To What Extent Did Malcolm X Offer Solutions to Racial Problems That Were Not Addressed by the SCLC?

by Bazza1972 in History, August 8, 2009

Malcolm X had notably different opinions and perspectives to the SCLC when it came down to solving issues relating to racial problems within the United States. Malcolm X and the SCLC would have arguably thought about the main racial problems affecting African Americans in the 1950s and also the 1960s. The lack of civil rights, officials not noticing discrimination, especially in the Southern states, as well as the well founded fear of racially motivated violence and even murders. Malcolm X had different perspectives with regard to racial problems than the SCLC and its most prominent member Martin Luther King, which can explain differences in their offering of solutions to such problems.

However Malcolm X and his own campaigns highlighted that racial problems in the Northern states were not exactly the same as the problems in the Southern states. Malcolm X argued that African Americans should campaign against racial discrimination, lack of opportunities and poverty yet been separated from the rest of the white dominated American society was not necessarily unfavourable provided that they dictated the terms of such segregation. The concepts of self-defence and voluntary separation from an un-welcoming American society as put forward by Malcolm X certainly gained influence within the Nation of Islam and beyond. Groups such as the Black Panthers took these concepts and developed them into more radical doctrines of violent protests and total segregation from the rest of American society. The Black Panthers therefore attempted to solve racial problems in ways completely contrary to the principles of the SCLC and Martin Luther King.

The 1960s were a decade that brought a great deal of contradictory and some would argue over due changes for the African American citizens of the United States, some of which Malcolm X and indeed Martin Luther King did not live to see being completed. These changes were largely achieved during the presidency of Lyndon B Johnson, and included the passing of civil rights amendments that were enacted without exception throughout the Southern states. After a century of appeasing to the racist Jim Crow laws the federal government finally enforced civil rights, the SCLC apparently achieving its main objectives. However instead of diluting racial problems, the Johnson administration had to deal with increased racial tensions, not helped by the unpopularity of the Vietnam war. Malcolm X himself moderated his views over racial problems in the last year or so of his life. He watered down his concept of voluntary separation of the races as a consequence of going on a pilgrimage to Mecca. As a result he argued that people of all racial backgrounds should live together in harmony whilst offering each other mutual respect. Malcolm X did not have long to spread his moderated views as he was assassinated in 1965, most probably by African Americans who favoured rigid segregation of the races.

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Thus to a large extent Malcolm X offered solutions to the racial problems faced by African Americans that were directly by the SCLC. That is not to say that the SCLC and Martin Luther King were completely unaware of the points that Malcolm X raised about racial problems in the United States, just that they adopted the tactics that suited their social and political objectives. The primary objective of the SCLC was to end legally enforced segregation and the Jim Crow laws that denied African Americans their civil rights in the Southern states. However Malcolm X addressed the racial situation from a different perspective as he argued that the African Americans in the Northern and Southern states faced different racial problems. Malcolm X contended that the passive non-violent protests of the SCLC would not work over the long-term, as the legal enforcement of civil rights would not solve racial problems overnight. The main concepts that he developed were that African Americans were entitled to act in self-defence and that they could voluntary separate from American society.