Lessons must be learned from the different approaches of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X

Back in the 1960s, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X were widely regarded as the two most influential activists who pressed for the rights of African Americans in the United States. At the time, black Americans in the southern states suffered racial segregation en bloc and had their voting rights denied by state laws.

Both King and Malcolm X were born in the south. Both worked as religious ministers: King for the Christian faith, Malcolm X for the Muslim belief. Both were outstanding orators. Both devoted the best part of their lives to fight for the lost rights of black Americans. Both were assassinated when they turned 39 - Malcolm X in 1965, King in 1968.

The similarity stopped there. Malcolm X grew up in the ghettos and had no parental care after he became a teenager. He was known to be a brilliant student at school but never had the chance to complete any formal education. He replaced his family name "Little" with the word "X", which symbolised the African name he never knew.

King grew up in a strict but attentive family, earning his doctorate degree from Boston University at the age of 26. He was also a devoted preacher.

The two differed fundamentally in their mindset and approach towards the fight for racial equality. Championing the civil rights movement, King advocated racial integration. His vision, epitomised in his celebrated "I Have a Dream" speech, is "that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character".

On the other hand, Malcolm X advocated complete separation of blacks from whites. He called upon the nation's ethnic Africans to pursue the cause of "black nationalism" and to go it alone.