MALCOLM X: A LIFE OF REINVENTION

Malcolmology 101, #32: The Assassination of Malcolm X

Thu, 28 Jul 2011 12:55:30 -0400

Malcolm X woke up on the morning of February 21, 1965 at the New York Hilton to a menacing voice over the phone: “Wake up, brother.” He was scheduled to speak later that afternoon at an OAAU rally along with guest speaker Reverend Milton Galamison. There were several oddities at the Audubon Ballroom that day, one of which was Malcolm’s request that morning that his wife and children attend the rally. Betty had been discouraged from engaging in either of Malcolm’s political groups since his return from Africa, and she was surprised at his late invitation. Malcolm also appeared hurried and agitated, lashing out at several of his staff as well as Sheikh Hassoun, a religious mentor he had met while abroad and employed as a spiritual teacher for the MMI. Finally, Malcolm had also ordered that his security not be armed or search people upon entering as they were accustomed to doing. Although members of the MMI were comfortable with such procedures from their time in the NOI, Malcolm feared that the more middle-class OAAU crowd would be put off by such personal encroachment.

As was customary, MMI member Benjamin 2X Karim opened the rally. “Few men will risk their lives for somebody else,” he said. Most would be “running away from death, even if they’re in the right” but Malcolm X was one who “cares nothing about the consequences [and] cares only for the people.” At 3 pm, Malcolm approached the stage briskly and sat before the crowd of four hundred, which included at least three undercover police officers. Karim quickly brought his address to a close and introduced Malcolm who began with the usual Muslim greeting “As-salaam alaikum.” A commotion then started several rows back with one man yelling “Get your hands out of my pockets.” A smoke bomb went off toward the back of the room, and a man in the front row stood and walked toward the stage. He pulled out a sawed-off shotgun and shot Malcolm at the rostrum in his side and chest. Two other men ran forward and fired shots from a Luger and a .45 and then ran up the rows of toppled chairs toward the main entrance. One of Malcolm’s guards, Reuben Francis, who had disobeyed orders by carrying arms, shot a fleeing man in the leg. The conspirator, Thomas Hagan, was pulled from a crowd beating him to death by a policeman outside. Meanwhile, a BOSS undercover agent, Gene Roberts, worked to resuscitate Malcolm on the stage while the crowd waited hopelessly for an ambulance to arrive. Eventually his supporters rushed him to nearby Columbia Presbyterian Hospital on a gurney where doctors worked for fifteen minutes to revive him. However, by 3:30 pm, a physician emerged and announced: “The gentleman you knew as Malcolm X is dead.”

In the following week there was a constant fear of retribution. Just nights after Malcolm’s assassination, Mosque No. 7 was burned to the ground after a firebomb was thrown through the fourth floor window. Elijah Muhammad was guarded by 24-hour security in his Chicago home and many of Malcolm’s close friends and followers went into hiding. The police had trouble prying any information from Hagan but had arrested two Mosque No. 7 members, Norman 3X Butler and Thomas 15X Johnson, by the first week of March. Both Butler and Johnson were wanted by New York law enforcement for their involvement in another murder in the Bronx, and Hagan was at first unwilling to clear their name. By the time he admitted that the two men were not involved, the court believed he was only sacrificing himself to secure acquittals for his accomplices. However, Hagan had not met either men before and the conspiracy involved not three, but five NOI members. Hagan would sign affidavits in 1977 and 1978 with new information on the four men who he had worked with, but the courts refused to retry the case. Butler and Johnson were both paroled in the mid-1980s and Hagan in March of 2010. As those in Harlem mourned the death of their charismatic leader, Malcolm’s brother Wilfred spoke that Sunday at Mosque No. 1 in Detroit where Malcolm had first joined the Nation. “No sense in getting emotional,” he told the assembly, “This is the kind of times we are living in. Once you are dead your troubles are over. It’s those living that’re in trouble.”

In this episode the late Dr.Manning Marable explains the climate...

