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| Martin Luther King meets Malcolm X |
Martin Luther King, Jr. was one of the most influential
figures in the American civil rights movement. King took a principled approach
to his leadership rather than a populist approach. While the movement gave King
the opportunity to lead, his leadership style differed greatly from other
public leaders of his time. He developed many unpopular public positions
including denouncing the Vietnam War and proposing non-violent solutions to
various problems in society. King had more enemies and was more controversial
than the history books often portray. One of King’s close friend’s believes
that ‘those on the right breathe deeply and polish King’s rough edges into a
more acceptable and harmless national icon.’ This
essay explores the difficult and unpopular decisions that King made in order to
be philosophically consistent in his leadership. Rather than appeasing the
demos, King sought to express his deep conviction about poverty, justice, and
racism.
King began his leadership of the Montgomery Improvement
Association (MIA) reluctantly. He had previously refused leadership roles in
the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured Peoples (NAACP) citing
family and church obligations. In response to the offer of leadership within
the MIA, he surprised his colleagues and said, ‘well, if you think I can render
some service I will.’ At this stage of his career King had only
recently received his PhD in systematic theology, and he had passed up academic
jobs to pursue this vocation. King wrote that he was ‘possessed by fear’ that
he would not be able to carry it off and was ‘obsessed by a feeling of inadequacy.’ Even at
this early stage of his career it is noticeable from records of King’s sermons
at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church that he did in fact have a strong conscience
and articulate expression, priming him for leadership in this area of moral and
social change. King, before he received work at Dexter Avenue Baptist, courageously
told the congregation at a ‘trial’ sermon that ‘no man should become so
involved in his personal ambitions that he forgets that other people exist in
the world.’
However acute his moral conscience was, King was by no means
responsible for initiating the American civil rights movement. King was
effectively thrown into the position of presidency of the MIA as a communal
response to the arrest of Mrs Rosa Parks who was charged with ‘refusing to obey
orders bus drivers [sic].’ She was
ordered to give up her seat for a white person yet she refused. King led a mass
boycott of the Montgomery bus services in response to the protest of civil
disobedience by Rosa Parks. Soon
after, King was chosen to be president of the MIA, he fully realised his
vocation - standing up for justice, truth, and righteousness. King’s
passion and drive for the cause of civil rights in America was unwavering from this
point onwards (January 27, 1956, to be precise). Three days later his house was
bombed yet still his passion did not subside. To the large crowd of ‘angry
black citizens’ King said ‘I want you to love our enemies. Be good to them.
Love them and let them know you love them.’
King was able to personify and embody, in this moment, the
philosophy and theology that inspired him and the movement which he led.
Through his courageous leadership in Montgomery, King proved that he lead on
principle rather than popularity, which explains why he later refused to go
into public office. The non-violence that King preached would now be
responsible for shaping a movement and avoiding a civil war. King decided to
wage the war on racism and segregation on moral grounds through non-violent
means. King’s moral convictions led him to state: ‘frankly, I am for immediate
integration. Segregation is evil, and I cannot, as a minister, condone evil.’ This utterance
was in a similar vein to another American revolutionary, William Lloyd
Garrison, who in 1831 decided that ‘it was immoral to favour the continuance
for an hour of a system which is morally wrong’ and therefore did not support
the gradual improvement to an evil system.
Anything else would be a compromise.
Malcolm X’s leadership of the black Muslims has proved to be
one of the most interesting points of comparison to King’s leadership role in
the movement. Although both leaders sought similar ends, they attempted to
achieve those ends through means which were diametrical opposed. Malcolm
X sought unification on the understanding that black Americans have a common
enemy – white men. He told his followers to ‘put the white man out of our
meetings, number one’, so that blacks could present a unified front. Malcolm X,
in a television interview described King as ‘the best weapon that white man,
who wants to brutalize negroes, has ever gotten [sic] in this country, because
he is setting up a situation where, when white man wants to attack Negroes,
they can’t defend themselves.’ In a
telegram to King, Malcolm X offered armed troops to aid his struggle in attempt
to sway King from his commitment to non-violence. The telegram concluded: ‘the
day of turning the other cheek to those brutes is over.’ This
drew the key philosophical distinction between the two leaders of the civil
rights movement.
In Message To Grassroots Malcolm X questioned: ‘How
can you justify being nonviolent in Mississippi and Alabama, when your churches
are being bombed, and your little girls are being murdered, and at the same
time you’re going to [sic] violent with Hitler, and Tojo, and somebody else
that you don’t even know?’ Malcolm X used the international analogy to point
out the inconsistency of King’s position. He had ran
out of patience for King’s nonviolent direct action. Malcolm X summed up: ‘if
violence is wrong in America, violence is wrong abroad’. In
saying this, Malcolm X used international violence to justify domestic
violence. King would later speak out against the war in Vietnam and use
domestic nonviolence to justify international nonviolence.
