Mr. Anderson



Socratic Seminar: The Civil Rights Movement, Malcolm X vs. MLK

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Malcolm X (1925-1965) Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)

Questions: Whose tactics do you agree with most, and why? Whose tactics would most likely achieve the goals of the Civil Rights Movement?

Background: Malcolm X and Martin Luther King were both major leaders of the Civil Rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s. Though both were well-known and gained many supporters (and detractors), they had radically different views on how African-Americans should attain their civil rights.

Instructions: read through the following documents. Analyze 1) the nature of the Civil Rights movement in the U.S. in the ‘50s & ‘60s, 2) Malcom X’s proposed tactics to protect black citizens and ensure their civil rights, 3) Martin Luther King’s proposed tactics to protect black citizens and ensure their civil rights. When we have the socratic seminar on Friday April 25th, be prepared to argue whose tactics YOU would follow / support the most.

Grading: 25% of your grade will be based on your answers to the questions in this packet; the other 75% of your grade will be based on your participation in the socratic seminar on Friday April 25th.

BROWN v. BOARD OF EDUCATION, 347 U.S. 483 (1954)

347 U.S. 483

BROWN ET AL. v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF TOPEKA ET AL.

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT

OF KANSAS. * No. 1.

Argued December 9, 1952. Reargued December 8, 1953.

Decided May 17, 1954.

Segregation of white and Negro children in the public schools of a State solely on the basis of race, pursuant to state laws permitting or requiring such segregation, denies to Negro children the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment - even though the physical facilities and other "tangible" factors of white and Negro schools may be equal.

Question 1: What did the above Supreme Court case rule? What practice did it end in America (especially in the South)?

The “Little Rock Nine” were a group of African-American students who enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957. Their enrollment was an important step in the desegregation of Southern schools, but caused a huge backlash from the white community and Southern politicians. The Little Rock Nine were admitted only after President Eisenhower intervened and used the 101st Airborne Division to protect the students.

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Federal troops escort the “Little Rock Nine” into school

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Question 2: What action is Mayor Mann asking President Eisenhower to do? Why is such an action necessary?

George Wallace served as governor of Alabama from 1963-1967, 1971-1979, and 1983-1987. Wallace was an ardent supporter of segregation. The following is a short excerpt from Wallace’s first inaugural address as governor:

“In the name of the greatest people to have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and throw the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!”

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Gov. Wallace stood in the doorway of the admissions office at the University of Alabama in 1963 in an attempt to stop the integration of black students into the university.

Question 3: How could someone like George Wallace influence your opinion on the main question for the socratic seminar? Whose tactics would work better against the power of someone like Wallace? Malcolm X’s or Martin Luther King’s?

The following is a news article recounting the events of the infamous bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama.

Six Dead After Church Bombing

Blast Kills Four Children; Riots Follow

Two Youths Slain; State Reinforces

Birmingham Police

United Press International

September 16, 1963

Birmingham, Sept. 15 -- A bomb hurled from a passing car blasted a crowded Negro church today, killing four girls in their Sunday school classes and triggering outbreaks of violence that left two more persons dead in the streets.

Two Negro youths were killed in outbreaks of shooting seven hours after the 16th Street Baptist Church was bombed, and a third was wounded.

As darkness closed over the city hours later, shots crackled sporadically in the Negro sections. Stones smashed into cars driven by whites.

Five Fires Reported

Police reported at least five fires in Negro business establishments tonight. A official said some are being set, including one at a mop factory touched off by gasoline thrown on the building. The fires were brought under control and there were no injuries.

Meanwhile, NAACP Executive Secretary Roy Wilkins wired President Kennedy that unless the Federal Government offers more than "picayune and piecemeal aid against this type of bestiality" Negroes will "employ such methods as our desperation may dictate in defense of the lives of our people."

Reinforced police units patrolled the city and 500 battle-dressed National Guardsmen stood by at an armory.

City police shot a 16-year-old Negro to death when he refused to heed their commands to halt after they caught him stoning cars. A 13-year-old Negro boy was shot and killed as he rode his bicycle in a suburban area north of the city.