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 11:52:27 -0400

In this episode the late Dr.Manning Marable explains the climate surrounding Malcolm X when he leaves The Nation of Islam and how Malcolm X, once separated from The Nation, begins to reach out to world leaders for support of his plan to hold the United Sates responsible for its crimes against humanity. This is the fifth installment of the Malcomology video project, a collaboration between truth2power films and Dr. Manning Marable, author of the new Malcolm X biography, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention. Visit Dr. Marable’s blog at http://detroitred.tumblr.com and truth2power films at http://truth2powerfilms.org

Malcolmology 101, #31: Firebombing

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 10:41:34 -0400

Early on the morning of February 14, 1965, several Molotov cocktails were thrown into the first floor of Malcolm X’s home where his pregnant wife and four daughters slept. Malcolm had fallen asleep in his study while preparing for his address in Detroit later that day and he rushed to help them escape the flames. The family watched in the bitter cold as their house burned and Malcolm and Betty decided to take the children to stay in hiding with family friend Thomas Wallace, brother of actress Ruby Dee. Much to his wife’s chagrin, Malcolm insisted that he would honor his speaking commitment in Michigan. Less than seven hours after ushering his family out of a burning home, Malcolm arrived in Detroit and checked into the Statler Hilton Hotel. His clothing reeked of smoke and he had not slept; friends worried and gave him a sedative but he was woken after a brief nap for an interview that afternoon.

That night Malcolm gave the keynote address at the Ford Auditorium at an awards ceremony sponsored by the Afro-American Broadcasting and Recording Company. Recognized at the event were Sidney Poiter, Marian Anderson and Jackie Gleason. Malcolm had been invited by his friend Milton Henry, who was a leader of the Freedom Now Party, and he gave a speech which mirrored those of his recent visit to Europe. His address again revealed the budding influence of cultural nationalism and he stressed the need for connections both culturally and politically with post-colonial Africa. Also, despite the likelihood that the NOI had just recently made an attempt on his life and endangered his family, he cast the organization in a favorable light: “[The NOI] made the whole civil rights movement become more militant, and more acceptable to the white power structure … We forced many of the civil rights leaders to be even more militant than they intended.”

While Malcolm spoke in Detroit, however, New York was rife with rumors about the source and intent of the firebombing. The NOI claimed that they would not have bombed a house that they were scheduled to repossess; they even boldly showed up at the property to assess the damages. Meanwhile, a bottle of gasoline had been found on one of the children’s dressers and insinuations were made that Malcolm had set the fire himself in a spiteful attempt to destroy the Nation’s property. For Malcolm, the entire scenario must have recalled painful memories from his childhood in Lansing. Like his father, Malcolm faced accusations of arson to his own home in the midst of an eviction battle. The primary difference, which he was quick to lament, was that unlike the Lansing fire which had surely been set by local whites, the firebombing was the work of his former mosque membership. Anticipating the tragedy of the following week, he stated: “The only thing I regret is that two black groups have to fight and kill each other off.”

Malcolmology 101, #30: Malcolm X Denounced by NOI

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 10:38:47 -0400

Between several failed attempts on Malcolm X’s life and his looming eviction trial, it was clear that Malcolm’s falling out with the NOI was more serious than anyone could have anticipated. And, although Muhammad Speaks was almost entirely silent on anything relating to the minister during the early 1960s, Malcolm became its primary subject in 1964. The newspaper devoted numerous pages of each issue to slandering its former spokesman, even contacting Malcolm’s older brothers Wilfred and Philbert, both of whom remained ministers in Detroit and Lansing respectively. Philbert offered a public denouncement of Malcolm, calling him “cunning and clever” and warned that his “reckless efforts … will cause many of our unsuspecting people who listen and follow him unnecessary loss of blood and life.” He compared his brother to Judas, Brutus, and Benedict Arnold, and most intimately, drew parallels between Malcolm’s condition and the mental illness which had beset their mother, Louise, and brother Reginald. Malcolm accurately suspected that his brother’s critique was not in fact his own, but was written by National Secretary John Ali, and retorted that only Philbert “is dumb enough to let someone put a script in his hand and read it.” The condemnation was published in Muhammad Speaks the following month alongside the now-iconic cartoon of Malcolm’s decapitated head, horned and catapulting down towards the skulls of other notorious traitors.

