Civil Rights: An International Movement

Paper Summary:

The paper relates that although Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X are associated with different factions of the American Civil Rights movement, both leaders brought an international perspective to the persecution of African-Americans. The paper discusses Malcolm X's approach to violence and his view that community solidarity, rather than individual rights was required to remedy the situation. The paper relates that King's vision was multiracial and pacifist, but equally inclusive and expansive.

From the Paper:

"Malcolm X began his life as Malcolm Little, an admitted drug addict and criminal, who was redeemed through Islam, a non-American religion, and framed his own redemption in the context of a conversion narrative, and a narrative of nationalism that ultimately allied armed colonial struggle with the fight for African-American rights: "The same thing happened in Algeria, in Africa. They didn't have anything but a rifle," he said in one of his addresses making an analogy between the violent (as opposed to non-violent) colonial resistance of the successful Islamic resistance against the French in Algiers with the struggle of his people at home."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Marable, Manning & Leith Mullins. Let Nobody Turn us Around. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003

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