Question 4: What would Malcolm X or MLK say about this incident? Whose tactics might this event inspire blacks to adopt?

Rosa Parks – a black seamstress living in Montgomery, Alabama – became a Civil Rights icon when she refused to giver up her seat to whites on a segregated bus in 1955. She was arrested for her actions, but a Montgomery Bus Boycott by the black community resulted. The following are newspaper headlines about the boycott.

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Question 5: What method did Rosa Parks use to fight segregation? How successful was it?

The Blank Panther Party was formed in 1966-1982 (though it still it exists in some forms). It is usually considered a radical organization, and was important in the Black Power and counterculture movements in the 1960s. Below is the Black Panther Party’s 10 point program, drafted in 1966.

1. We Want Freedom. We Want Power To Determine

The Destiny Of Our Black Community.

We believe that Black people will not be free until we are able to determine our destiny.

2. We Want Full Employment For Our People.

We believe that the federal government is responsible and obligated to give every man employment or a guaranteed income. We believe that if the White American businessmen will not give full employment, then the means of production should be taken from the businessmen and placed in the community so that the people of the community can organize and employ all of its people and give a high standard of living.

3. We Want An End To The Robbery

By The Capitalists Of Our Black Community.

We believe that this racist government has robbed us, and now we are demanding the overdue debt of forty acres and two mules. Forty acres and two mules were promised 100 years ago as restitution for slave labor and mass murder of Black people. We will accept the payment in currency which will be distributed to our many communities. The Germans are now aiding the Jews in Israel for the genocide of the Jewish people. The Germans murdered six million Jews. The American racist has taken part in the slaughter of over fifty million Black people; therefore, we feel that this is a modest demand that we make.

4. We Want Decent Housing Fit For The Shelter Of Human Beings.

We believe that if the White Landlords will not give decent housing to our Black community, then the housing and the land should be made into cooperatives so that our community, with government aid, can build and make decent housing for its people.

5. We Want Education For Our People That Exposes

The True Nature Of This Decadent American Society.

We Want Education That Teaches Us Our True History

And Our Role In The Present-Day Society.

We believe in an educational system that will give to our people a knowledge of self. If a man does not have knowledge of himself and his position in society and the world, then he has little chance to relate to anything else.

6. We Want All Black Men To Be Exempt From Military Service.

We believe that Black people should not be forced to fight in the military service to defend a racist government that does not protect us. We will not fight and kill other people of color in the world who, like Black people, are being victimized by the White racist government of America. We will protect ourselves from the force and violence of the racist police and the racist military, by whatever means necessary.

7. We Want An Immediate End To

Police Brutality And Murder Of Black People.

We believe we can end police brutality in our Black community by organizing Black self-defense groups that are dedicated to defending our Black community from racist police oppression and brutality. The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States gives a right to bear arms. We therefore believe that all Black people should arm themselves for self- defense.

8. We Want Freedom For All Black Men

Held In Federal, State, County And City Prisons And Jails.

We believe that all Black people should be released from the many jails and prisons because they have not received a fair and impartial trial.

9. We Want All Black People When Brought To Trial To Be Tried In

Court By A Jury Of Their Peer Group Or People From Their Black

Communities, As Defined By The Constitution Of The United States.

We believe that the courts should follow the United States Constitution so that Black people will receive fair trials. The Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution gives a man a right to be tried by his peer group. A peer is a person from a similar economic, social, religious, geographical, environmental, historical and racial background. To do this the court will be forced to select a jury from the Black community from which the Black defendant came. We have been, and are being, tried by all-White juries that have no understanding of the "average reasoning man" of the Black community.

10. We Want Land, Bread, Housing, Education,

Clothing, Justice And Peace.

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature's God entitle them, a decent respect of the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and, accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

Question 6: Do you agree with any of these points? If so, which ones and why? Are there any that are too radical? If so, which ones and why?

The following are excerpts from Martin Luther King’s famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail” written on April 16, 1963. King had been arrested on April 12 in Birmingham for defying an injunction against “parading, demonstrating, boycotting, trespassing and picketing.”

