Squires: Would black people be better off today if Malcolm X had led the civil rights era instead of Martin Luther King Jr.?

Last week, the world mostly ignored the 90th birthday of Minister Louis Farrakhan, the once-fiery and formidable leader of the Nation of Islam religious sect.

Corporate and social media’s indifference to Farrakhan speaks to an unofficial sunsetting of the traditional black leadership class, the death of the legacies left by Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Farrakhan has fallen into the same irrelevance that more than a decade ago captured his fellow Chicago-based racial justice comrade Jesse Jackson, the founder of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. Both men reached their social and political peaks decades ago. Farrakhan’s was the Million Man March in 1995. Jackson’s was his 1988 presidential campaign. Age and social media deplatforming canceled Farrakhan. Barack Obama and Parkinson’s disease canceled Jackson.

Farrakhan and Jackson, the spiritual and cultural heirs of Malcolm and Martin, tell us a great deal about the divergent visions and social impact of their mentors.

Would black people be in a better place socially and economically if Malcolm X’s way of thinking was more influential among black leaders than Dr. King’s? With King’s crowning accomplishment – the Civil Rights Act of 1964 – six decades in the rearview mirror, it is time to answer that question.

Dr. King believed in civil disobedience, nonviolent protest, and changing the laws to enhance and protect the civil rights of black people. He frequently quoted the Bible and framed his pursuit of justice in biblical terms. He was also an organizer and institutionalist. He led boycotts and was the first president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and worked with young people from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

Dr. King also understood how to use the media. He believed that footage of the daily indignities of racial segregation – and the brutal violence that accompanied it – could change the hearts and minds of sympathetic white people. His “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial remains one of the most iconic moments in American history. He said his dream was for his children to be judged by “the content of their character,” not the color of their skin. He also envisioned a day when black and white children would live as “sisters and brothers” in a state of racial peace.

Malcolm X had a different approach to the racial discrimination and violence facing black people in the 1960s. He saw “the white man” as his enemy and believed black people in America should unite to build up their own nation instead of pushing for racial integration. He also rejected King’s strategic use of nonviolent resistance and said nothing in the Quran teaches people to suffer peacefully. A quote from his 1963 speech “Message to the Grassroots” captures his beliefs about self-defense quite clearly: "Our religion teaches us to be intelligent. Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery."

After his contentious split from the Nation of Islam and his conversion to Sunni Islam, he became a more vocal advocate for Pan-Africanism abroad and harnessing the power of the black vote in America. His critique of the Democratic Party’s relationship with black voters in his most famous speech, “The Ballot or the Bullet,” sounds like it could be given today:

They get all the Negro vote, and after they get it, the Negro gets nothing in return. All they did when they got to Washington was give a few big Negroes big jobs. Those big Negroes didn’t need big jobs, they already had jobs. That’s camouflage, that’s trickery, that’s treachery, window-dressing. I’m not trying to knock out the Democrats for the Republicans. We’ll get to them in a minute. But it is true; you put the Democrats first and the Democrats put you last.

Martin and Malcolm also had drastically different relationships with the men who would ultimately succeed them.

Jesse Jackson has made much of his close relationship with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He worked for King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference and eventually became national director of the organization's economic arm, Operation Breadbasket.

Farrakhan’s relationship with Malcolm X was much more complex. They were close. But judging by remarks Farrakhan made during a 1993 speech, they turned into mortal enemies after X split with the Nation over Elijah Muhammad’s extramarital affairs with teenage employees. Farrakhan characterized Malcolm X as a “traitor” whose assassination was the understandable response to the betrayal he demonstrated toward his spiritual father and mentor.

King and Malcolm X have been dead for over half a century, but you can make certain judgements about a tree based on the fruit it produces. So what fruit have the Nation of Islam and black liberation theologians produced in the past 60 years?

One thing both have in common is the view that the United States is a systemically racist country bent on keeping black people in a perpetual state of oppression.