Other former associates within the Nation also took their turns denouncing Malcolm as an apostate and hypocrite. Ministers Louis X (Farrakhan), John Shabazz, and Jeremiah Shabazz all contributed articles lambasting their former mentor and colleague. Talk of Malcolm in the more private confines of the mosque as recorded by FBI informants were even more vitriolic and frequently intimated violence. Supreme Captain Raymond Sharrieff told Mosque No. 7 members that “Elijah Muhammad used to like former Minister Malcolm X more than he did his own son, but Malcolm X hurt Elijah Muhammad deeply” and predicted that he would “soon die out.” In Chicago, Malcolm began to be referred to as “Big Red” and was portrayed as a former “thief, dope addict, and a pimp.” Perhaps the most graphic critique was from Edwina X of the Newark mosque, who peppered her open invitation to the mosque with antagonisms: “Such a deceiver should dig a hole and crawl into it and pray that the parasites in the hole have mercy on him. For one who has heard the truth and still wants to go astray - there is nothing but total destruction for such a defector.” Although the order for Malcolm X’s assassination has never been directly traced back to Elijah Muhammad or any other high ranking officials, the rhetoric of the NOI during the months following Malcolm’s disaffection created an atmosphere in which no such order was necessary. It was made apparent to all within the sect that Malcolm’s death was not only a possibility, but an eventual certainty.

Malcolmology 101, #29: Eviction Trial and Paternity Suits

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 12:33:43 -0400

Elijah Muhammad’s inquiry to his advisors during the first week of March about the title and property rights to Malcolm’s home was not idle musing. Weeks after Malcolm announced the formation of MMI, Mosque No. 7 secretary Maceo X Owens filed papers on behalf of the Nation of Islam to have the former minister and his family evicted from their Queens home. Meanwhile, Malcolm continued efforts to publicize Muhammad’s extramarital affairs, outing Muhammad on Mike Wallace’s CBS news program and sending top aide James 67X to Phoenix to gain signatures for a paternity suit by two of the leader’s former secretaries. The NOI’s stance on the eviction trial was that the home had been purchased for Malcolm in his ministerial capacities, but that he had severed the relationship with the establishment of MMI. Conversely, Malcolm’s argument was that he had never been given the proper trial according to established NOI protocol, which included a hearing in front of the local mosque. To be brought before a civil court, rather than a Muslim court, was to him a clear deviation of principles.

The trial itself took place on June 15-16, 1964 and featured witnesses such as Captain Joseph, defectors loyal to Malcolm such as Charles 37X Kenyatta, and a two-hour long testimony by Malcolm himself. The scene was tense and Malcolm arrived guarded by ten of his followers and thirty-two policemen, while nearly fifty members of the Fruit of Islam stood by. Although Malcolm’s legal representative, Percy Sutton, clearly did not want to broach the issue of Muhammad’s affairs at the trial, his client could not resist dangling it before the court. When asked about his public comments on President Kennedy, Malcolm stated that he was “publically suspended” for that reason, but really suspended for “something private … very private.” Finally, despite Sutton’s attempts to move away from that line of questioning, Malcolm told the court that Muhammad had taken nine wives (six of whom were impregnated) and his suspension was a result of spreading this information among top NOI officials and ministers. Due to the presence of top-level Nation officials at the eviction trial, Malcolm’s pronouncement was on some levels a declaration of war.

Malcolm’s pronouncement of Muhammad’s affairs at the trial and on CBS were only the beginning of a larger act of public defamation. Just weeks before the eviction trial, James 67X had secured the signatures of Lucille Rosary and Malcolm’s teenage sweetheart, Evelyn Williams, and taken the paternity suit to Los Angeles attorney Gladys Towles Root. John Ali and Raymond Sharrieff quickly attempted to refute rumors of Muhammad’s affairs in a July 5press conference. Following the judge’s decision to delay the case until the prosecution could show just cause for Muhammad’s appearance in court, five women – at least three of whom were mistresses of Muhammad – held a press conference in Los Angeles protesting the paternity suit. The three mistresses also appeared with the widow of Ronald Stokes, Delores Jardan, in support of Muhammad.

