Informative Research Essay Assignment



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National coverage of the boycott and King’s trial resulted in support from people outside Montgomery. In early 1956 veteran pacifists Bayard Rustin and Glenn E. Smiley visited Montgomery and offered King advice on the application of Gandhian techniques and nonviolence to American race relations. Rustin, Ella Baker, and Stanley Levison founded In Friendship to raise funds in the North for southern civil rights efforts, including the bus boycott. King absorbed ideas from these proponents of nonviolent direct action and crafted his own syntheses of Gandhian principles of nonviolence. He said: ‘‘Christ showed us the way, and Gandhi in India showed it could work’’ (Rowland, ‘‘2,500 Here Hail’’). Other followers of Gandhian ideas such as Richard Gregg, William Stuart Nelson, and Homer Jack wrote the MIA offering support.
On 5 June 1956, the federal district court ruled in Browder v. Gayle that bus segregation was unconstitutional, and in November 1956 the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed Browder v. Gayle and struck down laws requiring segregated seating on public buses. The court’s decision came the same day that King and the MIA were in circuit court challenging an injunction against the MIA carpools. Resolved not to end the boycott until the order to desegregate the buses actually arrived in Montgomery, the MIA operated without the carpool system for a month. The Supreme Court upheld the lower court’s ruling, and on 20 December 1956 King called for the end of the boycott; the community agreed. The next morning, he boarded an integrated bus with Ralph Abernathy, E. D. Nixon, and Glenn Smiley. King said of the bus boycott: ‘‘We came to see that, in the long run, it is more honorable to walk in dignity than ride in humiliation. So … we decided to substitute tired feet for tired souls, and walk the streets of Montgomery’’ (Papers 3:486). King’s role in the bus boycott garnered international attention, and the MIA’s tactics of combining mass nonviolent protest with Christian ethics became the model for challenging segregation in the South.

Citation: “The Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955 - 1956).” The Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute. Stanford University, n.d. Web. 8 Nov. 2009.



Web Links:

1) Nobel Peace Prize Speech: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1964/king-lecture.html

2) “I Have a Dream” Speech: www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbUtL_0vAJk

3) Photo and Video Archive from The King Center: http://www.thekingcenter.org/PhotoVideo/Default.aspx

4) Eyes on The Prize: Primary Source: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eyesontheprize/sources/index.html

Topic: Malcolm X
Primary Source: “What Does Mississippi Have to Do With Harlem?” (1964 Speech)
In fall 1964, after the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party's delegates had been denied seats at the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, Malcolm X delivered this speech.
...How can you and I be looked upon as men, with black women being beaten, and nothing being done about it? Black children and black babies being beaten, and nothing being done about it? No, we don't deserve to be recognized and respected as men, as long as our women can be brutalized... and nothing can be done about it except we sit around singing "We Shall Overcome."
...If they don't want to deal with the Freedom Democratic Party, then we'll give them something else to deal with. If they don't want to deal with the Student Nonviolent Committee, then we have to give them an alternative. Never stick someone out there without an alternative. We waste our time. Give them this or give them that. Give them the choice between this or that...
...We will never communicate talking one language and he's talking another language. He's talking the language of violence...Let's learn his language. If his language is with a shotgun, get a shotgun. If he only understands the language of a rifle, get a rifle. If he only understands the language of a rope, get a rope. But don't waste time talking the wrong language to a man, if you want to really communicate with him. Speak his language. And there's nothing wrong with that. If something was wrong with that language, the Federal government would have stopped the cracker from speaking it to you and me.
I might say, secondly, some people wonder well, what does Mississippi have to do with Harlem?... America is Mississippi. There's no such thing as a Mason-Dixon line. It's America. There's no such thing as the South. It's America. If one room in your house is dirty, you've got a dirty house. If the closet is dirty, you've got a dirty house. Don't say that that room is dirty but the rest of my house is clean. You're over the whole house. You have authority over the whole house. The entire house is under your jurisdiction. And the mistake that you and I make is letting these northern crackers shift the weight to these southern crackers.
Every senator from a state where our people are deprived of the right to vote, they're in Washington, D.C. illegally...
...Out of 36 [Congressional] committees that govern the foreign and domestic direction of this country, 23 are in the hands of southern racists. And the reason they're in the hands of southern racists is because the areas from which they come the black man is deprived of his right to vote. If we had the ballot in that area, those racists would not be in Washington, D.C. There'd be some black faces there. There'd be some brown and some yellow and some red faces there. there'd be some faces other than those cracker faces that are there right now. So what happens in Mississippi and the south has a direct bearing on what happens to you and me here in Harlem.
And likewise, out of the Democratic party, which black people supported -- recently, I think, something like 97 percent -- all of these crackers -- and that's what they are, crackers -- they belong to the Democratic party. That's the party they belong to. Same one you belong to. Same one you support. Same one you say is going to get you this, and get you that.
Why, the base of the Democratic party is in the South. The foundation of its authority is in the South. The head of the Democratic party is sitting in the White House. He could have gotten Mrs. Hamer in Atlantic City. He could have opened up his mouth and had her seated. Hubert Humphrey could have opened his mouth and had her seated. Wagner, the mayor, right here, could have opened up his mouth, and used his weight, and had her seated. Don't be talking about some crackers down in Mississippi, in Alabama, in Georgia. All of them are playing the same game. Lyndon B. Johnson is the head of the cracker party...
...These northern crackers are in cahoots with these southern crackers. Only these northern crackers smile in your face, and show you their teeth, then they stick the knife in your back when you turn around....
Wagner is a Democrat. He belongs to the same party as Eastland. Johnson is a Democrat. He belongs to the same party as Eastland. Now, Wagner was in Atlantic City... Lyndon B. Johnson was in Atlantic City. Hubert Humphrey was in Atlantic City. The crackers that you voted for were in Atlantic City. What did they do for you when you wanted to sit down? They were quiet. They were silent. They said don't rock the boat...
As Mrs. Hamer pointed out, the brothers and the sisters in Mississippi are being beaten and killed for no reason other than they want to be treated as first-class citizens. There's only one way to be a first-class citizen. There's only one way to be a first-class citizen. There's only one way to be independent. There's only one way to be free. It's not something that someone gives to you. It's something that you take... If you can't take it you don't deserve it. Nobody can give it to you...