Both have also expressed anti-white and anti-Semitic sentiments. NOI ministers tend to be more open with their hatred. Louis Farrakhan has called Jewish people “Satan.” He cited Jews as his enemy and alleged that Jews are responsible for the “filth and degenerate behavior that Hollywood is putting out.”

Jesse Jackson was criticized in the 1984 for referring to Jews as "Hymies" and New York City as "Hymietown" in remarks to a black Washington Post reporter.

It is impossible to deny the role race and racism have historically played in American social life. So it should come as no surprise that black religious traditions have been shaped by the contexts in which they were created. But whether a set of beliefs is formed in the cauldron of oppression or around a table of bountiful blessings, the same truth remains for all people: A holy and righteous God will judge each of us for our sins, and salvation can only be secured through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. Economic deprivation and a low social standing do not excuse distorted theological teachings.

That said, there is one significant difference between Malcolm's and Martin’s disciples. It revolves around where they target their demands.

Malcolm X and the NOI demand something of black people. Their message of personal morality and self-respect are why they developed a reputation for cleaning up blighted neighborhoods and ex-cons with troubled pasts. They tell black men to get off drugs, stop sleeping around, marry a woman before giving her a baby, stop killing one another, and to carry themselves with dignity and self-respect.

Their message to black women is similar: Dress modestly, respect yourself and your body, stop cooking pork and unhealthy foods for your household, be a helpmeet to your husband, and be a good mother to your children. These teachings are why they are respected in the black community, especially among black men, as well as by America’s favorite conservative media personality.

By contrast, King’s liberation-minded heirs focus most of their energy on political power and trying to get white people to clean up their behavior. Their biggest victory was helping Barack Obama ascend to the White House. That was enough to convince many black pastors to flip-flop on gay marriage and black churches to serve as recruiting stations for Planned Parenthood. Preachers like William Murphy expressed their disappointment after the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, even going so far as to say the church should fight for abortion as well as for same-sex marriage.

The liberation pastors and civil rights organizations who see themselves as heirs to Dr. King’s legacy have taken their fight for “rights” even farther. The NAACP is more vocal today about transgenderism than it is about the importance of marriage and the nuclear family. The organization that once fought to break the color line now fights to abolish the sex binary.

What do you get when the African-American leadership class disciples white liberals with more zeal than the black masses? Enriching Robin DiAngelo and BLM become more urgent priorities than addressing the black family and street crime. I doubt Malcolm X would have spent 2020 pushing “White Fragility” to heal the wounds of racial discord that opened after George Floyd’s death. In the 1960s, he would have told a man like Floyd to clean up his life, find a good woman, and marry her. But today, the women who lead “racial justice” movements like BLM see Floyd as a payday.

In today’s civil rights movement, a black man’s death at the hands of police means black Marxists should become millionaires, black women should get corner offices at Amazon and Google, and black politicians should get elected to office. The black church’s embrace of feminism and rejection of biblical sexual ethics is supported by the “I’m with Her” preachers who imitate King’s delivery while arguing that more black babies being born is an act of “white supremacy.”

Over several decades, the civil rights establishment that looked to King as its model secured legal, political, and economic victories for African-Americans. But it is clear that those wins came at a cost, because there is a big difference between citizens engaging the political process to secure their rights and looking to politicians to solve their problems. Our families are in worse shape now than in the 1960s, and our celebration of violence and degradation is a slap in the face to the previous generations who fought to protect their public image.

Ultimately, answering the “Martin or Malcolm” question is difficult, largely because no one knows how both men would have evolved personally or politically over time. We can say with certainty that every American deserves to be treated equally under the law. It is also the case that legal equality is the floor for achieving upward social mobility, not the ceiling.

Both Martin and Malcolm knew that survival in this country requires political capital that comes from organizing and voting, economic capital that comes from industriousness, entrepreneurship, and ownership, and social capital that comes from strong families and communities.

So the more important question is this: Where should African-Americans put their emphasis today in order to secure a brighter future for our progeny six decades from now? That one is much easier to answer. It’s a lot more important to secure your own house than it is to decide the next occupant of the White House.