Here's why Winston Churchill doesn't deserve to be commemorated:

1. He was a terrorist. 1-2/3 as bad as Hitler. This is an actual fact–he diverted food to Britain and European countries during a deadly famine in Bengal, which killed up to 4 million Bengalis by 1943. During the Holocaust, 6 million to 11 million Jews died. Also, when discussing the Bengal famine, Churchill made the following remarks: "I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion. The famine was their own fault for breeding like rabbits." When he was talking about the "beastly religion" of Indians, he was probably referring to Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism, or Islam. You know who else discriminated against a particular religion? Hitler.

2. He supported eugenics–or the improvement of a human population by controlled breeding. He wrote that the mentally handicapped and unwell “constitute a national and race danger which is impossible to exaggerate.”

3. He believed in racial hierarchy, with whites at the top, Indians in the middle, and Africans in the bottom, and he supported the genocide of the indigenous peoples of America and Africa, stating that it was "not a great wrong."

4. He wanted to change his campaign slogan to "keep England white." This is self-explanatory.

5.“I have always said,” he wrote, “that if Great Britain were defeated in war, I hoped we should find a Hitler to lead us back to our rightful position among the nations.” And he supported Hitler's social policies.
In short, he was an ableist and racist terrorist who probably believed in ethnic cleansing.

6. He described the concentration camps in South Africa–in which over 130,000 “blacks” were pushed into or laid to waste, as “a great fun galloping about.”

7. He contributed to the installation of “British Gulags” or detention camps against the Kikuyus of Kenya where 150,000 were forced at gunpoint against them, including none other than Barack Obama’s Kenyan grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama.

Here's why Malcolm X deserves to be commemorated:

1. He isn't commemorated enough. Aside from a few schools, a holiday that is celebrated in very few places, and four streets, Malcolm X isn't really commemorated. I never learned about him in school, either–he was often overshadowed by his more peaceful counterpart, Martin Luther King, Jr. This is probably because of the controversy over his beliefs–he is often accused of preaching racism and violence. Simply put, this is false. He only advocated violence when it was necessary for the improvement of the rights of his people. He didn't preach racism, he preached what white America did wrong to black America. And regardless of how you view his politics, there is no denying that he is one of the most influential African-Americans of his time, and his words continue to empower and inspire African-Americans to this day.

2. He was an African-American, and he was Muslim. Aside from James Hubert Blake High School, no MCPS high schools are named after African-Americans, and I doubt any are named after Muslims. With the growing rates of Islamophobic and anti-black crimes across the nation as well as the growing diversity of the MCPS population, it's necessary to commemorate positive role models that weren't Islamophobic (Winston Churchill denounced Indian religions, including Islam) or anti-black (Winston Churchill basically thought that Africans were the lowest race in his self-made racial hierarchy). And it's necessary to commemorate people who were heroes for black people and in a sense all people of color, and that person would be Malcolm X.

3. He was a fearless activist. While Martin Luther King Jr. was far more moderate, emphasizing integration, inclusion, and peace, Malcolm X had radical views and was not afraid to promote them. While many view the ideas of black power and black nationalism racist, it's factual that these ideas inspired African-Americans at the time and increased confidence among them. African-Americans were one of if not the most oppressed group at the time, and while Martin Luther King Jr. emphasized compromise between white America and black America, Malcolm X didn't believe in compromise. He believed that African-Americans know their own rights and know what they deserve and should thus get those things, and that the oppressors of African-Americans should have no say in what rights they deserve, because they infringed upon it.

4. He is an inspiration for everyone because of the circumstances from which he came from. His house was set on fire, his dad was killed, his mom went to a mental institution and remained there for 26 years when he was young, he was separated from his siblings as they were all placed in foster homes, and he went to jail for 10 years. But he still managed to create a life for himself and became one of the most prominent civil rights activists that the U.S. has seen.

5. He had a thing for education. He read constantly while he was in prison, and many of his quotes, like "Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today." or "Without education, you are not going anywhere in this world." are hung up on my teachers' classrooms today.

In short, however controversial he may be, he was a fearless and hardworking African-American (and education) advocate with little recognition compared to what he deserves.

Sources:

1. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/not-his-finest-hour-the-dark-side-of-winston-churchill-2118317.html

2. http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29701767

3. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/02/03/the-dark-side-of-winston-churchills-legacy-no-one-should-forget/?utm_term=.1fa7276a3f6c

4. http://www.history.com/news/10-things-you-may-not-know-about-winston-churchill

5. http://listverse.com/2016/10/03/10-terrible-things-done-by-winston-churchill/

6. http://www.biography.com/people/malcolm-x-9396195

7. http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/malcolm-x

8. The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As told to Alex Haley by Malcolm X