We obey the law... But at the same time, at any moment that you and I are involved in any kind of action that is legal, that is in accord with our civil rights, in accord with the courts of this land, in accord with the Constitution, when all of these things are on our side and we still can't get it...
We have to let the people in Mississippi as well as New York and elsewhere know, that freedom comes to us either by ballot, or by bullet. That's the only way freedom is gotten. Freedom is gotten by ballot, or bullet. These are the only two avenues, the only two roads, the only two methods or means, either ballot or bullet. When you know that, then you are careful how you use the word freedom...
They've always said that I'm anti-white. I'm for anybody who's for freedom. I'm for anybody who's for freedom. I'm for anybody who's for justice. I'm for anybody who's for equality. I'm not for anybody who tells me to sit around and wait for mine. I'm not for anybody who tells me to turn the other cheek when a cracker is busting up my jaw. I'm not for anybody who tells black people to be nonviolent while nobody is telling white people to be nonviolent...


Citation: X, Malcolm. “What does Mississippi Have to do with Harlem?” Harlem, NY. 1964. Rally speech.

Audio file available at: http://www.brothermalcolm.net/mxwords/whathesaidarchive.html


Secondary Source #1: “Malcolm X (1925 – 1965)”
As the nation’s most visible proponent of Black Nationalism, Malcolm X’s challenge to the multiracial, nonviolent approach of Martin Luther King, Jr., helped set the tone for the ideological and tactical conflicts that took place within the black freedom struggle of the 1960s. Given Malcolm X’s abrasive criticism of King and his advocacy of racial separatism, it is not surprising that King rejected the occasional overtures from one of his fiercest critics. However, after Malcolm’s assassination in 1965, King wrote to his widow, Betty Shabazz: “While we did not always see eye to eye on methods to solve the race problem, I always had a deep affection for Malcolm and felt that he had the great ability to put his finger on the existence and root of the problem” (King, 26 February 1965).
Malcolm Little was born to Louise and Earl Little in Omaha, Nebraska, on 19 May 1925. His father died when he was six years old – the victim, he believed, of a white racist group. Following his father’s death, Malcolm recalled, “Some kind of psychological deterioration hit our family circle and began to eat away our pride” (Malcolm X, Autobiography, 14). By the end of the 1930s Malcolm’s mother had been institutionalized, and he became a ward of the court to be raised by white guardians in various reform schools and foster homes.
Malcolm joined the Nation of Islam (NOI) while serving a prison term in Massachusetts on burglary charges. Shortly after his release in 1952, he moved to Chicago and became a minister under Elijah Muhammad, abandoning his “slave name,” and becoming Malcolm X (Malcolm X, “We Are Rising”). By the late 1950s, Malcolm had become the Nation of Islam’s leading spokesman.
Although Malcolm rejected King’s message of nonviolence, he respected King as a “fellow-leader of our people,” sending King articles on the NOI as early as 1957 and inviting him to participate in mass meetings throughout the early 1960s (Papers 5:491). While Malcolm was particularly interested that King hear Elijah Muhammad’s message, he also sought to create an open forum for black leaders to explore solutions to the “race problem” (Malcolm X to King, 31 July 1963). King never accepted Malcolm’s invitations, however, leaving communication with him to his secretary, Maude Ballou.
Despite his repeated overtures to King, Malcolm did not refrain from criticizing him publicly. “The only revolution based on loving your enemy,” Malcolm told an audience in 1963, “is the Negro revolution…That’s no revolution” (Malcolm X, “Message to the Grass Roots,” 9).

