American Studies Unit 2 Assesment

Throughout my learning of the civil rights movement and the fought for equality among other minority groups I have noticed that both violent and non violent activism are crucially important for establishing noticeable action to change our society and unjust laws. The most important evidence comes from the African Americans fighting for their long denied rights. Among who are the two of the most important leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcom X. Two activists with completely different methods but never the less with out most power to motivate people into action with somewhat of the same goals in mind, equality.

Martin Luther King wanted t o work together with the white people. He more than anything wanted peace and to show by non violent action the wrong that society was doing to the people of color letting themselves be beaten, killed, tortured. Never letting himself and the people that followed him get discouraged because he not only wanted true freedom he created an ideological idea of white and black being able to be friends, what seemed then like almost like a dream. Although he does point out in his "I have A Dream Speech" that it is already starting to happen by saying,"..The Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people , for many of our white brother, as evidence of their presence here today have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny..."( King 1964) This part of his speech is so excruciatingly relevant to what he is trying to convey, in my opinion, because it empowers his people to continue the struggle.While on the other hand Malcom X is taking an absolute opposite approach to how he believes that is the only way that the Black community will get what they have been denied without a reason. In his "Ballot or Bullet speech" he says, "No I'm not an American I'm one of the 22 million black people who are the victims of Americanism",( Malcom X 1964) Showing his absolute discontent to what Martin Luther King is doing. Malcom X doesn't want to work with people who hate him he just wants to be left alone to do his own thing which is one of the main reasons of why he is able to drive so many people to follow him. He is so convincing because he speaks the truth, he warns them that if they don't stop being the victims and start fighting back nothing is going to get done but will only be the consequence of their suffering. This is the ultimate reason for the increased feeling of nationalism in the African community enforcing them to be active in the cause.

At the end we see that both means of action create a great deal of effect. martin Luther King was able to inspire thousands to show the world the insanity of the white community against the black but Malcom X created the feeling of nationalism driving more thousands to take action. I believe that without both of these components the struggle that we still continue today among black and other minority groups would prolong itself even more.
draft