Just before his death, Malcolm met with Root, Rosary and Williams and volunteered information, assuring his testimony in the upcoming case. However, following his death the next month, the case lost momentum. Meanwhile, in the eviction trial, the judge had ruled in favor of the Nation of Islam in September 1964, but tabled the execution of the warrant until January 1965. The eviction had hardly been served before Malcolm’s death; he and his family moved to the home of close friend, Thomas Wallace, only three days before his assassination. However, more significant than the outcome of either case, the eviction trial and paternity suits represented the public souring of a relationship which Malcolm X had once described as like that of a father and son.

Malcolmology 101, #28: Formation of the Organization of Afro-American Unity

Tue, 28 Jun 2011 14:04:06 -0400

Following his return from Africa, Malcolm continued to draw several hundred people to MMI rallies at New York’s Audubon Ballroom. However, there were many interested young activists and older Harlemites who were drawn to Malcolm’s politics but were disinterested in the religious aspects of Muslim Mosque Inc. The first informal meeting of what would later become the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU) was held on June 9 at the apartment of Lynne Shifflett, a young journalist at NBC who had met Malcolm through a common acquaintance, Peter Bailey. Hunter College professor John Henrik Clarke also attended and suggested that the group be named and modeled after the recently formed Organization of African Unity (OAU), a group of African nations dedicated to anti-colonialism and continental solidarity and unity. However, unlike the OAU, its American counterpart was not a coalition of nations but an impromptu group of individuals such as photographer Robert Haggins and journalist Sylvester Leaks all following a top-down model of leadership in which Malcolm was the primary, but largely absent, figure.

The OAAU’s first public rally was held at the Audubon on June 28th before nearly one-thousand spectators. Malcolm read the “Statement of Basic Aims and Objectives” which outlined issues ranging from self-defense and education to cultural nationalism and the need for alliances with other civil rights groups. He further stated that he would send a telegram to Martin Luther King offering his support and had already received encouragement from local organizations as well nations within the Afro-Asian world. In fact, a central goal of the OAAU and its close association with the OAU was missing from the stated objects of the organization. The group hoped that recognition from the OAU would help bring the plight of African-Americans before the United Nations. As much as Ghana and other recently independent African nations offered cautious support to Malcolm X, they were still reluctant to stand before the UN and indict the United States for human rights violations.

Despite Malcolm’s initial insistence that he would carry on Elijah Muhammad’s work from outside the NOI and that no Muslims should leave the sect, the two leaders now openly waged a membership war. While Malcolm was drawing high profile people such as Paule Marshall and Juanita Poitier to the unveiling of the OAAU, Elijah Muhammad spoke before a crowd of between six and twelve thousand at the 369th Armory only a few miles south. Muhammad’s rally was an open challenge to Malcolm X in both its extravagance and location. However, the historical significance of the NOI’s rally would pale in comparison to the formation of the OAAU, which promised to be the most significant secular black nationalist movement since Marcus Garvey’s United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). Although the OAAU would suffer from Malcolm’s long absences abroad and his assassination shortly thereafter, its aims and objectives proved to be foundational to the nascent Black Power Movement.

Malcolmology 101, #27: Malcolm X debates Louis Lomax

Thu, 23 Jun 2011 13:41:00 -0400

On May 21, 1964, Malcolm X was greeted at the airport in New York by sixty supporters. Just as they had in the NOI, many of his security were dressed in the distinctive Fruit of Islam uniform: dark blue suits, white shirts and a bow tie. The following day, Malcolm traveled with MMI secretary James 67X Shabazz to a press conference in Chicago. There, Malcolm set about promoting his debate with Louis Lomax at the Chicago Civic Opera House. At the debate, before a crowd of nearly fifteen hundred, Malcolm proclaimed that “Separation is not the goal of the Afro-American. Nor is integration his goal. They are merely methods toward his real end - respect as a human being.” The debaters had been billed as representing the “two extremes of the Negro community’s sentiment on race relations,” and Malcolm’s revised stance on racial separation came as a surprise. As he worked to remake his image and insert himself into the civil rights conversation, he added that he had experienced a “spiritual rebirth” and would no longer “subscribe to a sweeping indictment of any race.”

