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Unlock This CourseNot every black American agreed with Martin Luther King. In the ghettos of Northern cities, black people could already vote and sit at any lunch counter. Their problems were poverty, bad housing, poor schools and rough treatment by the police. The new civil rights laws did little about these. Here a very different group won support.
Key terms:
The Nation was founded by Wallace Fard Muhammad. From 1934 it was led by Elijah Muhammad. He taught that:
The Nation gave its members pride and discipline. It was good at turning round the lives of prisoners and drug users. But it took no part in civil rights protests, because it did not want integration at all.
Malcolm Little was born in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1925. His father, a Baptist preacher who spoke up for black pride, died in 1931. The family always believed that white racists had killed him. As a young man Malcolm turned to crime, and in 1946 he was jailed for burglary.
In prison he read widely and joined the Nation of Islam. He dropped the name 'Little', which he said had been given to his family by a slave owner. The 'X' stood for the African family name he could never know.
He was freed in 1952 and in 1954 became minister of the Nation's temple in Harlem. He was a brilliant, sharp and funny speaker. In 1959 a television programme about the Nation, called 'The Hate That Hate Produced', made him known across the country. The Nation grew from a few hundred members in 1952 to tens of thousands by the early 1960s, and much of that was down to him. The boxer Cassius Clay joined and took the name Muhammad Ali.
King was a Christian minister from the South. He wanted integration: black and white Americans living together as equals. He used non-violent protest and refused to hit back. He worked with white supporters and with presidents to get new laws.
Malcolm X spoke for the Northern ghettos. He wanted separation, not integration. He said black people had the right to defend themselves if attacked. He did not trust white people, including white supporters of civil rights.
Malcolm X attacked King's methods in public. He said that asking black people to stay peaceful while they were beaten was wrong. He mocked the March on Washington as the 'Farce on Washington', because he believed white politicians had taken control of it. King, in return, feared that such angry talk would bring only more violence and suffering for black people.
His fierce language frightened many white Americans and worried many black leaders too.
By 1963 Malcolm X was falling out with Elijah Muhammad. He had learned that Elijah Muhammad had broken the Nation's own strict moral rules. He also wanted the Nation to do more than talk. Then, in December 1963, he spoke about President Kennedy's murder as a case of 'chickens coming home to roost'. Elijah Muhammad banned him from speaking in public for 90 days.
He still believed in black pride and self-defence, but he was now willing to work with other civil rights groups. He had made bitter enemies in the Nation. On 21 February 1965 he was shot dead while speaking at the Audubon Ballroom in New York. He was 39. Three members of the Nation of Islam were convicted of the murder in 1966, although two of them were cleared in 2021.
His influence was great in some ways. He gave a voice to the anger of poor black people in the Northern cities, whom King's Southern campaigns had hardly reached. He taught black pride: pride in black history, in African roots and in being black. 'The Autobiography of Malcolm X' came out in 1965, after his death, and sold millions of copies. His ideas about pride, self-defence and black people running their own communities inspired younger campaigners, as you will see in Black Power, Stokely Carmichael and the 1968 Olympics.
It was limited in other ways. He led no great campaign and no law was passed because of him. His groups were small and the OAAU faded after his death. Most black Americans in the early 1960s still backed King and non-violence. Some historians argue that he helped King without meaning to, because white politicians preferred to deal with King than to face Malcolm X.
Don't write that Malcolm X told people to attack white people. He argued for self-defence. Don't treat his views as fixed: an answer about him is much stronger if it shows how they changed after he left the Nation and went to Mecca in 1964.
Extract A (a practice extract written for this lesson, in the style of a modern history book). From a modern history textbook.
Malcolm X never led a great march and never saw a law passed in his name. Yet in the crowded ghettos of the North, where King's victories had changed little, his was the voice people trusted. He spoke fearlessly of the anger they felt and gave them back their pride. Long after the shots in New York silenced him, his words lived on, stirring a new generation to stand tall and demand respect rather than ask for it.
What impression does the author give about Malcolm X? You must use Extract A to explain your answer. [6 marks]
The author gives the impression that Malcolm X was a hugely important and inspiring leader, even though he won no laws. This is shown by the language. He is 'the voice people trusted' who spoke 'fearlessly', which makes him sound brave and honest. The phrases 'gave them back their pride' and 'stirring a new generation to stand tall' suggest that he changed how black people saw themselves and that his effect lasted. The author also deals with his failures in one short opening sentence and then turns away from them with the word 'Yet'. King's work is played down as having 'changed little'. Nothing is said about Malcolm X's harsh words on white people or the fear he caused, so the reader is left with an admiring picture.
What lifts this to the top level: it names one clear impression, proves it with short quotations, and explains what the author chose to stress and to leave out.
You don't need your own knowledge for this question, so don't write Malcolm X's life story. Start with 'The author gives the impression that...', then quote two or three loaded words such as 'fearlessly' and say what each suggests. Finish by saying what the author left out.