Socratic Seminar: The Civil Rights Movement, Malcolm X vs. MLK
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.
Federal troops escort the “Little Rock Nine” into school
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!”
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.
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.
- 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.
- 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 productionshould 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.