Malcolm X: Just or Unjust?

This week in lecture, we took a look at Malcolm X’s speech in 1964 titled, “The Battle or the Bullet.” In this text, Malcolm gives his point of view on what is happening in the civil rights movement, why it is so unfair, and what the African-American people can do to end segregation in the United States. For example, Malcolm uses and reuses the phrase, “I’m not,” to illustrate his point that even though African-Americans are considered citizens, they are not truly Americans because they don’t actually have the same rights and liberties that white citizens do have. Malcolm gives his ideas about how the African-American people should go about ending discrimination and segregation in America with two solutions.

His first solution is through the ballot. My interpretation of the text is that he does advocate using the ballot in an attempt to end racism in the United States, but understandably, after years of discrimination against African-Americans, he has little faith in the system. His main point in the speech is to let the African-American community know that the ballot is not the only option. If they attempt to create change through the ballot and it fails, they can always fall back on the other solution, the bullet. Malcolm argues that it is indeed legitimate to use the bullet to end segregation in America. Personally, I do believe that he was very serious about being willing to use the bullet, but others may argue that this tactic was used simply as a way to scare the government into making changes in order to avoid a civil war.

Here lies the major question that arose for me while reading his speech? In this scenario, would using the bullet have been a legitimate way of dealing with this situation? In other words, would it have been okay for the African-American citizens of the United States to, in effect, start a civil war over the problem of segregation?

(Source: http://www2.maxwell.syr.edu/plegal/history/depietrowq3.htm)

My thought process for developing an answer to this question led me to another text that we read this semester, Michael Walzer’s “Just and Unjust Wars.” In this text, Walzer outlines three separate ideas of what constitutes a just war: Jus ad bellum, Jus in bello, and Jus post bellum (Justice in going to war, justice during war, and justice after war).  I’m going to focus on what Walzer says about Jus ad bellum. Walzer lists six different requirements that need to be fulfilled in order for a group to be just in starting a war. These principles are as follows: just cause, right intention, proper authority and public declaration, last resort, probability of success, and proportionality. I don’t want to bore you with the definitions of all of these principles, so I have included a link here which accurately describes them in more detail. The picture below gives a short summary of the requirements for all parts of war to be considered just.

(Source: http://hymnals.wordpress.com/category/recent-posts/)

In the case of the civil rights movement, would the circumstances have met the criteria for a just war? I would argue that they certainly would. African-Americans lived in a nation that promised equality, yet treated them with disrespect. They were not treated equally and not given the same rights that most citizens had, which gives them just cause. They would also have right intention, as long as the war was focused strictly on gaining equal rights for African-Americans, which I presume it would have been. The third principle is hard to apply to a civil war, because obviously the government is not going to support them in going to war. In my opinion, as long as they declared war openly, the African-Americans would have met the requirement of proper authority and public declaration. With regards to last resort, this means that they would have needed to wait until after the election, as voting in a President who would be willing to make the changes to the constitution that the African-Americans were looking for would be their primary option. But, as indicated by Malcolm X, if this did not work, then they would have no choice but to use the bullet, which would be the last resort. Clearly they would meet the requirement for probability of success because they earned their rights without even entering a war just two months later. Lastly, proportionality clearly would clearly support their decision to go to war because it would improve the lives of all the African-Americans.

(Source: http://www.risdmuseum.org/collection.aspx?Type=Contemporary-Art&id=15196)
Race Riot during the 1950's

After analyzing all of the six requirements listed by Michael Walzer with regards to entering into a just war, combined with my own personal opinion, I cannot help but come to the conclusion that if it had been necessary, the African-American community would have been justified in starting a civil war. They met all of Walzer’s requirements and in a country that promised equality, it was not fair whatsoever to discriminate and segregate African-Americans just because they had different color skin. They had done nothing wrong; they were people, just like the Caucasian-Americans. They deserved the rights that they eventually were given in a few months after Malcolm X’s speech in July,1964. So what do you think? Would using the bullet to end the civil rights movement have been justified? Or would starting a war have been illegitimate?