During that time he was an anti-religious person and then his brother wrote him a letter talking about a religion for black people which was known as the Nation of Islam. Now, in the Nation of Islam, it was different because these people read the Koran and looked at Allah as God. The leader, Wallace Fard, believed that "Christianity was the white man's religion" and that is true because of the times of slavery. Tied with Islam was the sense that blacks could have pride and nationalism. Later on, I found out that a new leader by the name of Elijah Muhammed was the main person that Malcolm had read from.
They would always ask the question” Who is my Mother?” They see it as black men are just number, because we will not think for we are educated ourselves as men. The number is when you are locked up and they call you by your last name and you have to give them a number for your identity. When will you learn our young men, When will you learn? The music gets them through the pain and heart ache they feel, when they are in the white man system. This is what it is.
The strategy of the white man has always been divide and conquer. “He keeps us divided in order to conquer us.” As the speech goes on you can see Malcolm X’s words “ I think separation will get me freedom” He is for Black Nationalism, not integration. He is not for joining hands together as one with the white brother, but joining hands and efforts with his twenty-two million African-American brothers around the country. He asks the black community to unite and no longer take orders from anyone but those living the life they were leading. He like Dr.King demands change from empty promises.
The Nation of Islam rejected integration, but perhaps its most controversial belief was that blacks should form a separate state of their own, free of white domination and white religious, economic, political, and cultural institutions. Malcolm X broadly studied the teachings of Elijah Muhammad. He was released from prison after serving seven years of his sentence and at that moment he took the name Malcolm X because he believed “Little” was his slave name. The “X” represents the tribal name he thought he would have received but was lost to him. Other members of the Nation of Islam followed in Malcolm’s steps and also took X as their surname.
He no longer saw whites as “devils.” When he was in Mecca the people with blue eyes and white skin didn’t label (Labeling Theory) or put him with a particular group of status but was able to sit, worship, pray, walk with and eat with while visiting. Malcolm later came to view the United States as a racist society, which influenced the way in which whites grew up. The ideas and morals of these racists rubbed off on their children, and therefore, whites grew up with racist ideas which can be the looking glass self (Charles Cooley). This change did not mean that Malcolm no longer fought for his people; he just fought for a more open
After the release of the prison, his brother Reginald discussed his recent engagement with the Muslim religion. Malcolm began the study of this new religion. During his role of leadership in the Muslim religion, Malcolm Little removed his last name, and replicated with X, since he believe his last name was meaning of slave. His frustration towards the white America community, and the lack of success of African Americans, created the movement to keep all the “Negros” together and harm if necessary. The most important issues during this time was the lack of independence and success within the black community.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was born Michael King Jr. and later changed his name when he got older. To compare, Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little and later changed his name based on his beliefs of religion and what his name symbolized. To sum up, MLK and Malcolm X both gave not just African Americans pride, but
He was a man of faith and faith, in my view, was a prelude to his actions. But in explaining Malcolm X, let me take not to explain him away. I understand he had been a criminal, an addict, a pimp and a prisoner; a racist and a hater. He certainly said some racist things in his life, for example: "All white people are the devil". That is obviously not true to me, even though the state of the "black" community in the 60s that my cousins grew up in may have suggested otherwise But Malcolm started getting on the right track after his return from Mecca, there his eyes were opened and he started to regret some of the sweeping racial generalizations he had made in the past.
Martin Luther King grew up in a segregated society where white people oppressed black people. His father was a minister taught them nothing about race superiority which led Dr. King a lasting impression of his father. Having to be race in a segregated society and the teaching of his father has led Martin Luther King to be a creative thinker. His father being a minister made him a peaceful person in his combat toward racism. If his father had not been a minister, Martin Luther King’s critical thinking process would have been different from the Dr. King that we know today.
This was the first time that black organisations had really tried to improve conditions in the cities. Kings commitment to non- violence was based on the teaching that Christians should “turn the other cheek”. The different approaches that the groups had into how to solve the problems in America at that present time began to slowly deteriorate their cooperation and began to raise tensions between the