In the spring of 1964, Malcolm broke away from the NOI and made a pilgrimage to Mecca. When he returned he began following a course that paralleled King’s – combining religious leadership and political action. Although King told reporters that Malcolm’s separation from Elijah Muhammad “holds no particular significance to the present civil rights efforts,” he argued that if “tangible gains are not made soon all across the country, we must honestly face the prospect that some Negroes might be tempted to accept some oblique path [such] as that Malcolm X proposes” (King, 16 March 1964).
Ten days later, during the Senate debate on the Civil Rights Act of 1964 King and Malcolm met for the first and only time. After holding a press conference in the Capitol on the proceedings, King encountered Malcolm in the hallway. As King recalled in a 3 April letter, “At the end of the conference, he came and spoke to me, and I readily shook his hand.” King defended shaking the hand of an adversary by saying that “my position is that of kindness and reconciliation” (King, 3 April 1965).

Malcolm’s primary concern during the remainder of 1964 was to establish ties with the black activists he saw as more militant than King. He met with a number of workers from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), including SNCC chairman, John Lewis and Mississippi organizer Fannie Lou Hamer. Malcolm saw his newly created Organization of African American Unity (OAAU) as a potential source of ideological guidance for the more militant veterans of the southern civil rights movement. At the same time, he looked to the southern struggle for inspiration in his effort to revitalize the moribund Black Nationalist movement.
In January 1965, he revealed in an interview that the OAAU would “support fully and without compromise any action by any group that is designed to get meaningful immediate results” (Malcolm X, Two Speeches, 31). Malcolm urged civil rights groups to unite, telling a gathering at a symposium sponsored by the Congress of Racial Equality, “We want freedom now, but we're not going to get it saying 'We Shall Overcome.' We've got to fight to overcome" (Malcolm X, Malcolm X Speaks, 38).
In early 1965, while King was jailed in Selma, Alabama, Malcolm traveled to Selma, where he had a private meeting with Coretta Scott King. “I didn’t come to Selma to make his job difficult,” he assured Coretta. “I really did come thinking that I could make it easier. If the white people realize what the alternative is, perhaps they will be more willing to hear Dr. King” (Scott King, My Life, 256).
On 21 February 1965, just a few weeks after his visit to Selma, Malcolm X was assassinated. King called his murder a “great tragedy” and expressed his regret that it “occurred at a time when Malcolm X was…moving toward a greater understanding of the nonviolent movement” (King, 24 February 1965). He asserted that Malcolm’s murder deprived “the world of a potentially great leader” (King, “The Nightmare of Violence”). Malcolm’s death signaled the beginning of bitter battles involving proponents of the ideological alternatives the two men represented.

Citation: “Malcolm X (1925 – 1965).” The Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute. Stanford University, n.d. Web. 8 Nov. 2009.


Secondary Source #2: “The Life of Malcolm X”
If one had to select one historical personality within the period 1940 to 1975 who best represented and reflected black urban life, politics, and culture in the United States, it would be extremely difficult to find someone more central than the charismatic figure of Malcolm X/El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz. Born in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1925, and growing up in the Midwest, young Malcolm Little was the child of political activists who supported the militant black nationalist movement of Marcus Garvey. After his father’s violent death and his mother’s subsequent institutionalization due to mental illness, Little was placed in foster care and for a time in a youth detention facility. At age sixteen he left school, relocating to Boston upon the invitation of his older half-sister, Ella Little. During World War II, the zoot-suited “Detroit Red” became a small-time hustler, burglar, and narcotics dealer in Harlem and Roxbury.
In January 1946, Little was arrested for burglary and weapons possession charges, and received a ten-year sentence in the Massachusetts prison system. While incarcerated, Little’s siblings introduced him to the Nation of Islam, a tiny black nationalist-oriented religious movement led by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. Converting to the NOI’s version of Islam, Little experienced a spiritual and intellectual epiphany behind bars. Emerging from prison in August 1952, as Malcolm X, the talented and articulate young convert was soon the assistant minister of the NOI’s Detroit Temple No. 1. . In 1954, Malcolm X was named minister of Harlem’s Temple No. 7, which he led for just short of a decade. As an itinerant spokesman for black nationalism, Malcolm X traveled constantly across the country, winning thousands of new converts to the NOI.
Between 1955 and 1961, Malcolm X was personally responsible for establishing more than one hundred Muslim temples or mosques throughout the U.S. As the chief public spokesperson for Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm built the NOI from a marginal sect to a spiritual organization of over one hundred thousand. By the early 1960s, Malcolm X was a widely celebrated (and feared) public speaker and debater at universities and in the national media. The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s efforts to discredit the Nation and its leaders led the agency to engage in illegal acts of wiretapping, surveillance, disruption, and harassment.
In 1960 Malcolm X established the newspaper Muhammad Speaks, which by the end of the decade would have a national circulation of 600,000, the most widely-read black-owned newspaper in the country. However, by this time, serious divisions developed between Malcolm X and the NOI’s patriarch, Elijah Muhammad, and his coterie of organizational leaders based in Chicago, over a number of issues. Malcolm X was personally dismayed when it was publicly revealed that Muhammad had fathered a number of children out of wedlock. He also chafed under the NOI’s political conservatism and its refusal to support civil rights protests.
In reaching out to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., James Farmer, and other civil rights leaders, Malcolm X proposed a broad coalition of black activist organizations, working in concert to achieve social justice.
In March, 1964, Malcolm X announced publicly his break from the NOI. He soon created two new organizations, the Muslim Mosque, Inc., designed for former NOI members as a spiritually-based group, and the secular-oriented Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU).
Converting to traditional Islam, Malcolm X completed his spiritual hajj to Mecca in April, 1964, and returned to the United States the next month as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz.
During his two extended journeys through Africa and the Middle East in 1964, Malcolm X gained new insights into the problem of racism. In his Autobiography, he later wrote: “I was no less angry than I had been, but at the same time the true brotherhood I had seen had influenced me to recognize that anger can blind human vision.” He now believed that race war was not inevitable, and felt that “America is the first country … that can actually have a bloodless revolution.”
Malcolm X’s new political strategy called for building black community empowerment, through tools such as voter registration and education, economic self-sufficiency, and the development of independent politics. He called upon African Americans to transform the civil rights movement into a struggle for international human rights.
Malcolm X emphasized the parallels between the African-American struggle for equality and the Asian, Latino, and African campaigns against European colonialism. Malcolm X also drew attention for criticizing the growing U.S. military involvement in Vietnam.
Upon Malcolm X’s return to the United States in November 1964, death threats escalated against him and his family. in the early morning hours of February 14, 1965, his home in Elmhurst, Queens, was firebombed.
On Sunday afternoon, February 21, 1965, just before delivering an address at the Audubon Ballroom, Malcolm X/El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz was assassinated before a crowd of hundreds of people, including his pregnant wife Betty Shabazz and three of their four children.
The profound religious and political sojourn of Malcolm X was hardly noticed in the immediate aftermath of his assassination. The New York Times editorialized that Malcolm was “an irresponsible demagogue” and “an extraordinary and twisted man,” who had utilized his “true gifts to evil purpose.” Time magazine declared that the dead leader was “an unashamed demagogue” whose “gospel was hatred.” But others saw Malcolm X more clearly. President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana sent a telegram of condolence to Malcolm’s widow, saying that “your husband lived a life of dedication for human equality and dignity so that the Afro-American and people of color everywhere may live as man. His work in the cause of freedom will not be in vain …”

Citation: “The Life of Malcolm X.” The Malcolm X Project at Columbia University. Columbia University. Columbia University, 2004. Web. 8 Nov. 2009.

Web Links:

1) The Malcolm X Project at Columbia University: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/ccbh/mxp/index.html

2) Eyes On The Prize: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eyesontheprize/profiles/19_malcolmx.html

3) Malcolm X: A research site: http://www.brothermalcolm.net/

4) Official website of Malcolm X: http://www.malcolmx.com/

5) Malcolm X: Make It Plain: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/malcolmx/

**Make sure you do in-text citation whether it is a direct quotation or a paraphrase from the source. Also do a Work Cited/Bibliography page.
In-Text Citation:
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Transitioning/Weaving resource material:

You cannot simply “drop” information from your resources into your paper. Instead, you would transition direct

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According to William Shakespeare, “……” (direct quotation)

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throw in a paraphrase or direct quotation and let it stand on its own. You should show a relationship between the direct quotation and the point you are trying to make or explain in your own words what the direct quotation means and/or how it relates to what you are trying to say. Helpful lead-ins to your comments include:

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