Words That Shook the World
[Analysis of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X]
--Descriptive/Observational Writing--
Wolran Kim, June 2010
Who is making history? In most cases, history is written by winners. Because the pen is held in the victors' hands. The rights of American blacks still didn't carry into effect even a hundred years passed the Civil War which granted civil rights to blacks with the emancipation of slaves in 1865. Is that because of indomitable racial strife in black history until Barack Obama was elected as the first African American President and got a Nobel Prize for peace?
Two men who made a big impact in a difficult time in history were Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. They embellished the pages of history with passionate and impressive speeches as the leaders of black-rights advocates. Both of them conducted black-civil rights, but their methods of dealing with racial discrimination and nationalism were entirely different. Martin Luther King tried to make a color blind society combining black and white men and Malcolm X urged black society to the power of unity excluding even a progressive white, and these approaches were caused by their different backgrounds, educations, religions, and racial consciousnesses
Martin Luther King, who thought everything which got accomplished in the world was first hoped for, was a nonviolent and unresisting vanguard who stood against unrighteousness of the world with love. He was born of a comparatively rich family and educated in the elitist course with a doctorate degree from Boston University. He belonged to a black community who wanted to amalgamate with established white liberalism and was deeply impressed by Gandhi. He was embossed as a symbolic person of a black civil righter appealing to a mob the doctrine of ahimsa. He said not to use violence and to love enemies. We have to love them even though the whites give us sufferings and discrimination, he said, let's forgive their sins. He never gave up the principle of nonviolent nonresistance in spite of being arrested 30 times. He
practiced his "I have a dream" message, preaching like this, "With this faith, I will go out and carve a tunnel of hope through the mountain of despair" ("I have a dream." Speech, August 28, 1963). The unification of King's assertion was based on Christianity that admitted white and black's equality in front of God's righteous, hope and love. This was irony that whites took advantage of Christianity and turned blacks into believers about the exploiting class could go to the Kingdom of Heaven afterlife too.
In contrast, Malcolm was born of a poor black family in the north and grew up gaining his experience first hand of nightmarish black slave history. The white men set a house a fire and his father was murdered. In the stern realities of life, he was educated only to 8th grade of regular school education and self educated in prison after convicted of a crime. He received Elijah Muhammad's instruction and fascinated a conception that all whites were vicious devils and blacks are an ethnic group who has a long history and culture. He was born again intellectually after reconsidered about himself and read books night and day. He became the second man after Muhammad in Islam and changed his last name to "X”, which represented that he would regain identity someday. Malcolm, a victim and judge of racial discrimination, said he never mixes white except coffee cream. A trigger-happy orator, Malcolm was introduced as a spokesperson when the TV program "Mike Wallace Show" presented on Black Islam entitled "The Hate That Hate Produced". He never trusted America and whites fundamentally. Accordingly he insisted that blacks should unite, be self-protective, and realize black righteousness by any means necessary. Heroes of troubled times, like Malcolm, appeared periodically in black history in America. That was the natural consequences of a society discriminating against humans systematically.
We often classify King as a messenger of unity and hope and Malcolm as a radical Black Nationalist. The two men were outgrowths of directly-opposed cultures and those backgrounds appear in their speech untouched. But Malcolm started to accept the possibility of union between whites and blacks in the closing years of his life. That was proved through the King's opinion about Malcolm. He said that the target of attack from Malcolm's malice and hatred is the society which made Malcolm X, not Malcolm X. Malcolm was born because of a social evil and because wicked abuse struck roots too deep. They got assassinated within a three years interval and people say King was pitiable about that tragedy because Malcolm was on the way to embrace whites and gain a better understanding of nonviolence.
History is cold. King received a Nobel Prize for peace and is the only private person honored by a national holiday. The judgment of history holds up King's hand of amalgamation rather than expulsion. I think that is because of sovereignty emancipation in the true sense of the word is the dominator, and people who are under control, not rulers repress again. It is nearsighted if we just evaluate they are contrary to each other because of their racial consciousness alone. Dissociation of consciousness of people who fight for the same goal makes other enemies and fades the original significance. Should society recognize afresh a New Martin Luther King and New Malcolm X in history as poles diametrically apart? Even as a foreigner, I am proud of their glorious strife that raised the status of blacks in the US from slave to president within a short period. Their lives were ended by assassination but they are the same winners who wrote history of emancipation again.
