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Martin Luther King's Ideology

Decent Essays

Martin Luther King and his ideology was more effective for the Civil Rights movement, and helped the African American community grow forward.When starting out, both Martin Luther King and Malcolm X had polar opposite views as to how approach and attack oppression in the black community, and how the civil rights movement should go forth. Martin Luther King Jr. believed that all races could live together in the future, which was supported by his “I Have a Dream” speech and his opinion on desegregation. Malcolm X, on the other hand, believed that races could not live together peacefully, and so that they should be segregated and separated. Malcolm X eventually changed his position on this situation after he made a visit to Mecca, where he saw …show more content…

Just in the last few years alone infamous police shootings have led to the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, LaQuan McDonald, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Philando Castile, Alton Sterling, and the list goes on. The amount of gun violence in cities such as New York and Chicago would be absurd to MLK. Around 3,000 people were shot in Chicago last year, and 82% of the victims happened to be African Americans. African Americans account for two-thirds of the prison population in the United States, and for every three black men, one will spend time in prison at least at one point in his life. What would make MLK even more distraught is the fact that African American school dropouts would be more likely to be imprisoned than be employed. Not only would he be horrified on these deaths and prison statistics, but also the still racial inequality in other ways such as wealth and income. Whites have consistently made on average around $10,000 more than blacks have for the past ten years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Ku Klux Klan and other hate groups are still around, which would further more baffle Martin Luther King if he were to be alive in today’s world. He would most likely try to combat this similarly to how he did in the past; peaceful protests. He would not only have marches in Washington D.C., but places such as Los Angeles to peacefully fight the …show more content…

Malcolm X would be furious, and wouldn’t be afraid to use violent means to oppose this unfair and unequal treatment. He believed in “any means necessary” in order to achieve freedom and further what he believed in. If he were alive today, he would be likely to have had taken part in the recent riots in Baltimore, Maryland and Ferguson, Missouri. He would be an icon for many youth-led movements, and most likely use social media to reach his youthful audience and get his message across. Many of the Black Lives Matter movement are for the most part peaceful, however there are few in the movement that are very violent, taking part in Malcolm X’s ideology for using force to fight for what they believe in. For example, in June there was a Black Lives Matter protest in Dallas. Instead of being a peaceful protest, Micah Xavier Johnson shot and killed five police officers, making it the most deadly incident for law enforcement officers since the September 11th attacks. His motive was his resentment and anger related to police shootings, and wasn’t afraid to open deadly fire against innocent police officers. With this in mind, many important figures would not be violent in this time period, in order to be politically correct.

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