Abstract
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed, 'We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal.’ I have a dream that one day . . . sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood . . . This is our hope . . . With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day . . . This will be the day when all God's children will be able to sing with new meaning ‘My country ‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.’
Martin Luther King, Jr., August 28, 1963
No, I’m not an American. I’m one of the 22 million black people who are victims of Americanism, one of the . . . victims of democracy, nothing but disguised hypocrisy. So, I’m not standing here speaking to you as an American, or a patriot, or a flagsaluter, or a flag-waver—no, not I! I’m speaking as a victim of this American system. And I see America through the eyes of the victim. I don’t see any American dream. I see an American nightmare!
Malcolm X, April 3, 1964
These quotations represent sharply contrasting views of America by the two most influential black leaders during the 1960s. Martin Luther King, Jr., the unquestioned leader of the civil rights movement, was an integrationist and a Christian minister, who during most of his ministry, saw America as “essentially a dream ... as yet unfulfilled,” “a dream of a land where [people] of all races, of all nationalities and of all creeds can live together as brothers [and sisters].” Malcolm X, the unquestioned spokesperson for the disinherited black masses of the northern ghettoes, was a separatist and a Muslim minister, who viewed America as a realized nightmare, in which black people experience “political oppression,” “economic exploitation,” and “social degradation” at the hands of white people.4Martin King saw America in terms of what this nation could become if black and white people of good will assumed the political responsibility of implementing the freedom inherent in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. Malcolm X saw America in terms of this nation’s past and current treatment of its people of color—244 years as slaves, followed by a colonized status which offered blacks no economic security, political power, or social respect in a society defined by white supremacy. In the writings and speeches of Martin and Malcolm, we see two Americas: one was based on faith in the American political system and the Christian hope that blacks and whites could work together in the creation of the “beloved community”; the other was based on the past cruelties of American slavery and the present reality of urban ghettoes—a clear indication of white people’s refusal to recognize the basic humanity of black people.