[Analysis of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X]
--Descriptive/Observational Writing--
Wolran Kim, June 2010
Who is making history? In most cases, history is written by winners. Because the pen is held in the victors' hands. The rights of American blacks still didn't carry into effect even a hundred years passed the Civil War which granted civil rights to blacks with the emancipation of slaves in 1865. Is that because of indomitable racial strife in black history until Barack Obama was elected as the first African American President and got a Nobel Prize for peace?
Two men who made a big impact in a difficult time in history were Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. They embellished the pages of history with passionate and impressive speeches as the leaders of black-rights advocates. Both of them conducted black-civil rights, but their methods of dealing with racial discrimination and nationalism were entirely different. Martin Luther King tried to make a color blind society combining black and white men and Malcolm X urged black society to the power of unity excluding even a progressive white, and these approaches were caused by their different backgrounds, educations, religions, and racial consciousnesses
Martin Luther King, who thought everything which got accomplished in the world was first hoped for, was a nonviolent and unresisting vanguard who stood against unrighteousness of the world with love. He was born of a comparatively rich family and educated in the elitist course with a doctorate degree from Boston University. He belonged to a black community who wanted to amalgamate with established white liberalism and was deeply impressed by Gandhi. He was embossed as a symbolic person of a black civil righter appealing to a mob the doctrine of ahimsa. He said not to use violence and to love enemies. We have to love them even though the whites give us sufferings and discrimination, he said, let's forgive their sins. He never gave up the principle of nonviolent nonresistance in spite of being arrested 30 times. He
practiced his "I have a dream" message, preaching like this, "With this faith, I will go out and carve a tunnel of hope through the mountain of despair" ("I have a dream." Speech, August 28, 1963). The unification of King's assertion was based on Christianity that admitted white and black's equality in front of God's righteous, hope and love. This was irony that whites took advantage of Christianity and turned blacks into believers about the exploiting class could go to the Kingdom of Heaven afterlife too.
In contrast, Malcolm was born of a poor black family in the north and grew up gaining his experience first hand of nightmarish black slave history. The white men set a house a fire and his father was murdered. In the stern realities of life, he was educated only to 8th grade of regular school education and self educated in prison after convicted of a crime. He received Elijah Muhammad's instruction and fascinated a conception that all whites were vicious devils and blacks are an ethnic group who has a long history and culture. He was born again intellectually after reconsidered about himself and read books night and day. He became the second man after Muhammad in Islam and changed his last name to "X”, which represented that he would regain identity someday. Malcolm, a victim and judge of racial discrimination, said he never mixes white except coffee cream. A trigger-happy orator, Malcolm was introduced as a spokesperson when the TV program "Mike Wallace Show" presented on Black Islam entitled "The Hate That Hate Produced". He never trusted America and whites fundamentally. Accordingly he insisted that blacks should unite, be self-protective, and realize black righteousness by any means necessary. Heroes of troubled times, like Malcolm, appeared periodically in black history in America. That was the natural consequences of a society discriminating against humans systematically.
We often classify King as a messenger of unity and hope and Malcolm as a radical Black Nationalist. The two men were outgrowths of directly-opposed cultures and those backgrounds appear in their speech untouched. But Malcolm started to accept the possibility of union between whites and blacks in the closing years of his life. That was proved through the King's opinion about Malcolm. He said that the target of attack from Malcolm's malice and hatred is the society which made Malcolm X, not Malcolm X. Malcolm was born because of a social evil and because wicked abuse struck roots too deep. They got assassinated within a three years interval and people say King was pitiable about that tragedy because Malcolm was on the way to embrace whites and gain a better understanding of nonviolence.
History is cold. King received a Nobel Prize for peace and is the only private person honored by a national holiday. The judgment of history holds up King's hand of amalgamation rather than expulsion. I think that is because of sovereignty emancipation in the true sense of the word is the dominator, and people who are under control, not rulers repress again. It is nearsighted if we just evaluate they are contrary to each other because of their racial consciousness alone. Dissociation of consciousness of people who fight for the same goal makes other enemies and fades the original significance. Should society recognize afresh a New Martin Luther King and New Malcolm X in history as poles diametrically apart? Even as a foreigner, I am proud of their glorious strife that raised the status of blacks in the US from slave to president within a short period. Their lives were ended by assassination but they are the same winners who wrote history of emancipation again.