The Ballot Of The Bullet Analysis

After enduring calamities such as the Great Depression and two world wars, it would seem that things could only get better in the postwar era for the American people. For the most part, this is indeed the narrative that prevailed as the US filled into its role as a world superpower. As wartime production was repurposed for domestic use, the US economy enjoyed its highest period of growth in history. The middle class expanded dramatically, and for most of its white members this period of growth was accompanied by dramatic increases in purchasing power and overall standard of living. African Americans however, often found themselves living lives quite different from those seen in the picturesque suburban communities on television. From North to South, with or without the law, racism still played a dominant role in defining the African American experience in the era of supposed prosperity. In retrospect, one might claim that the Civil Rights movement, with Martin Luther King Jr. as its enduring contemporary symbol, was inevitable. Yet the African American community reacted in differing ways to racism in its various forms. King’s strategy for tackling Jim Crow racism, as outlined in his “Letter from a …show more content…
Although Black Nationalism may be seen as more radical than King’s propositions, its founding ideas also bear many similarities. In his speech “The Ballot of the Bullet”, Malcolm X begins by using King’s first step: collection of evidence. He focuses on how Democrats and other Whites have broken their promises to the Black people repeatedly. The movement’s disillusionment with White society is also similar to King’s condemnation of the “White moderate”. King focuses more on the logical invalidity of their arguments, while Malcolm X focuses more on their hypocrisy, but the critique is overall in a similar