To Fight or To Love
Description: How do you gain your freedom… through the good fight or through compassion? Looking back at two of our country’s most memorial men, Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, I am able to choose which path to follow (essay written for Contemporary American History).
Martin Luther King Jr. was a civil rights leader in the twentieth century. He through-heartily believed that non-violence was the solution for fixing any type of problem. Since Martin King was raised with a lot of religious influence he developed a nonviolent philosophy for social change. However, he did not start off with a nonviolence belief. Martin King gradually changed his beliefs due to some experiences that occurred to him. These events made him realize that violence could not possibly get rid of violence.
Martin King was and forever will be a very important man to know and understand. He is the ideal model for fighting for one’s beliefs and rights with political “love”. That is exactly what his nonviolence approach was, a political love. Martin King was the one who made the stepping-stone for social change. It is not only important to know whom he was but also what he preached. He wanted people to understand that he was not telling people to run away, but to not commit harm to those harming them. Everyone is human and as humans we should live in harmony instead of hate. Martin King’s approach was not just talk; we must understand that his approach did win “battles” and that it is possible for nonviolence to stop violence.
Despite Martin King’s winning battles there was one person who effectively critiqued him; he was Malcolm X. People who that were not convinced that Martin King’s nonviolence approach would get them anywhere turned to Malcolm X. Malcolm X philosophy was the exact opposite of Martin Kings. He argued with King that Black Power was more effective then the nonviolent approach that King proposed. When Malcolm talked he would not sugarcoat anything instead he would bluntly critic white Americans ideals.
Through some hard life experiences Malcolm developed his way of thinking; get them before they get you. While King would thank the white Americans for their support, Malcolm would actually called them hypocrites. His methods were brutal; Malcolm would constantly degrade whites. However it is important to understand that what Malcolm was doing was not promoting violence, but self-defense. There is a big and important difference between the two. Malcolm did want blacks to sit back and take violence from whites. He wanted blacks to stand up for themselves; in other words an eye for an eye.
If I had to pick a model that could be used to today, then I would pick Martin King’s nonviolence approach. Why? The approach just seems much more logically – especially in today’s world. How can we stop people from hating and killing each other if we’re not making the first step to stop. We can never just make our differences go away, but we can make them co-exist like Martin King preached. Degrading each other’s beliefs won’t do anything, but create more hate. I honestly believe that sitting down and talking out our problems would put a stop to the amount of violence we have. It is not an overnight approach and it will probably take years for it to be fully in effect, but in the long run it would work.