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Bryan Haines
Professor Padgett
ENGL 101
13 November, 2015

To Unify or Divide?
All pieces of literature are purely products of their time. Society
has reshaped itself time and time again leaving many to question
where they stand and how they fare in the time and place they are
born in. During the 1950s and 60s in the United States specifically,
African Americans finally began to question why they were
discriminated against and began to stand up for their rights as human
beings. Many African American authors took numerous different
approaches as how to combat the institutional racism and hatred faced
by their communities, but two styles by two different men in particular
captivated millions of minds during their times and continue to capture
the attention of countless readers today. Martin Luther King Jr. sought
to end suffering in the African American community by convincing the
world that all humans beings must work together peacefully as
brothers, while Malcolm X sought to end the same oppression by
unifying only African Americans and perhaps using force upon the
Caucasians that had caused them such great suffering to begin with.

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The African American community has been discriminated against
in American society essentially since its creation in the late 1700s.
Settlers coming over seas from Europe to this new American frontier
brought with them African slaves who were given no rights as humans
and treated solely as property. These slaves were sold, tortured and
humiliated on a daily basis until the abolition of slavery in 1833. This
abolition of slavery did not however ensure that the African American
community was to be treated fairly and like every other human being.
African Americans then faced innumerous amounts of public
discrimination and institutionalized racism up until the Civil Rights act
of 1964, which outlawed discrimination, based on race, color, religion,
sex or national origin. Prior to this time however, it was necessary for
authors to speak out against the cruel treatment of all African
Americans and how to fix the problems that shook the Black
community to its core.
Martin Luther King Jr. is one of the most widely known civil rights
activists in human history due to his loving outlook on humanity and
peaceful solutions on how to end inequality not only in America, but
also throughout the entire world. In his work of literature Where Do We
Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, King explains that all human
beings, can never again live apart [due to the extreme diversity of
the world population and therefore], must learn somehow to live with
each other in peace. Dr. King has been recorded stating that he

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truly believes in a brotherhood of man and that only together, can
society face and conquer such problems as discrimination and hatred
(King Institute). Martin Luther King Jr.s tone in The World House
indicates that he truly believes all races must come together as one in
order to eradicate suffering not only from the African American
community, but also from the global community as a whole. King
reaffirms his beliefs that only a cooperative effort can end inequality
later in his piece by stating, Together we must learn to live as brothers
or together we will be forced to perish like fools. Martin Luther King Jr.
preached peace and non-violence in times where some men, like
Reverend George Lee of Belzoni, Mississippi, were fatally shot after
simply trying to register to vote (The Civil Rights). King truly believed
that only together, both blacks and whites working side by side, could
society eradicate the inequality that had haunted the African American
community for hundreds of years.
Malcolm X, a key figure in the Black Panther Party, on the other
hand, believed that it was the Black communitys responsibility on its
own to eradicate the discrimination and suffering felt by its people.
Malcolm X responded to the violence and hostility directed towards his
fellow African Americans with a much more harsh, unforgiving tone
than Martin Luther King Jr. Malcolm X claims in his speech A Message
to the Grassroots that white society quite simply has a problem with
African Americans because theyre African American. Malcolm states

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that, Americas problem is us. Were [Americas] problem. The only
reason [America] has a problem is because she doesnt want us here.
Malcolms tone in this speech is meant to make both black and white
people feel different from each other while Martin Luther King Jr. tried
to unite humanity as one. Malcolm X encourages all Negro people to
unify as one and realize that, [They] have a common oppressor, a
common exploiter, and a common discriminatorthe white man.
According to him, the African American community must exclude the
white man in order unify completely as, the same family. Instead of
a peaceful revolution, Malcolm X explains that no revolution can come
without the cost of bloodshed. The white man has used violence for his
revolution and a revolution for equality must be enacted with force if
necessary. Malcolm X had seen enough of the violence and
discrimination used against his family of African Americans for
generations and in his speech Message to the Grassroots is calling
for all black people to understand that their problems can only be
solved if they unite together and stand up against the white man, even
if it means fighting back with force.
The Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s ended the
century-long struggle of African Americans attempting to achieve
equality in the United States. However, before the Civil Rights Act of
1964 was passed, many activists projected their ideas on how equality
could be achieved in various forms of literature with different tones

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and messages. Martin Luther King Jr.s The World House from his
novel Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? highlighted
his core belief that human beings, both black and white, needed to
work together peacefully as brothers in order to promote true equality
and end suffering in the world. Malcolm X, on the other hand, believed
that white society was the enemy of equality and that all African
American people needed to realize they could only achieve true
equality via their own means, even if that meant violence and
portrayed his message in his speech to college students, Message to
the Grassroots. Both authors are revered civil rights activists that
inspired millions of people, but the violence and discrimination faced
by the African American community over time had lead these two men
to form differentiating opinions on how to solve those problems once
and for all.

Works Cited
"The Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project | George Lee."
The Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Nov.
2015.

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"King Institute Encyclopedia." King Institute Encyclopedia. N.p.,
n.d. Web. 03 Nov. 2015.