Martin Luther King Jr And Malcolm X Similarities

Both Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X were important figures in Civil Rights and race equality, and both were active in the same time era. However, despite advocating for the same idea (rights for African Americans), Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X had very different ideas on how exactly they would try to establish their ideas and expand their base of followers/supporters. This paper is to define their differences and similarities, while providing some background into both Malcolm X’s and Martin Luther King Jr’s and discussing how the differences in their upbringing may have influenced their ideals in their spokesperson career. To achieve this, this research paper is split into 5 sections with 3 of these sections having sub-sections. Section 1 will provide a basic understanding of the social structure during the Civil Rights Era (1954-1968) and a small description of major race-related events in that period. In Section 2, I will give a general backstory on Martin Luther King Jr, including any events that happened in his life that impacted his views on equality/segregation, or that influenced him to start his Civil Rights career. In a subsection of this larger section, I will point out his particular ideals and attitudes for later comparison. In the third section, I will give a general background on Malcolm X, once again including any important/influential events and how they may have influenced him, followed by another subsection that will point out particular events that likely directly
had a lot of past experience with white supremacy, along with having a religious father. His past experiences with discrimination against himself and his family, Combined with his Father’s religious ideals of equality, are most likely what influenced him to fight for racial equality, and this influence was likely further influenced by his time spent in college becoming a pastor.

MALCOLM X: