History

During the 1960s, America was a racist society. In the southern United States, blacks and whites were segregated. African-Americans did not have the right to vote, to public education, even to the use of public facilities, and suffered harassment, discrimination, violence, and brutality. This era also gave birth to the Black civil rights movement in America. At the forefront were two charismatic leaders Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. While both Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X are considered the most influential leaders of the Black civil rights movement, differences in their upbringing, religious views and ideology made Martin Luther King, Jr. a reformist who preached integration and equality through nonviolence and Malcolm X, a nationalist who advocated for a separate Black nation by any means necessary.  In the end, both leaders were felled by assassins bullets, Malcolm X in 1965 and Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968. Despite their acknowledged contributions to the cause of racial equality, only Martin Luther King, Jr. was given a US federal holiday in his honor to pacify the revolutionary passions of Black Americans.

Origins The Poor vs. the Elite
In terms of their socioeconomic origins, the two greatest leaders of the Black Civil Rights Movement were on opposite ends one came from the Black poor and the other, from the Black elite. One was born and raised in a privileged middle-class family who had opportunities for education and the other grew up out of an impoverished home in a community fueled by racist hatred and violence.
Malcolm X, or Malcolm Little, was born in Omaha, Nebraska on May 19, 1925. Malcolm had a radical Baptist minister father who was very active in the black nationalist group Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) (X  Haley 15). His fathers activism made the Little family vulnerable to racist threats from white supremacists such as the Ku Klux Klan and the Black Legion. Young Malcolm witnessed their house burned to the ground by white people, his father allegedly beaten to death, and his mother succumb to insanity. Having only poverty and hunger to define his childhood, Malcolm turned to crime and antisocial activities. He was later imprisoned on a burglary conviction but would leave prison a completely different man. He educated himself, read philosophy, literature, and history, and found Islam, which would later provide him the theology to justify black liberation.  From Malcolm Little, Malcolm dropped the white mans surname and changed it to X.
On the other hand, Martin Luther King, Jr. was born in Atlanta, Georgia on January 15, 1929 to a family that was a member of Atlantas black elite (Ling 14).  Despite this, Martins parents educated him on the history of slavery and taught him principles of social justice. Compared to Malcolms childhood, Martins comfortable upbringing protected him from racist hatred equivalent to that in the South, but its impact was something that infuriated him nevertheless (Ling 19). Blacks were treated inhumanely, from being banned from Whites Only establishments to being subjected to filthy and unkempt facilities (Ling 22). Martin was fortunate to have a good education. He went to Booker T. Washington High School and graduated from Morehouse College with a degree in sociology. Afterwards, Martin enrolled in Chester, Pennsylvanias Crozer Theological Seminary and obtained a degree of Bachelor of Divinity in 1951. In 1955, he was awarded a doctorate degree in systematic theology from Boston University (Martin Luther King 11).

Theologies The Muslim Imam and the Christian Minister
Malcolm X embraced Islam while Martin Luther King, Jr. was a preacher of Christianity. Malcolm became an Imam of the Nation of Islam and served in Philadelphias Temple No. 12 while Martin a pastor of Montgomery, Alabamas Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. The religions they embraced accounted for differences in the philosophies and methods they used to struggle for racial equality. Black Islam fueled Malcolms rhetoric of black nationalism (Goldman 21). He viewed that an end to the oppression of the blacks all over the world should be guided by a faith that permitted revolution or jihad to protect ones country. He believed the white man as a race of devils (Sales 15) and Christianity a white mans tool to pacify the Blacks. Islam, coupled with his Garveyite philosophy translated into the concepts of black pride and led to his self-emancipation.

Martins religion was the backbone of his nonviolent struggle for full racial equality. He believed that the church was responsible in leading the Black peoples aspirations for human dignity, equality, and liberation (Martin Luther King 34). Using Christian theology, Martin successfully placed the question of racism as a moral dilemma that confronted both Black and White Christians. To White Christians, he critiqued their apathy toward racial discrimination as a violation of Christian identity. To Black Christians, he rallied them to be obedient to God but cease becoming blind to the harsh realities of racism.

