How are Malcolm X and Frederick Douglass Alike and Different

Frederick Douglass was very fortunate to have learned how to read. In his time if you were a slave and had no education you couldn’t escape to freedom. Frederick Douglass’s key to education was his mistress (155). At first she was very nice and was giving him the education he needed and wanted but then from the influence of her husband she became rotten and denied him the right to his education “My mistress, who had kindly commenced to instruct me, had in compliance with the advice and direction of her husband no, not only ceased to instruct, but had set her face against my being instructed by anyone else” (155). But then he was fortunate enough to get some boys around where he lived to continue teaching him “The plan which I adopted, and the one by which I was most successful, was that of making friends of all the little white boys whom I met in the street. As many of these I could I could, I converted into teachers,

This investigation will answer the question “To what extent did Martin Luther King’s and Malcolm X’s ideas converge during the last period of their lives?”. This is a significant question because it deals with two iconic figures of the Civil Rights Movement who have come to represent opposite approaches to emancipation. Thus, whether they had actually come closer in terms of their ideas may throw a whole different light on the way we tend to understand them.

Comparing Martin Luther King and Malcolm X Martin Luther King and Malcolm X are to diverse individuals with two opposite personalities but both successfully succeeded in achieving freedom and bringing equality to black Americans discriminated against for many years even after the abolishment of slavery. Martin Luther King was born in 1929, in Georgia, Atlanta. Unlike the other black people in the southern states he was different he grew up in well off family who was freely educated a key factor in his personal achievements. During his younger adult years just like his father who was a preacher King decided to work in the Christian church as a Baptist Minster. He idolised Mohandas Karamchand

never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their adulthood and robbed of their

Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X were very huge leading figures during the Civil Rights movement. Though they had many differences, they had some similarities. Both men’s fathers were preachers and both men were religious preachers themselves. Dr. King and Malcolm X were around the same age and they were both assassinated. Coincidentally, both men had the same number of children and eventually they had the same ideologies for the Civil Rights Movement. However, Dr. King and Malcolm X were different in ways such as Malcolm X wanted black supremacy and Dr. King wanted equality, Malcolm X saw violence as an option to achieve his goals if peace did not work and Dr. King believed in complete nonviolence, and Malcolm X

During the 1960s, Malcolm X was one of many articulate and powerful leaders of black America. Before he was a street hustler and spent seven years in prison, where he educated himself. Before this time, he was almost completely illiterate. He describes how he could hardly compose a sentence with a straight line or correctly articulates words, let alone read and write. Not being able to express his thoughts and feelings in the letters he wrote inspired him to educate himself. Malcolm then became one of the leading spokesman for African American separatism. Unlike Malcom X Frederick Douglass escaped to New York, where he became a leader in the abolitionist movement. Frederick was born a slave and couldn’t read or write at all. His mistress was teaching him how to read and write but suddenly was against instructing him so he

They are many similarities in the achievements of Fredrick Douglass and Malcom X in the way they taught themselves to be literate in the tone of their writings. Both men did not receive an education in the proper way of teaching. As a slave, Fredrick Douglass

Martin Luther King Jr. and Frederick Douglass both were African Americans who were faced with the facts of slavery and the injustice of it all. The difference between the two of them is the fact that one of them and the power and ?freedom? to go out and do something about what they believe is the right way. Mr. Douglass had

* Malcolm X was brought up in the 'ghetto', and had to learn to defend himself against racist white children. He was deptived of his father, who was found dead, murdered by a white mob. His mother became mentally ill so he was sent to a foster home.

Not at all like Douglas with no educational basis at all, Malcolm then again had gotten a training that of an eighth grader however time passed and soon did he overlook his lessons. He could figure out how to read yet couldn't pass on his words onto paper. In jail, he had time, time to restore his training and strengthen it. He started to compose, beginning with the dictionary he started adapting word for word, page for page, area by segment beginning with the An's and completing with the Z's. In his entry, Malcolm gives an announcement to set up a thought of what sort of training he persisted, "Between what I wrote in my tablet, and composing letters, amid whatever is left of my time in jail I would figure I composed a million words."

The subject matter of both excerpts can be easily compared. It seems like Malcolm X went through a lesser version of what Frederick went through. Both writers access to a sense of freedom when they began learning how to read and write. It is obvious that Malcolm would spend a portion of his excerpt talking about the time he spent in jail while Douglass would talk about the burdens of slavery. Learning how to read and write was like a forbidden apple to both writers. So getting that first bite opened their eyes to all the things around them that the whites tried to conceal. Frederick Douglass had spent his early years in slavery and the harsh conditions of slavery cannot in be compared to jail, where everyone (black or white) is treated like a criminal. Both writers, Malcolm X and Frederick Douglass both use similar yet different subject matters in their excerpts.

Both Malcolm X and Frederick Douglass fought against racism with their education. In his early years, Malcolm X was at the top of his class yet he did not receive the same encouragements as his caucasian counterparts. In his autobiography, he depicted a scene where in his English teacher, Mr Ostrowski, said, “ Malcolm, one of life’s first needs is for us to be realistic. Don’t misunderstand me, now. We all here like, you know that. But you’ve got to be realistic about being [an African American]. A lawyer -- that’s no realistic goal for [an African American],” (X 38). While Mr Ostrowski said these things to Malcolm, he encouraged all the other children to pursue their passions. He also suggested for Malcolm to be a carpenter

"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed - we hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal" (King, “I HAVE A DREAM…,” pg.4 ¶.5). Both Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X were major figures in the fight for racial equality but their ideals were diametrically opposed. In MLK JR’s March on Washington speech, he calls for peaceful resistance and integration into an equal society. Malcolm X, however, disagrees with that in his Message to Grassroots and argues equality cannot be obtained peacefully and that living together wouldn’t be much better than slavery. By comparing the two men’s goals and messages expressed in these speeches we can gain an understanding of the feelings of the general populace on the issues of racial inequity.

Malcolm X made more of an impact on the Civil Rights Movement than Martin Luther King JR. Malcolm X lived through extreme hardship and poverty leading to a life of crime; prison eventually altered his whole perspective about his role in society. Unlike MLK JR, whose purpose was predetermined in a household with strict boundaries and Christian love. Most notably, it was his excellency as a scholar that gave MLK JR his signature; being that at only 15 years of age he enrolled into Morehouse College. However, it was Malcolm X with the intelligence of peace through the Nation of Islam and spirituality of Black Nationalism, these components made him the one who is best to philosophize accurately about removing blacks from oppression in the USA.

Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. were both known as civil right leaders in the 1960’s. Both men had a different perspective on civil rights and how civil rights should be won. Both men also had strong beliefs on religious and followed on through that path in different ways. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X had several differences and several comparisons and had a big impact for the people of The United States.