These two great leaders of the Black consciousness had different goals and different methods for achieving those ends. The fact that they were competing for the same community at the same critical point in time is an amazing coincidences of fate.

Martin Luther had as his central theme: Assimilation without Identification (accept us for who we are).

Malcolm X had the theme of: Separation without Accommodation (leave us alone; go your way and we'll go ours).

Each man came to their position and philosophy as a result of personally experiencing the violent repression of the Jim Crow nation and chaffing at the injustice of institutionalized discrimination.

The pivotal event on their shared road was the brutal murder Malcolm Little's father. Earl Little was an activist trying to secure his family's future. When his obvious murder was ruled a suicide, his mother was robbed of their insurance policy compounding insult with injustice.

The resulting stress caused his mother to have a nervous breakdown and she is committed for the next two decades. Her eight children are sent to foster homes. Young Malcolm experiences his final indignity in junior high when his dream of becoming a lawyer is crushed by a teacher.

Malcolm departs on a life of crime that leads to his conversion to the Nation of Islam in prison.

Martin Luther King's path differed in that he had a stable family, his father survived the cruelty of the South and his academic aspirations were realized. This difference is significant.

The critical difference in their messages was in how to respond to White violence. Malcolm X asked whether it was proper to stand and fight like a man when brutally assaulted. His answer was yes; defend your dignity "by any means necessary."

Martin Luther King had studied the success of Mahatma Gandhi and realized that passive resistance is the only possible option. Meeting force with force will only cause Whites to increase their force; the Native Americans met their end this way.

But passive resistance would not have worked were it not for the great new power of the day: television. Whites close ranks when threatened or fearful, but to attack a helpless victim offends them more than fear bonds them.

The image of White official power being ruthlessly unleashed against defenseless people broke the power of White collective thinking. More and more Whites entered the Civil Rights fray on the side of Blacks. King's tactics were assured victory from the outset.

Malcolm X was doomed to failure for the same reason. He never understood that African Americans were here to stay, that returning to Africa was fruitless, unproductive and unlikely. We had been in the US entirely too long and had become "American" to the core.

African Americans had invested a great deal in the building of America from its beginning. Not just as slaves building its wealth, but as soldiers defending the frontier, as inventors building the future and as creative artists defining their identity. We simply could not leave.

Ultimately, the superior legacy of Martin Luther King had to endure, did indeed endure because he better understood the minds and spirits of the Americans; White and Black.

King expected that Whites would come to realize the immorality of attempting to crush the dignity and humanity of fellow citizens regardless of their appearance. Time has proven him right. His Dream of an American for all has guided the development of American democracy as much as the original words "We the People."

Indeed, he has changed the definition of those words to include "All the People."

Learn more about this author, Morgan Johnson.
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