On April 12, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was imprisoned in Birmingham, AL for coordinating nonviolent actions to protest segregation. Dr. King had a mission to put an end to the civil rights movement in Alabama. In order to stop him, a judge issued an injunction against parading, demonstrating, boycotting, trespassing, and picketing. Dr. King was not dissuaded by the judge and marched in spite of the injunction, and was arrested in result. Days later, clergymen wrote an article condemning Dr. King for hypocrisy and breaking the law. In response to the article, Dr. King wrote the “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” in which he clarified the difference between a just and unjust law, stating we, as human beings, have “not only a legal, but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust...

Words: 965 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

I Have a Dream

...------------------------------------------------- I Have a Dream From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This article is about the Martin Luther King Jr. speech. For other uses, see I Have a Dream (disambiguation). Martin Luther King, Jr. delivering "I Have a Dream" at the 1963 Washington D.C. Civil Rights March. | "I Have a Dream"30-second sample from "I Have a Dream" speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. | Problems listening to this file? See media help. | "I Have a Dream" is a public speech by American activist Martin Luther King, Jr.. It was delivered by King on August 28, 1963, in which he called for an end to racism in the United States. Delivered to over 250,000 civil rights supporters from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the speech was a defining moment of the American Civil Rights Movement.[1] Beginning with a reference to the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed millions of slaves in 1863,[2] King examines that: "one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free".[3] At the end of the speech, King departed from his prepared text for a partly improvised peroration on the theme of "I have a dream", possibly prompted by Mahalia Jackson's cry: "Tell them about the dream, Martin!"[4] In this part of the speech, which most excited the listeners and has now become the most famous, King described his dreams of freedom and equality arising from a land of slavery and hatred.[5] The speech was ranked the top American speech...

Words: 2912 - Pages: 12

Premium Essay

The Similarities Between The 60's And My Generation

...Black or white, young or old, man or woman, Republican or Democrats, love or hate. These are some of the things that comes to people's minds when they first hear about The Sixties. It changed the world over the course of that time period. During this time period a lot occured, tensions were high, people were segregated, presidents were assassinated, famine, and war. And one of the most important wars in American history took place; the Vietnam war. There are a lot of similarities and differences that I noticed between my generation and the 60’s while watching The Sixties: The year that shaped a Generation. Here are some that I thought were very important and stood out to me. In comparing the sixties and my generation, the more I tried to find more about their differences I came across more similarities. One of the first major similarities, both the sixties and my generation share is about the youth, free thinking, creativity, and expressing. It was the youth that fought for where my generation youth are today. It was their idea and thoughts. And I personally believe that it’s the...

Words: 609 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Second Wave Feminist Movement

...In Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech “I’ve Been to the Mountain Top” he tells his followers, “We are saying we are determined to be men” (King). He is telling them that what they desire is not wrong; it is simple. It is the desire for justice and equality. Similarly, in her book The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan tells women to seek their freedom, despite feeling wrong for wanting to have the opportunities their husbands and their brothers were raised to expect. Just as Friedan tells women they can no longer “that voice within [them] saying “I want something more than my husband and my children and my house’” (Friedan 32), MLK tells the black people “we’re going to march again, and we’ve got to march again, in order to put the issue where it is supposed to be” (King). The leaders of both movements work to inspire their people and call them to action. This connection shows the ideological connection between the two movements. In each, there is the understanding that people need to be shown the injustice and that the injustice needs to be fought by the...

