Christian-framed civil rights discourse mobilized America where Malcolm X could not

Evidence

King’s deeply Christian discourse stands in sharp contrast to the language of human rights used by Malcolm X. In its own way, it is neither less statist (it sought civil rights from the state) nor less universalist (it invoked universal brotherhood) than the discourse of Malcolm X—and yet, precisely because it was addressed to America (invoking its founding fathers and its dominant Judeo-Christian heritage) it mobilized American public opinion for change in a way that Malcolm X was never able to do. However, its discourse of redemption is not quite the same as the redemptive project of the American government. — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 708

Categorization

• XREF: Direct evidence for the reader’s core question: Islam-coded (Malcolm X) discourse is rendered politically illegible in America precisely because it lacks the privileged Christian register, whereas King’s explicitly religious framing succeeds. — connects to: Malcolm X made Islam nationally visible and converted public Islam to anti-racist theology — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 187; Malcolm X demanded equality before any reconciliation with whites
• ADDENDUM: Corroborates the ‘secular modernity quietly privileges Christian norms’ thesis the reader wants to bridge to Cooper.