Between Malcolm X & Martin Luther King Jr.: Religion & the Politics of Freedom

3 units

Malcolm X (El Hajj Malik El Shabazz) and Martin Luther King, Jr. are both icons of the twentieth-century civil rights and black freedom movements. Often characterized as polar opposites—one advocating armed self-defense and the other non-violence against all provocation—they continue to be important religious, political, and intellectual models for how we imagine the past as well as for current issues concerning religion, race, politics and freedom struggles in the United States and globally. This course focuses on their political and spiritual lives. We will examine their personal biographies, speeches, and legacies as a way to better understand how the intersections of religion, race, and politics came to bare upon the freedom struggles of people of color in the US and abroad.