Although those familiar with the nuance of Malcolm’s speeches may have recognized that he had condemned whites according to their actions since the late 1950s, to the casual observer his turn from the “blue-eyed devils” rhetoric of the NOI represented an ideological about-face. He also worked to distance himself from the violent image that followed him from his time in the Nation. While abroad, Malcolm was erroneously linked to a Harlem gang called the “Blood Brothers,” who were charged with racially motivated killings. Although he was careful to eschew any association with such violence, Malcolm still remained a staunch advocate of self-defense. The Los Angeles Times reported that Malcolm’s greatest applause at the debate came from his statement that “unless the race issue is quickly settled, the 22 million American Negroes could easily adopt the guerrilla tactics of other deprived revolutionaries.”

Later that night Malcolm again appeared with Lomax on Irving Kupcinet’s television program, “Kup’s Show,” where he assured viewers that he had had no trouble proving his legitimacy to the orthodox Muslim world. “The only qualification for entering Mecca,” he said, “is if you bear witness … I had no trouble. Besides, Prince Faisal had given me his Deputy Chief of Protocol who went with me before the Court and acted as my interpreter. So I had no trouble at all.” In truth, there was much skepticism by the Hajj court prior to Faisal’s interference and his approval took several days. However, in only a few days back, Malcolm had already begun to establish himself as a liaison to the world community of Islam and remade his image from one of racial essentialism to racial blindness. For Louis Lomax, who had followed Malcolm’s national career trajectory from its inception in “The Hate that Hate Produced” to his “Ballot or the Bullet” speech just months prior, Malcolm X’s reinventions must have seemed endless.

Malcolmology 101, #26: Malcolm X in Ghana

Thu, 09 Jun 2011 12:35:55 -0400

On April 7, 1964, Malcolm used funds furnished by his half-sister Ella to purchase a round-trip ticket to Africa with stops in Cairo, Jeddah, Khartoum, Nairobi, Lagos, Accra, and Algiers. He left the following week under the name Malik El-Shabazz to make Hajj at the holy city of Mecca. Amidst a pending eviction battle and reported attempts on his life, he simply told the Amsterdam News: “I want to get my spiritual self strengthened.” With the exception of the religious experience of the Hajj, the highlight of his one month sojourn was a week-long stop in Ghana, where he was met by a small group of African-American expatriates: writer Julian Mayfield and his wife Ana Livia Cordero, a Puerto Rican doctor; American intellectual exile Preston King; social worker and secretary to the Ethiopian ambassador, Alice Windom; Leslie Lacy, a black American university student; and a young Maya Make (later Angelou), then working for the University of Ghana’s School of Music and Drama and editing for The African Review.

After settling down and dining with many in the expatriate community, Malcolm’s first few days were a hectic series of meetings with various diplomats, including the Cuban ambassador Armando Entralgo Gonzalez and Ghana’s Minister of Defense, Kofi Boaka. He also lectured before a full hall at the University of Ghana, where he praised Ghanaian premier Kwame Nkrumah as one of Africa’s “most progressive leaders.” He then managed to meet with members of Parliament before attending private audience with Nkrumah. On May 15, Malcolm addressed 200 students at the Kwame Nkrumah Ideological Institute roughly 40 miles outside of Accra. He later met Mrs. Shirley Graham Du Bois, the widow of historian W.E.B. Du Bois. Malcolm’s final full day was spent meeting with Nigerian High Commissioner, Alhaji Isa Wali, and attending a party held in his honor by the Cuban ambassador.