Philosophy  Integrationism vs. Pan-African Nationalism
Both Malcolm and Martin recognized that there was a need to eliminate racism and white domination in America but different on their guiding philosophies. Malcolm X believed that Black liberation is possible only through Black nationalism and later on, Pan-African nationalism. Malcolm called for self-reliance through separation. He envisioned the black community as one whose political, economic and social life was controlled by the Blacks for the Blacks. The thrust was on economic self-sufficiency and cultural transformation by removing the degradations  vices, prostitution, narcotics, and anti-social evils  that corrupt the moral fiber of the African American community (Sales 87). Social liberation of the Blacks should encompass not only America, but to other parts of the world.

Martins concept of racial equality was built on integration and assimilation. With the American Constitutions as basis, Martins integrationist perspective was driven by challenging the contradictions that existed in American society that belie the promise of freedom, justice, and equality (Baldwin and al-Hadid 260). To Martin, racial discrimination clashes with the very idea of democracy upon which the nation was built. Through nonviolent sabotage or civil disobedience, Martin rallied the Black Americans to persevere in challenging the White-dominated democracy. As a Christian, Martin also effectively questioned Americas commitment to the Judeo-Christian values it claims it is premised on.

Methods Passive Resistance vs. Self-Defense
Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X advocated for different forms of struggle based on their philosophies. Martins form of struggle was passive resistance or nonviolence, a method inspired by Christian ethics. Martin emphasized on the Christian philosophy of turn-the-other-cheek instead of confrontation in leading the civil rights movement (Martin Luther King 34). Malcolm rejected this turn-the-other-cheek philosophy. Citing the 1776 American, French Revolution, and Russian Revolution, Malcolm asserted that a revolution is based on land and inherently bloody. Where Martin called for nonviolent demonstrations,  sit-ins, mass meetings, prayer vigils and other peaceful activities, Malcolm called on the Blacks to defend themselves by any means necessary (qtd. in Rubnick, Smith, and Rubin 122).

Moving Oratory vs. Make It Plain Speech
Aside from being political leaders, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X were cultural leaders who used powerful oratory to create a new consciousness in Black America. Martins evangelical style made his speeches intellectual, moving, and had the effect of electrifying the crowd. His I Have A Dream speech is considered one of the greatest speeches in American history (Baldwin and Al-Hadid 35). Malcolm impressed the crowd because of his shocking, vivid, graphic, visceral speeches (Sales 208). Malcolms wit and humor had the effect of making it plain to the African American masses. Unlike Martin who had difficulty communicating with the Black working class (Ling 311), Malcolm lectured in a style that the poor could understand (Goldman 34).

Conclusion
For their strengths as well as their weaknesses, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. are undoubtedly two of the most charismatic and influential leaders of the African-American community. At the height of their struggles, Martin dominated the political scene while Malcolm X was the odd one out for presenting the revolutionary option for Black America (Sales 95). Nevertheless, Malcolms theory of self-defense and nationalism emerged as the alternative to Martins nonviolent rhetoric (Sales 125). Of the two greatest leaders the Black Civil Rights movement has ever known, it was Martin Luther King, Jr. who reaped the most awards and citations. Perhaps the greatest award to honor his legacy was the establishment of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day as a national holiday in 1986 and observed today every January 15 in 50 states all across the United States. The national holiday was a tribute to his greatness as well as an institutional decision to quell the passions of a furious Black American community who have effectively demonstrated their capacity to revolt. Indirectly, the holiday also stood for the canonization of Kings legacy of nonviolence and the vilification of Malcolms ideas of revolution and self-defense. In a sense, according to author William Sales, the U.S. ruling class presented the younger generation of Blacks with a co-opted image of Dr. King in order to quell their revolutionary impulses (93). Despite this fact, Malcolm X and his ideas have been immortalized and given more attention during the 90s through television and literature. While opposite in beliefs, the legacy of both Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. remain relevant to the continuing struggle for full racial equality today.