Do the Right Thing ending explained

What happens

After police kill Radio Raheem, Mookie throws a trash can through Sal's window and the pizzeria burns. Next morning, Mookie and Sal meet in the ruins and reach an uneasy truce. The day's rage cost them both.

The last image

Two quotations about violence, one from Martin Luther King Jr. and one from Malcolm X, appear on screen.

Three readings

1 · Mookie did rightHe turns the crowd's anger from Sal onto property, and no one else is hurt.

2 · Mookie did wrongDestroying the livelihood of a man who employed him answers one injustice with another.

3 · No answer givenKing's nonviolence and Malcolm X's self-defence are set side by side, and the film names no winner.

What it says

Lee refuses a tidy moral because the conflict was never just about a wall or a window. It was about dignity and power. The quiet ending hands the question to you, so you weigh anger, property and violence yourself.