On his way out of Accra, Malcolm encountered Muhammad Ali and his new boxing manager, Elijah Muhammad’s son, Herbert. The meeting was the first since Ali had pledged his allegiance to Muhammad and Malcolm had formed MMI, and the boxer spared no punches, laughing at Malcolm’s “funny white robe” and adding that “nobody listens to that Malcolm anymore” before the two men headed their separate ways. Just after his return home, Malcolm was also derided in the Ghanain Times by exiled South African journalist H.M. Basner who charged that the black nationalist failed to recognize the class aspects of racism and instead was consumed by racialism. Julian Mayfield wasted no time in his rebuttal to Basner, writing an article which appeared the following day and claimed that Basner was merely responding to Malcolm’s reluctance to involve liberal whites in the struggle, but that none of his argument excluded a Marxist approach of race. What ultimately upset the expatriate community the most is that Basner’s criticisms were sanctioned by a government-controlled paper, which seemed a hostile stance by Nkrumah against African-American expatriates. However, despite the uproar after Malcolm’s departure, he later wrote a laudatory account of his time in Ghana and the trip greatly influenced his growing devotion to Pan-Africanism. Soon he would call for a return to Africa both “philosophically and culturally” and portray Ghana as the “fountainhead of Pan-Africanism.”

Citation: “Civil Rights Issue in U.S. is...

Thu, 09 Jun 2011 12:35:50 -0400

Citation: “Civil Rights Issue in U.S. is Mislabeled,” Ghanaian Times, May 13, 1964.

Columbia University doctoral student Zaheer Ali discusses...

Mon, 23 May 2011 12:48:59 -0400

Columbia University doctoral student Zaheer Ali discusses Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention with Democracy Now!

Malcolmology 101, #25: "The Ballot or the Bullet"

Mon, 09 May 2011 11:23:00 -0400

Although he had only left the Nation of Islam in March, things moved quickly for Malcolm X during the following month. In that time he had formed his new religious organization, Muslim Mosque Inc., delivered speeches at Harvard University and New York’s Rockland Palace, visited the Senate to observe a civil-rights filibuster, faced eviction from his home in Queens, and prepared to complete one of the Five Pillars of Islam: the Hajj. Amongst this hectic schedule, Malcolm had begun to consciously fashion himself in the mold of evangelist Billy Graham. During this period he delivered a speech which, along with “Message to the Grass Roots,” would come to be his most widely quoted. “The Ballot or the Bullet,” as it was called, was ranked in 2008 as the seventh most significant speech of 20th century by leading scholars of American public address.

Malcolm had delivered a similar speech several times in late March, but it was his address at a debate with Louis Lomax at Cory Methodist Church in Cleveland which is best remembered. The event was sponsored by CORE and between two- and three-thousand attended. As he had done the previous week in New York, Malcolm stressed that although he considered himself a Muslim, “unity is the right religion.” Many took only the message of violence from the speech; he had recently promoted the formation of “rifle clubs” and reiterated that blacks were constitutionally within their rights to defend themselves and their property if the government failed to do so. However, what had changed dramatically from years past and the rhetoric of the Nation of Islam, was the possibility for reform through voting. Where he had previously described voting as a bourgeois pastime for the “Uncle Tom” and the “house Negro,” he now recognized the potential of such armament. As always, he still prescribed caution and skepticism: “A ballot is like a bullet. You don’t throw your ballots until you see a target, and if that target is not within your reach, keep your ballot in your pocket.” But, although he still believed himself to be “carrying into action the teaching of Elijah Muhammad,” Malcolm had also taken a bold step toward the possibility of reformism.

Malcolm had begun to carve out a position of his own in the political landscape, one which was neither the apoliticism of Elijah Muhammad nor the non-violent resistance of Martin Luther King. He continued to speak to the growing constituency of young black nationalists within the civil rights movement who saw the value and potential in political processes yet the need for self-defense and militant mobilization.

Malcolm X, “The Ballot or the Bullet”

Mon, 09 May 2011 11:20:00 -0400

Malcolm X, “The Ballot or the Bullet”

Video of Dr. Manning Marable from his last public event, the...

