Martin vs. Malcolm: The Olive Branch and The Arrow

The “I Have a Dream” speech was not a plea for brotherhood among
all men. It was a decree that justice would be victorious. It was a reminder of a promise. A promise that took precedence over all others in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” That pursuit began in shackles for 5/6 of the first migrants to this hemisphere. Unshackled legally, by the emancipation proclamation, African Americans were then shackled with crime, debt, violence, and, most debilitating, racially biased state/federal laws and police forces. King saw that breaking the shackles of the law required a special key. Non- violence was that key.

Non-violence is not a methodology of the timid, it is a militant strategy. Pacifism avoids violence at all costs. Non-violence, on the other hand, invites violence and accepts the cost. There are six basic principles of non-violence:

1. Non-Violence is a way of life for courageous people

2. Non-violence seeks to win friendship and understanding

3. Non-violence seeks to defeat injustice not people

4. Non-violence holds that voluntary suffering can transform

5. Non-violence chooses love instead of hate

6. Non-violence believes that the universe is on the side of justice

After being mentored in the methodology of non-violence, by the the
activist Bayard Rustin, Dr. King called non-violence a “marvelous
new militancy” and came to embody these principles believing in
their unifying, overpowering, force. King understood that, “we must
forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and
discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into
physical violence.”

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