Questioning the false dilemma between integration and radicalism in the official history of civil rights in the United States

Abstract

Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. were for decades placed in antagonistic political positions, on the one hand a pacifist and integrationist, on the other a separatist and “black supremacist”. I intend to show, based on the autobiographies and selected speeches of both activists and in a dialogue with current approaches to Black Power Studies, that, far from this antagonistic dichotomous view, their positions had more points of convergence, if analyzed by privileging their political experiences and practices in the face of the racist political system they confronted. In this way, I seek to demonstrate how the conventional narrative has fed a false dilemma, aimed only at reinforcing the place of domination, rather than empowering the decolonizing political practice that both activists promoted.