In “The Ballot or the Bullet”, civil rights activist and Black Nationalist Malcolm X spoke to Black Americans, encouraging them to vote if they had the ability to. In this speech, however, he noted that if the United States government continued to deny them equal rights, Black Americans should consider armed resistance, hence, the ballot, or the bullet.

Lyndon B. Johnson is the head of the Democratic Party. If he’s for civil rights, let him go into the Senate next week and declare himself… Tell him, don’t wait until election time. If he waits too long, brothers and sisters, he will be responsible for letting a condition develop in this country which will create a climate that will bring seeds up out of the ground with vegetation on the end of them looking like something these people never dreamed of. In 1964, it’s the ballot or the bullet.