Martin Luther King Jr. Vs. And Malcolm X

Almost everyone we meet will have different stances on various subjects. We were all blessed with the ability to think for ourselves and decide what we agree with. Often, this can cause conflict between two parties because their views are so drastically opposite. Martin Luther King, Jr. preached about equality and the desire for peaceful protest. Malcolm X promoted black supremacy and rejected the idea of integration. While Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X agreed that black people should not be treated as lower class citizens, they were different when it came to continuing segregation because of class rank and the backgrounds they came from. To begin with, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X were similar because they both wanted racial equality. Many people in this country during the 1950’s agreed that it was time for black people to be treated as equal citizens. Slavery had ended more than 85 years before and they were finally coming around to realize that the way black people were being treated was not right. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X both wanted their race to have equal rights. Even though they had different ideas on how to get them, they both strove for racial equality. Times were quickly changing and some people,
including a majority of the south, did not like where it seemed to be going. Though Martin Luther King, Jr. gets more recognition than Malcolm X, both played an important role in the civil rights movement. Secondly, they differ because of how they felt black people should be seen. Martin Luther King, Jr. gained fame and many followers because he believed black people would receive equality through peaceful protest. He wanted to see that his race was treated the same as any other people or race. While many people agreed with his ideas, some did not. One of the people with an opposing view was Malcolm X. His idea was that black people were better than any other ethnicity and that they should be treated better than white people. He said that he wanted to get equal rights by “any means necessary.” Martin Luther King, Jr. thought that all races should be treated equally, so by thinking that black people were the better race, Malcolm X went against the ideas that Martin Luther King, Jr. taught. Lastly, the backgrounds that Martin Luther King, Jr.
and Malcolm X came from were drastically different. Martin Luther King, Jr. was raised in a Christian household by his father, a pastor, and his mother, a homemaker and associate-pastor. Malcolm X had a very different childhood; his father was killed in what he believed was a racially motivated “accident” and his mother was sent to an insane asylum a few years later, leaving Malcolm and his siblings to be sent to foster homes. Martin Luther King, Jr. grew up and became a Baptist pastor, following in his fathers’ footsteps. Malcolm X converted to Islam while he was still a young adult and never truly stopped hating white people for what he thought they had done to his
family. In the end, even though Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X strove towards the same objective of racial equality, they had very different ideas on how to get there. Even though both men wanted black people to be treated better, Martin Luther King, Jr. wanted all people to be treated equally and he wanted to reach this goal for “the dream” with peaceful protests. Malcolm X wanted black people to be treated as superiors to white people and did not really care how that was obtained. Even though they were both men fighting for the common goal of racial equality, they actually worked against each other because of the drastic differences in their ideas about segregation. Many people look up to both of them, and for a good reason.