In the land of the free the constitution gives us the right to freedom of speech and the right to peaceful protest. Unfortunately, the peaceful part is slowly fading away and now the only way to get your voice heard is if you push the envelope. The only protest you tend to hear about is the potential violent protest that the media love to feed on and show us to make the world scared. For example recently with the Glenn Beck restoring honor rally it was painted as a violent protest and a possible act of terror so it gathered a lot of media coverage, but after it was over and no acts of violence was committed it was rarely covered by any media outlet other then Fox News. When you look back on coverage of the Senate Bill 1070 for Arizona you only saw the small majority on the news who protested against the bill and never the ones who were for it even though there were protests in favor of the bill. Why is this you might ask is because of the potential for violence and arrests were greater at the protest against the bill that the media covered that side more. I being this point up before going into U.S. Civil Rights movement because if you look back to most movements it was the ones that ended in violence that tended to have most results and covered more by the media.
While Malcolm X, Dr King and the Black Panther Party had different ways of expressing their ways to protest, I believe that all had a similar goal for the African American Community. Each group believed in the same thing such as equal rights for African Americans, better jobs, equal housing etc. Though they might have believed the same thing, they all went about it in a different manner on how they protested it and expressing their beliefs. Some ways that were expressed was a violent manner and others were non violent.
Dr. King and Malcolm X believed in the same general idea that black people should have the same rights and privileges as white people and the only difference is how they got their message out. Dr. King was raised in a good family with a father who was a well know preacher. Because of his up bringing he believed that he would gather a large amount of people and keep his protest peaceful. Dr. King felt that if he kept the protest peaceful he would better get the word out about equal rights.
Malcolm X was different from Dr. King by his father was killed by who he believed to be radical white men. After his father died his family lived below the poverty line living on welfare and government assistance. His mother was then later committed to an insane asylum which caused him to be placed in foster care. He then became addicted to drugs and committed crimes which ended up with him in jail. While in prison he met a father figure that led him towards the Black Nationalism. Malcolm X predominantly preached about violence against the white man and at one point called for black people to get arms to protect themselves. As you can see Dr. King and Malcolm X had a very different upbringing which most likely caused the difference in protest methods.
Matt,
ReplyDeleteI too find it interesting that the only people we saw protesting SB 1070 were those that were opposed to it. You didn't hear anything about those that supported this bill. What really bothers me the most was the fact that many of these protestors descreated the United States flag yet they wanted to live here. On one occasion the news outlets showed a large United States flag on the ground and people were walking on it or painting on it. Another news outlet showed students in California protesting by carrying Mexican flags but no American flags. I understand they have a voice and they want to be heard but if you wan to stay here shouldn't you honor the flag of that country.
One thing that many people forget is that in his early years he worked as a drug dealer, pimp, committed robbery and was heavily into gambling. It wasn't until he became a meber of the Nation of Islam while he was in prison. From here his radical preaching lead him to become a promient figure in Black Nationalism.