“... I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their "thus saith the Lord" far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid...

... In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self purification; and direct action. We have gone through all these steps in Birmingham. There can be no gainsaying the fact that racial injustice engulfs this community. Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of brutality is widely known. Negroes have experienced grossly unjust treatment in the courts. There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any other city in the nation. These are the hard, brutal facts of the case. On the basis of these conditions, Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers. But the latter consistently refused to engage in good faith negotiation...

... You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored...

... One may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all."

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority...”

Question 7: What does MLK hope his nonviolent protests will achieve? How does he justify breaking laws?

From MLK’s speech “Nonviolence and Racial Justice,” 1957

Alternative to Violence

The alternative to violence is nonviolent resistance. This method was made famous in our generation by Mohandas K. Gandhi, who used it to free India from the domination of the British empire. Five points can be made concerning nonviolence as a method in bringing about better racial conditions.

First, this is not a method for cowards; it does resist. The nonviolent resister is just as strongly opposed to the evil against which he protests as is the person who uses violence. His method is passive or nonaggressive in the sense that he is not physically aggressive toward his opponent. But his mind and emotions are always active, constantly seeking to persuade the opponent that he is mistaken. This method is passive physically but strongly active spiritually...

A second point is that nonviolent resistance does not seek to defeat or humiliate the opponent, but to win his friendship and understanding. The nonviolent resister must often express his protest through noncooperation or boycotts, but he realizes that noncooperation and boycotts are not ends themselves; they are merely means to awaken a sense of moral shame in the opponent. The end is redemption and reconciliation. The aftermath of nonviolence is the creation of the beloved community, while the aftermath of violence is tragic bitterness.

A third characteristic of this method is that the attack is directed against forces of evil rather than against persons who are caught in those forces. It is evil we are seeking to defeat, not the persons victimized by evil. Those of us who struggle against racial injustice must come to see that the basic tension is not between races...

A fourth point that must be brought out concerning nonviolent resistance is that it avoids not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. At the center of nonviolence stands the principle of love. In struggling for human dignity the oppressed people of the world must not allow themselves to become bitter or indulge in hate campaigns. To retaliate with hate and bitterness would do nothing but intensify the hate in the world. Along the way of life, someone must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate. This can be done only by projecting the ethics of love to the center of our lives...

... it means understanding, redeeming good will for all men, an overflowing love which seeks nothing in return. It is the love of God working in the lives of men. When we love on the agape level we love men not because we like them, not because their attitudes and ways appeal to us, but because God loves them. Here we rise to the position of loving the person who does the evil deed while hating the deed he does.

Finally, the method of nonviolence is based on the conviction that the universe is on the side of justice. It is this deep faith in the future that causes the nonviolent resister to accept suffering without retaliation. He knows that in his struggle for justice he has cosmic companionship. This belief that God is on the side of truth and justice comes down to us from the long tradition of our Christian faith. There is something at the very center of our faith which reminds us that Good Friday may reign for a day, but ultimately it must give way to the triumphant beat of the Easter drums..

Question 8: Who does MLK use as inspiration for nonviolence resistance? How does he justify nonviolence as being effective and non-cowardly?

Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little. He changed his last name to “X” in 1950. Malcolm X said that the “X” represented his true African family name that he could never know. The name Little was a name that, according to Malcolm X, was given to his slave ancestors by some “blue-eyed devil” slave-owner. Unlike the Baptist Martin Luther King, Malcolm X was a Muslim, having converted in prison in 1948. Like King, he died as the result of assassination. The following are exceperts from Malcolm X’s controversial “The Ballot or the Bullet” speech, given in 1964.

Before we try and explain what is meant by the ballot or the bullet, I would like to clarify something concerning myself. I'm still a Muslim; my religion is still Islam. That's my personal belief. Just as Adam Clayton Powell is a Christian minister who heads the Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York, but at the same time takes part in the political struggles to try and bring about rights to the black people in this country; and Dr. Martin Luther King is a Christian minister down in Atlanta, Georgia, who heads another organization fighting for the civil rights of black people in this country; and Reverend Galamison, I guess you've heard of him, is another Christian minister in New York who has been deeply involved in the school boycotts to eliminate segregated education; well, I myself am a minister, not a Christian minister, but a Muslim minister; and I believe in action on all fronts by whatever means necessary.

