Modern History 12 Individual Essay Cullen Bailey
Individual History Essay – Draft1
What impact did Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam have on the civil rights movement in the United States of America in the period between 1960 and 1965?
In the United States of America (USA), in the period 1960 to 1965, the Nation of Islam and Malcolm X had a strong impact on the civil rights movement. Through the bold teachings of Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X, African-Americans gained a greater awareness of the horrific atrocities committed against them by Caucasians throughout the history of the USA and specifically during the civil rights campaign, and this impacted on the civil rights movement as issues such as racial violence and inequality were exposed by the teachings of the Nation of Islam. The Nation of Islam empowered many African-Americans to stand up for their human rights, whilst Malcolm X provided a strong example to African-Americans of someone who was willing to stand up for the fundamental rights of the race which positively impacted on the civil rights movement. The Nation of Islam offered an extreme alternative to the non-violent approach of Martin Luther King Junior and other civil rights groups and made the demands for equality of King far more acceptable to Caucasians, despite the fact that the sense of militancy that accompanied Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam gave the African-American people greater voice, strength and unity within the community, the extreme views of the Nation of Islam negatively impacted upon the civil rights movement in the period 1960 to 1965, as their beliefs conflicted with other civil rights groups and leaders which made progress and unity harder to achieve within African-American society. Thus, the imposing presence of Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam in the USA between 1960 and 1965, had a strong impact on the civil rights movement despite the positive and negative responses that were elicited.
The teachings of the Nation of Islam and Malcolm X impacted on the civil rights movement as they exposed and created a greater awareness of the atrocities committed against African-Americans throughout their history. Black Muslims believe that the “white man is the devil” and that Caucasians over time had “robbed, raped, beaten and destroyed the Black man”. This philosophy strongly appealed to many African-Americans, as not only did it reveal the crimes that had been committed by Caucasians but it also put forward the idea that African-Americans are superior to Caucasians. The Nation of Islam’s teachings were often accepted by those in the most vulnerable and exploited position within society as they found the teachings and philosophies of Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X relevant and real to their experiences. This applied to a young Malcolm X who in his autobiography stated, “when I thought back I could not remember a single good thing a white person had ever done to me”. Atrocities committed against African-Americans by Caucasians include the horrific lynchings that occurred across the USA, with approximately 3,445 African-American lynshings between 1882 and 1968. The severity, callousness and racism of the lynchings illustrates the atrocities that the Nation of Islam exposed in its teachings, “typically, the victims were hung or burned to death by mobs of White vigilantes, frequently in front of thousands of spectators, many of whom would take pieces of the dead person's body as souvenirs to help remember the spectacular event”. The philosophy of the Nation of Islam exposed the atrocities that Caucasians had committed against African-Americans throughout history and in the period between 1960 and 1965, and thus both the Nation of Islam and Malcolm X impacted strongly upon the civil rights movement.
