Nelson Mandela and Malcolm X
Nelson Mandela
The first critical thinker we will look at is Nelson Mandela, he was born on July 18, 1918 in South Africa. He was the first of his family to attend school and after his father died he was supposed to inherit their tribe but decided to go on to school to become a lawyer. This was a major decision in his life and helped shaped him into the leader he would become. In 1944 he joined the African National Congress which fought against apartheid, He was arrested in 1956 for treason and was held for five years, but was found not guilty.
In 1962 he was arrested again and convicted of conspiracy and sabotage where he would serve eighteen years of a life sentence. Once released from prison he became president of the African National Congress in 1991 and in 1994 he was elected President of South Africa and was the first black President there. Because of his contributions to apartheid he has won many prizes including the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993. (“Promote Tolerance”, 2013). In 1985 while still in prison the current president offered to release Nelson if he renounced his armed struggle , but Nelson rejected it.
This clearly shows how dedicated that he was for the cause he believed in (“Biography. com”, 2013). Because of Nelson’s family background and his father being the leader of a tribe he was definitely thinking outside the box and had aspirations of his own. With the social and political environments he was in there in South Africa and the unrest of segregation set the stage for his future. The factors involved with such segregation contributed to his creativity in many ways which allowed him to be at the forefront of the movement.
The solution was a changing of the guard in South Africa and new leaders working together to have apartheid abolished. The issues he south to solve were first and foremost the apartheid issues of the segregation of white and non-whites, secondly the dream of peace between the same white and non-white culture in South Arica (“Promote Tolerance”, 2013).
Malcolm X
The next critical thinker I want to look at is Malcolm Little aka Malcolm X. He was born on May 19, 1925 in Omaha Nebraska with a family that consisted of seven brothers and sisters and a father that was an outspoken Baptist minister.
His father was a supporter of a Black Nationalist leader and they had to move several times due to death threats from the white supremacist organization. Years later their Michigan home as burned down and two years after that his father was found dead on a set a railroad tracks, thought to be done by the white supremacist group. He was later arrested for burglary charges and while in prison continued his education. His brother Reginald visited while in prison and would discuss the religion of Muslim which Reginald belonged to the organization the Nation of Islam.
When released from prison in 1952 Malcolm was a devout follower and decided to lose the last name Little as it was a slave name and went with X. Due to some belief issue with one of the leaders Malcolm decided to start his own religious organization called Muslim Mosque, Inc. He fought for human rights and equality in as many ways as he could, and was killed in 1965 by three ex Nation of Islam supporters (“Malcolm X”, 2013). The most important contribution to society by Malcolm X was the awareness of human and civil rights and equality for blacks.
He suggested that everyone has rights and must fight for them and offered an alternative view to the mainstream idea in civil rights movement (Mckinney, 2013). In the time that Malcolm grew up in and was active in his fight was a time of unrest for blacks and whites. The environment was at most times hostile and unfriendly to outspoken blacks. The problems he sought to solve were mostly inequalities and mistreatment to blacks or someone of the Muslim faith.
The solutions he provided were a little extreme in that he said blacks needed to fight for justice and equalities, which in theory is great, but being Malcolm was an extremist more times than not it led to violence. Looking at the creative process and comparison of the two people, both Nelson Mandela and Malcolm X were great thinkers and thought ahead as to what they wanted to accomplish. They both used different form of outlets to get their messages across and worked with leaders to accomplish what they wanted to do.
To critique their ideas and look at what they could have done differently is interesting. For Nelson Mandela he was in an area where it was run by whites and it was difficult to get his message across to the people. While in prison he gained extra knowledge by educating himself more and used his knowledge to work with white leaders to further his mission. Nelson did not use violence or anger to further his cause which was a great stance for him to take. For Malcolm X on the other hand there are several things that I feel he could have done in his journey.
To each his own on their religious beliefs, but being that his messages came across as angry and in a subliminal way condoned violence to get what you want is not the best way to get your message out there. In the days when Malcolm was active it was still a segregated population and the supremacy groups were very much at the forefront in those times. By Malcolm disassociating himself with the Nation of Islam, I feel was a bad move and he should have fought to get the leader out for his discretions to where it would have shown that he truly cared about the group and their message.
Bu getting out and starting his own group it made the leader and his followers lash out and kill him. Both Nelson Mandela and Malcolm X were great thinkers and had wonderful ideas for the rights and equalities of their people. They just decided to handle them in different ways, both were right in their thinking, they just handled them in different ways. In the end both made a difference to elevate the awareness and further the abolishing of apartheid and segregation of blacks in both Africa and the United States.
References
- Biography.com. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.biography.com/people/nelson-mandela-9397017?page=1
- Malcolm X. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.malcolmx.com/about/bio3.html
- Promote Tolerance. (2013). Retrieved from http://library.thinkquest.org/07aug/00117/mandela.html
- Mckinney, S. L. (2013). About.com Malcolm X. Retrieved from http://history1900s.about.com/od/people/a/Malcolm-X.htm
