Martin and Malcolm: Life and Thought

Undergraduate / Graduate

This course examines the religious, social, cultural, political, and personal factors that went into the making of the two most prominent public leaders and public intellectuals emerging from the black American community in the 1950s and 1960s: Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. We will review their autobiographies, domestic and international forces operating during their times. Their life stories provide the sharp differences and surprising commonalities in their political thought and religious beliefs. At the end of their lives, were they still radical contrasts, sharing the same views, or had their beliefs sifted - did Malcolm become Martin and Martin become Malcolm?