Lendle

Includes video clips covering the lives and legacies of both men.
Includes audio of King's "I Have a Dream" speech and part of Malcolm's "The Ballot or the Bullet" speech.
Includes pictures of both men and important people, places, and events in their lives.

Everyone has read about history’s most important people and events in dense textbooks and classrooms, but words can only say so much. In Charles River Editors’ Interactive Biography series, history comes to life in video and audio, allowing people to experience history through the eyes and ears of the people who were there.

Today, a man born Michael King Jr. is one of the most famous Americans in history, his name having been changed at the age of 5 to one the world fondly remembers: Martin Luther King Jr. The life and legend of Dr. King have been told to every American, many of whom come away equating King with the Civil Rights Movement as a whole. But King’s life was about far more than leading movements and having dreams.

At the height of the Civil Rights Movement, while much of the nation’s attention was given to peaceful protests, boycotts, and figures like Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr., a young man named Malcolm Little was rising through the ranks to become one of the leaders of the Nation of Islam. As Malcolm X, he would come to be one of the most controversial figures in 20th century America, hailed as a bold civil rights activist by some and reviled as a violent racist by others. What everyone can agree on, however, is that Malcolm X was one of the most influential black leaders of the 20th century.

As the two biggest leaders of their respective civil rights movements, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. battled for the hearts and minds of Americans, and they even battled against each other, with Malcolm X famously calling King a "chump" and King referring to Malcolm's message as "fiery, demagogic oratory."

This book chronicles the lives of these two leaders, whose different ideologies made them advocate vastly different approaches in pursuit of a common goal. It also humanizes the two leaders, both of whom wanted to follow in the footsteps of their fathers, both of whom became leaders of their movements, and both of whom had notorious shortcomings. Along the way, you will learn things about Malcolm X and Dr. King you never knew, including the origins of their names, how they reached their positions, a bitterly contested court case over some of King's papers, and the off-the-cuff origins of King's I Have a Dream speech. You will learn about Dr. King and Malcolm X like you never have before, in no time at all.