Two men, born nearly a hundred years apart, each seeking revolutionary changes in the United States in ways suited to their society and circumstances. Frederick Douglass and Malcolm X were monumental and influential and prominent (pattern c) figures in American history. In the books Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and The Autobiography of Malcolm X, (pattern B) both Douglass and Malcolm used their extraordinary oratorical skills and charisma to object to the systematic oppression and subjugation that was imposed on African-Americans. The philosophy of Douglass and Malcolm is characterized by the similarities and differences of their views on education, Christianity, and slavery. Although Malcolm X and Frederick Douglass lacked
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Malcolm X disapproved of black people who followed Christianity because he thought it was a religion that accentuated white people’s love for themselves and was full of hypocrisy, and when he is pondering religion in his cell at Charlestown Prison, he concludes, “This white man’s Christian religion further deceived and brainwashed this ‘Negro’ to always turn the other cheek, and grin, and scrape, and bow, and be humble, and to sing, and to pray, and to take whatever was dished out by the devilish white man; and to look for his pie in the sky, and for his heaven in the hereafter, while right here on earth the slavemaster white man enjoyed his heaven” (Haley 166). Frederick Douglass noted how slave-owners would use Christianity to rationalize the enslavement of black people, and in his speech “What is Your Fourth of July to Me?” Douglass chastises Americans and states, “To him your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgiving, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy---a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages” (Douglass 161). The realization that Christianity was full of deception and was used to keep black people at the bottom of society was the underlying motivation in bringing these two men to voice their radical ideas. Malcolm X knew there was no hope in repairing Christianity, and the only solution for black people was to follow Islam. However, Douglass could recognize a distinction between the
Malcolm X disapproved of black people who followed Christianity because he thought it was a religion that accentuated white people’s love for themselves and was full of hypocrisy, and when he is pondering religion in his cell at Charlestown Prison, he concludes, “This white man’s Christian religion further deceived and brainwashed this ‘Negro’ to always turn the other cheek, and grin, and scrape, and bow, and be humble, and to sing, and to pray, and to take whatever was dished out by the devilish white man; and to look for his pie in the sky, and for his heaven in the hereafter, while right here on earth the slavemaster white man enjoyed his heaven” (Haley 166). Frederick Douglass noted how slave-owners would use Christianity to rationalize the enslavement of black people, and in his speech “What is Your Fourth of July to Me?” Douglass chastises Americans and states, “To him your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgiving, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy---a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages” (Douglass 161). The realization that Christianity was full of deception and was used to keep black people at the bottom of society was the underlying motivation in bringing these two men to voice their radical ideas. Malcolm X knew there was no hope in repairing Christianity, and the only solution for black people was to follow Islam. However, Douglass could recognize a distinction between the