Alyssa Brown Language Arts Mrs.

Smith December 10, 2013 Argumentative Writing There were two main influential people during the Civil Rights Movement, which were Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X, although both are influential, Martin Luther King Jr. is the most influential. Instead of having violent ways, Martin Luther King Jr. assigned nonviolent direct action, harmful to the community, but without physical contact. Martin Luther King Jr. chose sit-ins, marches, boycotts, etc., and gave orders to be nonviolent. In his letter from the Birmingham Jail, he wrote, Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. Martin Luther King Jr.s meaning was that working into a problem silently at first altogether will bring into a large problem that those who had refused, more than once, to talk about rights, will have to now matter what. Also, the whites could retaliate and kill the blacks if the blacks hurt the whites. Martin Luther King Jr. could demonstrate the quote, Violence is not the answer with his actions of peace. The past of them both are very different. Martin Luther King Jr. came from a rich and loving family, which explains why he wants nonviolence. Malcolm X lived in an orphanage due to his mother going to a mental hospital, and his dad being murdered by the Ku Klux Klan, which had made him wanting retaliation. Malcolm X was a street thug, caught breaking and entering, in addition to live a life of crime while Martin Luther King Jr. went to jail for protesting. On a website, I found

information of Malcom X being a street thug, and even Malcom admitted he lived a life of crime in his autobiography. While his breaking and entering was part of news programs and newspapers and on the Internet that MLK went to jail for nonviolent protesting. As well as in MLKs speech, I have a Dream, he said, In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not thirst for freedom, by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. He meant let us not seek freedom, in hatred. Martin Luther King Jr. has earned the Nobel Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Gold Medal, a holiday in honor of him, streets named after him, as well as a memorial statue in the National Mall. On Wikipedia, I found this script of text which states everything I listed, King was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal posthumously. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was established as a U.S. federal holiday in 1986. Hundreds of streets in the U.S. have been renamed in his honor. A memorial statue on the National Mall was opened to the public in 2011. It is clear that he earned the Nobel Peace Prize for nonviolence, and all those medals for the same reason and for making equal rights possible. We have never heard of Malcom X earning anything as great as MLKs accomplishments. These are just a few of the reasons Martin Luther King Jr. was more influential than Malcolm X. in the Civil Rights Movement.

Erika Sanchez Language Arts Mrs. Smith December 10, 2013 Argumentative Writing Even though Malcolm X was influential during the Civil Rights Movement, Martin Luther King Jr. was more influential during the Civil Rights Movement. Martin Luther King Jr. was more influential than Malcolm X because Martin believed in equality. In his I Have a Dream speech, Martin said, One day, my little children will be judged, not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. This is important because he is saying that no one should be judged by their skin color but by their personality. Martin Luther King Jr. was more influential than Malcolm X because he had a passion to end racism. He led sit-ins and marches and the other types of solutions using nonviolent direct action to make racism stop. His passion was able to be seen in his I Have a Dream speech because he emphasized his point to the audience listening to his speech. He wants to tell the blacks that they are strong and they should stay strong. On his, March on Washington speech, he had an audience of one fourth of a million people which is 250,000 people and they were different races, not just blacks. Martin Luther King Jr. was more influential than Malcom X because he wanted to end racism without violence. Martin thought of using sit-ins, boycotts, marches, discussions, and protests instead of fighting and killing other races. In The Letter from Birmingham Jail, he said, These forms of non-violent direct action will

lead to negotiation and will solve the problem. He says that he wants to talk about the problem and he doesnt want to use violence to stop racism. When people use violence, people end up dying or getting severely hurt and Martin Luther King Jr. didnt want to use this to solve the problem. Martin Luther King Jr. was more influential than Malcolm X because he believed in equality, he wanted to get rid of racism without using any violence, and was passionate about ending racism.

Isaac Gonzalez Language Arts Mrs. Smith December 10, 2013 Argumentative Writing Even though Malcolm X was influential during the Civil Rights Movement, Martin Luther King Jr. was more influential during the Civil Rights Movement. Martin Luther King Jr. was more influential because he believed in nonviolent resistance. Martin Luther King Jr. used non-violent resistance so he and the blacks could negotiate instead of fighting with the whites like Malcom X wanted. In his, Letter from the Birmingham City Jail, Martin Luther King Jr. said, I earnestly worked and preached against violent tension , which proves that he has found a way to negotiate without using violence. Martin Luther King Jr. was more powerful because he also had the, I Had a Dream, speech. Martin Luther King Jr.s, I Have a Dream, speech made him more influential because in his speech he said, I have a dream that one day my children will not be judged, not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character, which proves that he wanted to stop racism because they did not want to get burned, and get killed by the Ku Klux Klan, the only reason why they killed some people was because of the skin color. Martin Luther King Jr. also wanted peace. Martin Luther King Jr. wanted peace because the whites would not treat the blacks equally like the whites. Another reason why he wanted peace was because they called blacks really bad names and said offensive things. In the riots, they were killing each other and the blacks were

mostly dying. They also did not let them sit in restraunts, and the blacks just stayed at their seats and waited until they wanted to leave. This is also known as a sit-in. Martin Luther King Jr. was a better influence then Malcom X in the Civil Rights Movement.