Malcolm X Speech Analysis

Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X Speech Strategies

During the Civil Rights Movement, there were two notable African-American activists who played essential roles in breaking racism towards Blacks in the 1950s to 1960s. These two leaders were Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. Though both had their own individual ideas on bringing racial tension to an end, they presented their beliefs through their influential speeches: I Have a Dream by King and The Ballot or the Bullet by Malcolm X. In their speeches, the two have similar and effective strategies in moving their audience, for example, both use inspirational tones as well as political references, however, their biblical references differs in religiously guiding their listeners.
Equally King and Malcolm X fulfill this by speaking on the discrimination towards Blacks and building hope in the listeners to believe this should end. For instance, on page two of the I Have a Dream speech, King stated that: “Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.” In this quote, King explains that the injustice Blacks had experience needs to stop and at this point in time, Blacks need to come together and then work with white people to develop a sense of equality for both races. Another example, from Malcolm X’s speech, is, “This is why I say it's the ballot or the bullet. It's liberty or its death. It's freedom for everybody or freedom for nobody.” Like King, Malcolm agrees that equality is a necessity, however his equality is for all Blacks, excluding white
Religion is one example. Starting with King, he declared in his speech, “And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!’” (pg. 6). King expressed that when equality came, all colors and religions would come together as one regardless of their differences. In Malcolm’s speech, he thought differently. “So today, though Islam is my religious philosophy, my political, economic and social philosophy is black nationalism. You and I –As I say, if we bring up religion, we'll have differences, we'll have arguments, and we'll never be able to get together. But if we keep our religion at home, keep our religion in the closet, keep our religion between ourselves and our God, but when we come out here we have a fight that's common to all of us against an enemy who is common to all of us.” Malcolm regarded that religion should not be involved in this movement. His opinion is that when religion is included, differences and arguments would begin and ‘we’ll never be able to get together.’ This