martin and malcolm
... Martin Luther King’s SCLC endorsed peaceful methods and believed change could be affected by working around the established system. ... National leaders such as Martin Luther King and Malcolm X would be assassinated, violence would claim the lives of young and old, and rigged all-white juries mocked justice in cases involving crimes perpetrated by whites against African-Americans. ... Martin & Malcolm & America, A Dream or a Nightmare, written by James H. Cone, examines the personalities, philosophies, methods, contributions, and legacies of Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X. ... To understand Martin’s and Malcolm’s perspectives on America and their relation to each other, it is important to see them in the light of these two different but interdependent streams of black thought. The contention that King and Malcolm’s roles in the black struggle were reciprocal, and that their commentary visions were converging at the time of their assassinations, is central to Cone’s analysis. ... For example, Chapter 1: The Making of A Dreamer, about Martin’s early life, is followed by Chapter 2: The Making of a Bad Nigger, about Malcolm’s early life. ... As Cone points out in Chapter 9: Two Roads to Freedom, both Martin and Malcolm used the image(s) that white America had of them to further the black liberation struggle. As Malcolm came to realize that he could not shed his “violent image”, he decided to publicly present himself as an alternative to Martin, since the white power structure, which he often called the enemy of black freedom, would be encouraged to negotiate with Martin. Malcolm also didn’t relish being in the role of the “bad nigger”, mainly because he wanted so much to build an effective coalition with the “mainstream” civil rights movement. Martin, on the other hand, provided a reality check for black leaders who often got carried away with Malcolm’s rhetoric about self-defense. ... We must remember that Martin and Malcolm served not only to complement each other, but also as a necessary reality check against others false reading of what was needed to achieve true and full equality for African-Americans.