Mid and Late Century Minority Writers

Name:
Instructor:
Course Title:
Date:
The Mid and the Late Century Minority Writers
Comparisons and Contrasts of Martin Luther and Malcolm X
Martin Luther King Jr was renowned for his ability to rally support for the achievement of the goals of the Civil Rights Movement. In August 1963, he addressed a massive crowd at the Lincoln Memorial and addressed the varied forms of exclusion, discrimination, and oppression facing the African-Americans. Of special concern for Luther Jr was his ability to rally African-Americans to boycott the Montgomery Public Transport after a black woman Mrs. Rosa Park was abused after refusing to heed to the local laws that barred African-Americans from sitting in the rear side of the city buses. Mrs. Rosa, after a long day at work, boarded the train and refused to respect the local ordinance that barred African-Americans from sitting in the rear side of the local buses. She was subjected to torture before being arraigned to the local courts for judgment and consequent prosecution. Shortly after this realization, Martin Luther King Jr rallied support for Mrs. Rosa and asked African-Americans to boycott all services of the Montgomery Public Transport. The thematic legacy for Luther was his ability to consistently further the interests of blacks during the Civil Rights Movement. And before his assassination by a fugitive named James Earl Ray in 4th April 1968, Luther had raised a strong black consciousness and revived discussions of racial consciousness and identity.

The thematic achievement created by Malcolm X was that he instilled a racial pride in the blacks. He adhered to the doctrine of Elijah Muhamad who termed the white people as devils. Malcolm X, as opposed to championing the higher ideals of the black people, took pride in a newly found racial identity. Indeed, he replaced his name from Malcolm Little to Malcolm X to reclaim the title his ancestors lost after arriving in the United States in slave ships. After subscribing to the ideologies of the Islamic Nations, Malcolm became an inspiring evangelist and revived the spirits of the African-Americans who had long been trapped into segregation. Unfortunately, in 1964, Malcolm learned of Elijah Muhamad flaws and became deeply disenchanted with his doctrines (NAAL 3088). He later traveled to Mecca, met white Islamic followers and became much more accepting. The thematic legacy and the most outstanding achievement of Malcolm X was his ability to embrace self-transformation and to inspire a new racial identity to African-Americans. Hence, the major discrepancy with Luther was that Malcolm did not defend and champion the goals of the Civil Rights Movement (NAAL 3091). Rather, he instilled the values of black identity that were much fundamental in the realization of the black consciousness.
The Mid Century Writers and Late Century Writers – A Shift in Focus
While the Mid-Century writers like Luther King and Malcolm X consistently pursued the liberation of African-Americans by embracing equality, racial identity, and black consciousness, the late century female writers redefined the understanding of art and literature. The black female writers of the late 1970s redefined the readers’ understanding of the world around them. These writers, mostly females, confirmed to the ideologies and the values of the Black Arts Movement and this conformity led to greater recognition of the imaginative expression of the varied forms of literal arts. Hence, a key variation and a shift in focus between the two categories of writers is their focus on different topics. Midcentury writers liberated blacks from discrimination and oppression and instilled in them a unique form of racial identity. However, late-century writers lobbied for their imaginative expression and redefined the way readers understood and interpreted the issues around them.
Works Cited
NAAL. The Contemporary Periods of 1945 to the Present: The Mid-Century and the Late Century Writers. The Norton Anthropology of Art and Literature. 3088 – 3095.