Although I'm still a Muslim, I'm not here tonight to discuss my religion. I'm not here to try and change your religion. I'm not here to argue or discuss anything that we differ about, because it's time for us to submerge our differences and realize that it is best for us to first see that we have the same problem, a common problem, a problem that will make you catch hell whether you're a Baptist, or a Methodist, or a Muslim, or a nationalist. Whether you're educated or illiterate, whether you live on the boulevard or in the alley, you're going to catch hell just like I am. We're all in the same boat and we all are going to catch the same hell from the same man. He just happens to be a white man. All of us have suffered here, in this country, political oppression at the hands of the white man, economic exploitation at the hands of the white man, and social degradation at the hands of the white man.

Now in speaking like this, it doesn't mean that we're anti-white, but it does mean we're anti-exploitation, we're anti-degradation, we're anti-oppression. And if the white man doesn't want us to be anti-him, let him stop oppressing and exploiting and degrading us. Whether we are Christians or Muslims or nationalists or agnostics or atheists, we must first learn to forget our differences. If we have differences, let us differ in the closet; when we come out in front, let us not have anything to argue about until we get finished arguing with the man. If the late President Kennedy could get together with Khrushchev and exchange some wheat, we certainly have more in common with each other than Kennedy and Khrushchev had with each other.

If we don't do something real soon, I think you'll have to agree that we're going to be forced either to use the ballot or the bullet. It's one or the other in 1964. It isn't that time is running out -- time has run out!

...And now you're facing a situation where the young Negro's coming up. They don't want to hear that "turn the-other-cheek" stuff, no. In Jacksonville, those were teenagers, they were throwing Molotov cocktails. Negroes have never done that before. But it shows you there's a new deal coming in. There's new thinking coming in. There's new strategy coming in. It'll be Molotov cocktails this month, hand grenades next month, and something else next month. It'll be ballots, or it'll be bullets. It'll be liberty, or it will be death. The only difference about this kind of death -- it'll be reciprocal. You know what is meant by "reciprocal"? That's one of Brother Lomax's words. I stole it from him. I don't usually deal with those big words because I don't usually deal with big people. I deal with small people. I find you can get a whole lot of small people and whip hell out of a whole lot of big people. They haven't got anything to lose, and they've got every thing to gain. And they'll let you know in a minute: "It takes two to tango; when I go, you go."

Now, who is it that opposes you in carrying out the law? The police department itself. With police dogs and clubs. Whenever you demonstrate against segregation, whether it is segregated education, segregated housing, or anything else, the law is on your side, and anyone who stands in the way is not the law any longer. They are breaking the law; they are not representatives of the law. Any time you demonstrate against segregation and a man has the audacity to put a police dog on you, kill that dog, kill him, I'm telling you, kill that dog. I say it, if they put me in jail tomorrow, kill that dog. Then you'll put a stop to it. Now, if these white people in here don't want to see that kind of action, get down and tell the mayor to tell the police department to pull the dogs in. That's all you have to do. If you don't do it, someone else will.

If you don't take this kind of stand, your little children will grow up and look at you and think "shame." If you don't take an uncompromising stand, I don't mean go out and get violent; but at the same time you should never be nonviolent unless you run into some nonviolence. I'm nonviolent with those who are nonviolent with me. But when you drop that violence on me, then you've made me go insane, and I'm not responsible for what I do. And that's the way every Negro should get. Any time you know you're within the law, within your legal rights, within your moral rights, in accord with justice, then die for what you believe in. But don't die alone. Let your dying be reciprocal. This is what is meant by equality. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

Question 9: How are Malcolm X’s views different from MLK’s? Do you agree with any of his views? Why or why not?

The following is an excerpt from Malcolm X’s 1963 speech called “God’s Judgment on White America.” Malcolm X delivered this speech two weeks after John Kennedy’s assassination.

