3. Strain, Christopher Barry. “Civil Rights and ... - Freedom Archives

The public's desire for simplicity, as reflated by his treatment in the media,
consistently cast Malcolm X in a posture of aggression . He never advocated wanton
violence, but it seemed that the American public-whites in particular, but many blacks,
too-could understand him only in opposition to what they perceived as the pacifism of
Martin Luther King, Jr . This juxtaposition with King made Malcolm seem, to many white
observers, a violent and unreasonable ogre . The violent/nonviolent dichotomy tended to box
King into a defense of nonviolence as it constrained Malcolm within a figurative cage of
violence .
For each, the question of violence boiled down to a question of ends and means . For
Malcolm, self-defense was a matter of "plain, common sense ."~ 2 For King, any form of
violence was as much immoral as it was impractical . Violence was evil . The end is always
pre-existent in the means ; therefore, for King, violence could never serve a good end . King's
deep commitment to the brotherhood of man clinched his adoption of nonviolence, but a
certain degree of pragmatism and cold realism also drove King to nonviolence . As a
nume~cal minority, violent revolution was an impossibility for black Americans in the
United States . Numbers and material resources prohibited long-term violent rebellion by
black Americans.~3 King was aware of these variables, as was Malcolm ; therefore, there had
to be another way . The key for Malcolm, as it was for Robert Williams and others, was self-
defense .
~2John Henrik Clarke, ed ., Malcolm X: The Man and His Times (New York : Collier
Books, 1969), 197 .
~3For more on King's sense of the futility of revolution, which he called "blatantly
illogical," see King, Where Do We Go From Herr?, 58-59.
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