Words: 2124 - Pages: 9

Free Essay

Philosophy

...University of North Carolina at Pembroke English and Theatre DEPARTMENT COURSE: ENG 2100: African American Literature Fall 2014 INSTRUCTOR: Dr. Charles Tita OFFICE: West Building, Office of Distance Education OFFICE HOURS: Monday 4-6 and Tuesday/Thursday 10:30-12 OFFICE PHONE: 521 6352 FAX: 910 521 6762 EMAIL ADDRESS: charles.tita@uncp.edu LECTURE TIME: Tuesday/Thursday 2-3:15pm LOCATION: DIAL 147 REQUIRED TEXT Gates Jr., Henry Louis, and Nellie Y. McKay, eds. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2004. OPTIONAL REFERENCES Locke, Alain, ed. The New Negro. New York: Atheneum, 1968. hooks, bell. Teaching to Trangress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York: Routledge, 1994. Harrold, Stanley. American Abolitionists. New York: Pearson Education, 2001. Youngs, J. William T. American Realities: Historical Episodes-From First Settlements to the Civil War. New York: Longman, 2000. Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove Press, 1963. COURSE DESCRIPTION: A survey of African American literature, introducing students to genres, trends, and major periods of African American literature, ranging from the 17th-, 18th- and 19th- century autobiographies and narratives to 20tth –century works. Authors include: Jupiter Hammon, Briton Hammon, Sojourner Truth, Nat Turner, Claude McKay, Zora Neale Hurston, Sterling Brown, Richard Wright, Lorraine Hansberry, Amiri Baraka, Toni Morrison...

Words: 3509 - Pages: 15

Premium Essay

Kurt Vonnegut in American Lit

...I. Introduction In his foreword to a collection of the radio scripts of comedians Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. endorses these entertainers as somehow new and different—and relevant—since they draw their humor from the plight of the (American) Common Man. In the process, Vonnegut offers us an insight into his own writing, and the philosophies that inform it. “They aren’t like most other comedians’ jokes these days,” Vonnegut writes, aren’t rooted in show business and the world of celebrities and news of the day. They feature Americans who are almost always fourth-rate or below, engaged in enterprises which, if not contemptible, are at least insane. And while other comedians show us persons tormented by bad luck and enemies and so on, Bob and Ray’s characters threaten to wreck themselves and their surroundings with their own stupidity. There is a refreshing and beautiful innocence in Bob’s and Ray’s humor. Man is not evil, they seem to say. He is simply too hilariously stupid to survive. And this I believe. Jerome Klinkowitz, in the introduction to his essay collection entitled Vonnegut in America, has used this quote—as he certainly should—to support his claim that Vonnegut’s humor has its roots in the comedic response to the Great Depression. But of course there is much more to it than that. The reader is left with a nagging question: Were humanity’s case really as Vonnegut describes it, and were this truly his belief, wouldn’t it seem that the...

Words: 6991 - Pages: 28

Premium Essay

Rhetorical Terms/Devices

...(transference of order). Tropes — Deviation from the ordinary and principal meaning of a word (transference of meaning). *Important Note: Words marked with an asterisk* are words for which it would be impossible for you to write 3 examples for your weekly vocabulary assignment. In those cases, please write only the definition, in your own words, and the rhetorical uses/effect of that device, or do what you are instructed to do under those words. Please mark these words that deviate from the ordinary assignment with an asterisk* when you type them on your page. Common Schemes — Deviation from the ordinary pattern or arrangement of words (transference of order). Schemes of Construction — Schemes of Balance 1. Parallelism — similarity of structure in a pair or series of related words, phrases, or clauses. This basic principle of grammar and rhetoric...

Words: 7172 - Pages: 29

Free Essay

Asdasdasd

...[pic] FIRST ARMY EQUAL OPPORTUNITY REPRESENTATIVE COURSE STUDENT GUIDE TO CULTURAL AWARENESS INDEX LESSON TITLE PAGE 1 Philosophical Aspects of Culture SG- 3 C1 Native American Experience SG- 4 C2 White American Experience SG- 23 C3 Arab American Experience SG- 43 C4 Hispanic American Experience SG- 53 C5 Black American Experience SG- 76 C6 Asian American Experience SG-109 C7 Jewish American Experience SG-126 C8 Women in the Military SG-150 C9 Extremist Organizations/Gangs SG-167 STUDENTS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR BEING FAMILIARIZED WITH ALL CLASS MATERIAL PRIOR TO CLASS. INFORMATION PAPER ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL ASPECTS OF CULTURAL DIFFERENCE Developed by Edwin J. Nichols, Ph.D. |Ethnic Groups/ |Axiology |Epistemology |Logic |Process | |World Views | | | | | |European |Member-Object |Cognitive |Dichotomous |Technology | |Euro-American |The highest value lies in the object |One knows through counting |Either/Or...

Words: 63019 - Pages: 253