THE LEADERS

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta Georgia. In 1948 he graduated from Morehouse with a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree in sociology, and enrolled in Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania and graduated with a Bachelor of Divinity (B.D.) degree in 1951.

In 1953 he became the pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. When in 1955 Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to comply to segregation law, E.D. Nixon, the president of Montgomery NAACP chapter and King led the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

In 1957 he founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to harness the moral authority and organizing power of black churches to conduct non-violent protests in the service of civil rights reform.

King was deeply committed to the philosophy of nonviolent civil disobedience. King believed that organized, nonviolent protest against southern segregation would lead to extensive media coverage of the civil rights movement and its struggle for desegregation. He organized and led marches for blacks' right to vote, desegregation, labor rights and other basic civil rights, which were enacted into United States law with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

In 1963 King, along with Roy Wilkins of NAACP, Whitney Young, Jr. of Urban League, A. Philip Randolph of Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, John Lewis of SNCC and James Farmer of Congress of Racial Equality organized the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. In Washington D.C., in front of Lincoln Memorial King addressed more than 250 000 protesters and delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.

On October 14, 1964, King became the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, which was awarded to him for leading non-violent resistance to end racial prejudice in the United States.

On April 3 1968, King went to Memphis, Tennessee and addressed a rally. The next day he was assassinated by James Early Ray on the balcony of his motel room. This assassination led to nationwide wave of riots in more than 60 cities.

Five days later, President Lyndon B. Johnson declared a national day of mourning for the lost civil rights leader. A crowd of 300,000 attended his funeral that same day. Per King's request, his good friend Mahalia Jackson sang his favorite hymn, "Take My Hand, Precious Lord", at the funeral.

Malcolm X

Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little on May 19, 1925., as the fourth child of his father’s second marriage.

His father, Earl Littler was a preacher who had felt on his own skin what racism is: three of his brothers were savagely murdered by white men and his uncle had been lynched. Malcolm’s mother Louise was conceived when her own mother had been raped by a white man.

After his father's death, Malcolm's mother suffered a mental breakdown and in 1938 she was declared legally insane and committed to a mental institution. After a series of foster homes and a short time in a detention center Malcolm ended up in Boston, living with his older half-sister, Ella Little Collins.

Soon after he left Boston and moved to New York. There he worked as a shoe-shiner at a Lindy Hop nightclub and then became involved in Harlem’s drug dealing, gambling and racketeering.

When examined for the World War II draft, he was classified as “mentally disqualified for military service” : in order to avoid being drafted he told the doctor he couldn’t wait to organize Black soldiers and start killing white people.

In 1946 he was charged with Grand Larceny and Breaking and Entering and sentenced to eight to ten years in Massachusetts State Prison. While he was in prison, Malcolm came into contact with the Nation of Islam and impressed, he converted to Islam.

In 1952 he was paroled and went to Chicago to meet Elija Muhammad, the leader of Nation of Islam. He changed his surname to “X”, to symbolize rejection of “slave names” and the absence of an inherited African name to take its place, but also the brand that many slaves received on their upper arm as s symbol of slavery.

In 1954, Malcolm X was selected to lead the Nation of Islam's mosque #7 on Lenox Avenue in Harlem, whose membership rapidly expanded after he took over.

Malcolm X had great energy; he was also a compelling public speaker and brought the NOI to nationwide acclaim. He became famous after the media, especially radio and television started bringing his speeches and quotes to all parts of the US, and later the world, making him the second most influential leader of the movement, after Elijah Muhammad. This fame also brought him resentment from other members of the NOI.

He is credited with increasing the membership of NOI: when he joined it numbered only 500 members, but until 1963 it increased to 30 000. Malcolm inspired boxer Cassius Clay to join NOI and change his name to Muhammad Ali.

In 1964 he broke from the NOI and converted to orthodox Islam and made his Hajj. He also rejected many of NOI teachings, stating that racism wasn’t about “whites against blacks” but that every race on every continent suffered racism in some form.

With tensions increasing between Malcolm and the Nation of Islam, Malcolm’s life became endangered. Several members of NOI confessed to him that they were ordered to kill him and his house was burned to the ground in 1965.

On February 21, 1965, during a speech in Manhattan’s Audubon Ballroom, three men fired multiple shots at Malcolm from guns and a shotgun and Malcolm X was pronounced dead on arrival at the Columbian Presbyterian Hospital. His funeral was attended by more that fifteen hundred people, with his friends burying Malcolm themselves.