Decline of the Invitation of Malcolms Organization of Afro-American Unity - Essay Example

Secondly, I support the civil rights movement, because its leaders including Martin Luther King Jr. acknowledged the importance of integrating the leadership of whites and that of blacks, among other minority groups (Taylor 156). Their view was opposed to Black Nationalism’s goal of displacing and revolting against the entre leadership system held by the white people. Through this letter, I will communicate the different reasons, and the critical areas that compelled me to decline the opportunity of working with the OAAU; instead, am in favor of the outlook of the civil rights movement.

The first reason as to why I decline the invitation to work with OAAU is that all through the years between 1953 and 1965, despite the efforts of the members of the civil rights movement, the followers of Black Nationalism took an opposite trajectory (Reed 151-155). . From the outlook that the entire array of Western cultural phenomena was based on prejudice and hypocrisy was faulty, mainly because the integration of the black people into the mainstream society would offer them access to platforms for causing change.

For example, at the time, very few black people had considerable education; therefore their chances of taking leadership positions were very minimal (Cone 134). The negative outlook of the Black Nationalist movement, which houses the OAAU, is evident from the decrees of Malcolm X, who held that the control of justice, taking center-stage in economics, and separatism were the only options that would change the racist situation in the American society. However, Malcolm had little thought of the economic infrastructures that they would use to remain independent; many blacks were not educated to levels that would guarantee effective leadership and he did not regard whether separatism would affect the black society positively or negatively (Cone 134).

A second piece of evidence that Malcolm X’s organization does not offer the better option to the problems facing the black people is that he believed that violence was the only channel, through which social change could take place; he believed that nonviolence was the philosophy of the fool (Taylor 156). However, it is necessary to note that violence has not yielded positive effects in the past, further; using violence could affect minority groups like blacks negatively. The third evidence is that the institution of ethical values, developing their own society, and setting self-help groups were likely to alienate the black people, from the mainstream economy, noting that they were not the majority.

The second reason in support of declining the invitation to work with the OAAU is that the group emphasized and had adopted a group-centered leadership, as opposed to the leadership-centered group system of the civil rights movement leaders (Taylor 156). The adoption of a group-centered leadership led to the division of the black people into different groups, all of which did not have a common goal or sense of direction. The evidence available to show that the OAAU is leading to a crisis situation, which arose from the division of the African-American group into distinct groupings, is that there are different black opinions regarding separatism and the importance of forming a parallel society. Secondly, the organization proposed the formation of a parallel society, where the sustenance of education and other service frameworks will be difficult to manage. Thirdly, the lack of a sense of direction became evident after Malcolm X; the leader abandoned his push for racial separatism, after going for a pilgrimage at Mecca.