Passage Level Strategy: Compare and Contrast the Perspectives of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X NAME__________________________
_____________________ Lesson Question: How were the ideas of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X similar and different as they worked to achieve a better future for black people in America? How were the men similar? Both Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X thought, said or believed: How were the men different? Martin Luther King Jr believed whereas Malcolm X believed Passage Level Strategy: Compare and Contrast the Perspectives of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X Excerpt: Martin Luther King’s “I have a Dream” Speech Background information Date: August 28, 1963 Audience: Setting/ Place: Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation…. But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free…When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a … promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. …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.” …And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring…from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!" Passage Level Strategy: Compare and Contrast the Perspectives of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X Excerpt of Malcolm X’s “God’s Judgment” Speech Background information Date: December 4, 1963 Audience: Setting/ Place: How can America atone for her crimes? The Honorable Elijah Muhammad teaches us that a desegregated theater or lunch counter won't solve our problems. Better jobs won't even solve our problems. An integrated cup of coffee isn't sufficient pay for four hundred years of slave labor, and a better job in the white man's factory or position in his business is, at best, only a temporary solution. The only lasting or permanent solution is complete separation on some land that we can call our own. …Part of what she is worth belongs to us. We will take our share and depart, then this white country can have peace…Give us our share in gold and silver and let us depart and go back to our homeland in peace. We want no integration with this wicked race that enslaved us. We want complete separation from this race of devils. But we should not be expected to leave America and go back to our homeland empty-handed. After four hundred years of slave labor, we have some back pay coming, a bill owed to us that must be collected. NAME_____________________________________ Passage Level Strategy Chart: Differing Perspectives / Point of View / Debate Lesson Question: How were the ideas of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X similar and different as they worked to achieve a better future for black people in America? Use the excerpts from the speeches to find the messages of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. What they thought, said or believed about: Point of View 1: Martin Luther King Jr. Point of View 2: Malcolm X 1) put a circle around What they thought, said or believed about: living in America and being American Hint: Look for pronouns that refer to America or groups of people in America Ex: “we” “our” “his” “her” Quote/s: This means he believed: Quote/s: This means he believed: 2) squiggly underline What they thought, said or believed about: blacks and whites working together? Quote/s: This means he believed: Quote/s: This means he believed: 3) put a box around What they thought, said or believed about: their goal/s for blacks in America Quote/s: This means he believed: Quote/s: This means he believed: Done? Answer the question: How are their approaches different?