Can we prove that the Negro revolution is controlled by white liberals? Certainly!

Right after the Birmingham demonstrations, when the entire world had seen on television screens the police dogs, police clubs, and fire hoses brutalizing defenseless black women, children, and even babies, it was reported on page twenty-six in the May 15 issue of The New York Times, that the late President Kennedy and his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, during a luncheon conference with several newspaper editors from the State of Alabama, had warned these editors that they must give at least some token gains to the moderate Negro leaders in order to enhance the image of these moderate Negro leaders in the eyesight of the black masses; otherwise the masses of Negroes might turn in the direction of Negro extremists. And the late President named the Black Muslims as being foremost among the Negro extremist groups that he did not want Negroes to turn toward.

In essence, the late President told these southern editors that he was trying to build up the weak image of the Negro civil rights leaders, in order to offset the strong religious image of the Muslim leader, The Honorable Elijah Muhammad. He wasn't giving these Negro leaders anything they deserved; but he was confessing the necessity of building them up, and propping them up, in order to hold the black masses in check, keep them in his grasp, and under his control. The late President knew that once Negroes hear The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, the white liberals will never influence or control or misuse those Negroes for the benefit of the white liberals any more. So the late President was faced with a desperate situation.

Martin Luther King's image had been shattered the previous year when he failed to bring about desegregation in Albany, Georgia. The other civil rights leaders had also become fallen idols. The black masses across the country at the grass roots level had already begun to take their cases to the streets on their own. The government in Washington knew that something had to be done to get the rampaging Negroes back into the corral, back under the control of the white liberals.

The government propaganda machine began encouraging Negroes to follow only what it called "responsible" Negro leaders. The government actually meant Negro leaders who were responsible to the government, and who could therefore by controlled by the government, and be used by that same government to control their impatient people. The government knows that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad is responsible only to God and can be controlled only by God. But this white government of America doesn't believe in God!

Let us review briefly what happened last spring: In May in Birmingham, Negroes erupted and retaliated against the whites. During the many long weeks when the police dogs and police clubs and the high-pressure water hoses were brutalizing black women and children and babies, and the Birmingham Negroes had called for the government to intervene with Federal troops, the late President did nothing but sit on his hands. He said there was nothing he could do. But when Negroes in Birmingham exploded and began to defend themselves, the late President then sent in Federal troops, not to defend the Negroes, but to defend the whites against whom the Negroes had finally retaliated.

At this point, spontaneous demonstrations began taking place all over the country. At the grass roots level Negroes began to talk about marching on Washington, tying up the Congress, the Senate, the White House, and even the airport. They threatened to bring this government to a halt. This frightened the entire white power structure. The late President called in the Negro civil rights leaders and told them to bring this "march" to a halt. The Negro civil rights leaders were forced to tell the late President that they couldn't stop the march because they hadn't started it. It was spontaneous, at the grass roots level across the country, and it had no leadership whatsoever. When the late President saw that he couldn't stop the march, he joined; he endorsed it; he welcomed it; he became a part of it; and it was he who put the six Negro civil rights leaders at the head of it. It was he who made them the Big Six.

How did he do it? How did he gain control of the March on Washington? A study of his shrewd strategy will give you a glimpse of the political genius with which the Kennedy family was ruling this country from the White House, and how they used the America Negro in all of their schemes. The late President endorsed the march; that should have been the tip-off. A few days later in New York City, at the Carlysle Hotel, a philanthropic society known as the Taconic Foundation, headed by a shrewd white liberal named Stephen Currier, called a meeting of the six civil rights leaders in an effort to bring unity of action and purpose among all the civil rights groups.

After Martin Luther King had been released from his Birmingham jail cell in May, he traveled from coast to coast in fund-raising campaign for his Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Roy Wilkins then began to attack King, accusing him of stirring up trouble, saying that after the NAACP would bail out King and the other demonstrators, then King would capitalize on the trouble by taking up all the money for his own organization, leaving the NAACP to hold the bag at a great financial loss.

Question 10: Why does Malcolm X believe that some civil rights leaders and movements are not effective? Do you agree with him? Why or why not?

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