Did MLK overshadow Malcolm X or did their messages complement each other?

I should have been more clear. Regardless of what they were actually doing, the image they portrayed was one of separatism and change thru potential violence when necessary. These are not things that white Americans would accept, nor thought necessary. They tainted the civil rights movement in these respects. Ask any average person about Malcolm X and most will not remember that he recanted violence, only that he endorsed it and died violently (seemingly because of it).

If my ancestors only did what white folks would accept or thought necessary, the Civil Rights movement would have never gotten off the ground. Tainted? You continue to miss the point.

To look at it another way, did Malcolm X have anything to do with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Nope. In 1964, the vast majority of white Americans had no idea who he was.

No, of COURSE Dr. King didn’t get that law passed single-handedly. MANY people made that happen, and many people deserve more credit than they get.

Malcolm X was not one of those people.

Malcolm X was an inspiration to black people everywhere. Though he was a reigious man, his rhetoric did not involve beseeching Heavenly Father for rescue. He did not advocate meekness and passivity. He advocated self-agency, fighting off the shackles of internalized oppression, and fearlessness. He also reminded folks just what civil rights they were entitled to. The right to bear arms and protect oneself and family. You can’t have a civil rights movement and not discuss all civil rights.

Malcolm X may not have convinced a single white person that black people were entitled to their humanity, but he was successful in selling this message to millions of black people. He showed us that a person can fight with their words without resorting to violence, but that they don’t have to be afraid to use violence if that’s what the circumstances call for. We have to remember that even MLK’s associates weren’t all on the same page with regard to non-violence.

I was introduced to Malcolm X in the early 90s. I was in middle school when a lot of my black classmates started reading his autobiography–much to the chagrin of our teachers. Who should have been glad we were reading anything, but of course they weren’t. I remember one silly-headed teacher lecturing us for a half-hour on how “evil” Malcolm X was. Before that lecture, I didn’t have any interest in him. But of course after that, I decided he must have been pretty righteous to get Ms. Strickland riled up. People say that black people, especially black urban youths, don’t read, don’t have intellectual minds. But Malcolm X helped to prove them wrong. I know one young man who converted to Islam because of Malcolm X and stopped his ruffian ways.

MLK appealed to the “choir”. Malcolm spoke to folks who were tired of singing, who were tired of being told to repress their well-deserved anger to placate the good white people. MLK channeled this anger to productive action. Perhaps without him, the anger would have boiled over and destroyed everything that MLK had tried to do.

Any successful movement has to convince a majority. MLK’s strategy was able to do this. Malcolm X’s strategy was counterproductive. It is not about what white folks accept or think necessary, it is about what was effective. Non-violence was not the only idea of the civil rights movement, self defensewas definitely a part of it too.
However, Malcom X’s message was alot more than self defense and self reliance. It was also that white people were genetically created and bred to be evil and were unredeemable. It was the embrace of segregation to the point of working with the Klan to achieve a separate country for blacks. It was the rejection of Christianity and Christian morality. All of these were in opposition to the message of MLK that made the Civil Rights movement so successful.

Bottom line: MLK delivered tangible rights and improvements for black Americans.

Malcolm X made a lot of black Americans feel good abut themselves.

If people don’t feel good about themselves, then they might as well not have any rights.

Nobody is saying that Malcolm X was black people’s best hope. They’re saying that the threat of black uprisings - as personified by Malcolm X - made white people more willing to negotiate with non-violent black leaders like King.

As for Malcolm X’s assassination, it almost certainly was ordered by NOI leaders. But because they saw Malcom X as a rival to the Nation of Islam not because of his general role in the civil rights movement.

You’re still missing it. A lot of black people had no interest in Dr. King’s methods.

MLK advocated showing black people has worthy of respect and then it would be given to us.

Malcolm X stated you will respect me, NOW.

Both got people out of their homes and into the streets. Both made people stop passively accepting the status quo. I really wish both were still around, though I think they’d both be very disappointed with the state of race relations right now.

You’re seeing nuance that was not in the post I quoted.

As you’ve stated the post, I’ll accept to a point. Some white people were more willing to negotiate due to the threat of violence but not most. I have still never heard any defending Malcolm say that white people at the time were afraid of the NOI and that’s why black people got civil rights.

The only things that would have ever been effective are those that white people accepted and felt was necessary. They made the rules.

This would have been no more effective than John Brown’s raid a century earlier. Violence on whites encouraged by blacks would have had only one outcome: A whole lot of innocent dead blacks and the civil rights movement set back for another generation.

And they both died for their opinions. Killed by different people, of course; Malcolm X probably by the NOI & MLK by a “lone gunman”–he was beginning to address larger subjects, like Vietnam.

Even as a young white chick in Texas, I lived through those days. Hey, I saw Stokely Carmichael speak at TSU; young TSU radical Mickey Leland became a Congressman & had a great future until his death in a plane crash. (TSU is Texas Southern University, a historically black school near the University of Houston–integrated even then & now exceedingly diverse.) So I have some idea of the different contributors–even a few white ones.

Is there a good source for young folks to really learn about the struggle? At greater depth than a few quips on the internet?

Wow…an awful lot of whitesplaining in here…