King disagreed with the means that Malcolm X sought to utilise
to achieve higher status of black Americans. King believed that the value of an
action should be found in the action itself, not in the outcome, writing that
‘immoral means cannot bring about moral ends’. King
describes non-violent resistance as ‘the most potent weapon available to
oppressed people in their struggle for freedom and human dignity’, arguing that
it ‘weakens his morale’ and ‘works on his conscience.’ For
King, non-violence was the appropriate moral means to achieve the sought-after
end. This philosophical belief was deeply inspired by King’s strong religious
convictions and also by his visit to India. In India, King learnt about the
movement which Gandhi led. After this visit King was even more confident that
the struggle could only be won through non-violent means. One of King’s friends
goes so far as to say that ‘Gandhi and Dr King were cut from the same cloth,
long-lost brothers from different mothers.’ The
means that King employed to pursue his passion are crucial for understanding
him as a leader of the civil rights movement. King’s principles almost always
trumped his desire for the best outcome or any desire for popularity. This is
what separated King from many other leaders at the time.
King received two layers of criticism because of his strong
convictions. Heated criticism was received within his own ranks as well as from
outside observers, particularly the media. Within his own ranks, many activists
working with King did not share his strong convictions of nonviolence, or they
did so arbitrarily. Andrew Young, a friend and supporter of King only
implemented nonviolence ‘because it was a practical solution’ and because
‘machine gunning down someone at a lunch counter or in a bus wouldn’t have been
good public relations.’ The
strongest of criticisms, however, only came to surface once King had spoken out
against America’s role in Vietnam. Young, and some of King’s other friends were
against King taking a public stance on Vietnam because it ‘would confuse the
issue of civil rights with a non-relevant international military dispute.’ King,
however, decided to follow his conscience and publically state that the Vietnam
War was a ‘blasphemy against all that America stands for.’ King
provoked a strong reaction from the media with one Washington Post reporter
alleging that King’s speech against America’s role in Vietnam ‘was filled with
bitter and damaging allegations and inferences that he did not and could not
document’. The reporter went on to suggest that ‘many who have listened to him
with respect will never again accord him the same confidence. He has diminished
his usefulness to his cause, to his country and to his people.’ Others
suggested that King should ‘stick to his own knitting’, and that he was
‘pandering to Ho Chi Minh.’
King’s public stance on Vietnam proves an element of
consistency in his views. It is clear that King spoke out against the war
because of his deep conviction. He believed that this was the right thing to
do, regardless of whether it would have a negative impact on the civil rights
movement which he worked tirelessly to build. Even before he consulted others
in the movement, Clark, a close friend of King felt ‘it was clear that Martin
had already made his own decision to state publically … his anti-Vietnam war
position.’
This is yet another example of King’s conscience driven leadership. King was
often encouraged by his peers to enter politics, but he felt that elected
officials ‘had to represent the majority’, whereas King ‘wanted to be a voice
for the voiceless.’ King
did not have a desire to represent the views of others, but to lead in a way
that would ensure that the oppressed are listened to. When King spoke out
against Vietnam, the Washington Post reported that ‘73% of American
people disagree with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in his denunciations of the
war in Vietnam and 60 per cent believe his position will hurt the civil rights
movement.’
Reverend Tim Costello, the CEO of World Vision Australia, who was inspired by
King, believes that unpopular decisions in leadership are some of the most
important. For the same reasons as King, Costello also decided not to enter
public office on a federal level citing that he would have to follow the people
if he is their democratically elected leader. Like King, Costello prefers the
role of the prophet, suggesting that the ‘prophet is one who is prepared to go
against where the people are going, even in the opposite direction because it’s
right.’ King’s
principled approach to morality provoked strong criticism, even to being labelled
a ‘sell out’ by Malcolm X. This criticism
did nothing to weaken King’s convictions.
When considering whether the movement made King, or whether
King made the movement, it is important to note that King did not happen to be
a minister of the gospels by sheer chance. King’s father, grand-father, great
grand-father and father’s brother were all pastors. It
almost seems as though King was destined for his role in the church. However,
as a person representing an economically and socially marginalised group of
society, King would have needed a great deal of persistence and motivation to
achieve in the way he did.
As King’s profile increased to celebrity status, attempts to
assassinate his character also augmented greatly. Not only was criticism
directed at King from the media, but now it was also being sent from government
organisations. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover described King as ‘the most
notorious liar in the country’, in attempt to destroy his platform. The
joint smear campaign by the FBI and the media was unable to crush King’s
spirit. Until the day King was assassinated he spoke out against the evils
which confronted him.
It is clear that King went well above what was expected from
him in his role as a pastor. While he was a ‘good candidate’ for a leadership
role in the American civil rights movement, he did not gain his status through
sheer luck. Years of study, dissatisfaction with the status quo, and strong stances
on public moral issues meant that King was well placed to lead the movement he propelled.
While external environmental factors such as the movement itself were important
parts of King’s leadership, it is clear that he embodied many great leadership
qualities in and of himself. The distinction between the philosophies of
Malcolm X and Martin Luther King which have been explored in this paper have
shown how Malcolm X followed the mood of disenfranchised black Muslims in
America while King took unpopular decisions in accordance with his conscience
which turned him into a leader. All leaders have a relationship with those they
lead, however, only few leaders have the ability to make difficult and
unpopular decisions in order to act morally. King was one of few leaders who
led like an unwelcome prophet.
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