Mon, 09 May 2011 10:59:00 -0400

Video of Dr. Manning Marable from his last public event, the book launch of Beyond Boundaries: The Manning Marable Reader on March 3, 2011. Here, he is discussing a conversation he had with the intellectual C.L.R. James in the late 1980s. Thanks to Dr. John Rickford for the video!

Malcolmology Episode 4: Leaving the Nation

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 16:41:00 -0400

Malcolmology Episode 4: Leaving the Nation

Dr. Manning Marable, 1950 - 2011

Mon, 04 Apr 2011 11:34:47 -0400

We at the Center for Contemporary Black History are deeply saddened by the loss of our friend and mentor, Dr. Manning Marable. Thank you to all who have reached out to us, Dr. Marable’s family, and the Columbia community; your words have meant a lot to all of us.

We know that Dr. Marable would want us to continue publishing the Malcolmology blog; together with his stepson Mike Tyner, we will be continuing to work toward the completion of the documentary film on Malcolm X. Over the coming months, we will be updating this blog with content and updates about Dr. Marable’s work, life, and legacy.

For sending of condolences, please contact:

Courtney Teague: mm247@columbia.edu

For inquiries regarding the content and publication of Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention, please contact:

Kevin Loughran: kpl2107@columbia.edu

“A Eulogy for Manning Marable” By Russell Rickford

http://www.theroot.com/views/eulogy-manning-marable

Herman Ferguson on Malcolm’s comments on the Kennedy...

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 13:08:59 -0400

Herman Ferguson on Malcolm’s comments on the Kennedy assassination, via the Malcolm X Project.

Malcolmology 101, #24: "Chickens Coming Home to Roost"

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 13:08:56 -0400

In early August, prior to Elijah Muhammad’s instructions regarding the march, the Messenger had written Malcolm X with another warning: “Be careful about mentioning Kennedy in your talks and printed matters by name; use U.S.A. or the American Government.” On December 1, 1963, Malcolm spoke in place of Muhammad, who again had taken ill. At the Manhattan Center, he delivered a speech entitled “God’s Judgment of White America,” before a crowd of 700 mostly Mosque No. 7 members. However, the crowd also comprised a significant minority of non-Muslim blacks and members of the white press. With National Secretary John Ali in the audience, Malcolm was sure to address the religious aspects of the NOI’s program, stressing that followers had been practicing the five pillars of Islam and making pilgrimage since Muhammad first broke ground in 1959. The speech was not altogether void of politics, though, and Malcolm argued - as he had in the past several months - that the “Negro revolution” was controlled by the government and white liberals. Again he anonymously placed Martin Luther King at the forefront of this fraudulent revolt: “Revolutions are never peaceful, never loving, never nonviolent. Nor are they compromising. Revolutions are destructive and bloody.”

However, it was not such political indictment which would earn the ire of Muhammad and the Chicago ruling elite, but rather Malcolm’s comments in the question and answer period. Despite the explicit instructions handed down by Muhammad, he answered a reporter’s question regarding the recent assassination of President Kennedy with the analogy of “chickens coming home to roost.” “Being an old farm boy myself,” he said, “chickens coming home to roost never did make me sad; they’ve always made me glad.” Although many attending the speech thought little of his statement at the time, the Times ran a story the following day with the title: “Malcolm X Scores U.S. and Kennedy.” On December 4, Muhammad announced that the minister had been suspended for 90 days, even canceling all his scheduled appearances for a month-long “mourning period” out of respect for the late president. Still described as “the man rumored to be the next leader of the Black Muslims” in the press, Malcolm responded to the suspension with his usual humility: “Yes, I’m wrong. I disobeyed Muhammad’s order. He was justified 100 per cent [sic]. I agree I need to withdraw from public appearance.”

The details of Malcolm’s suspension were clear: he would retain his administrative duties at Mosque No. 7, but withdraw from all public activity. However, both Malcolm and many mosque members were unsure of exactly how rigid these boundaries were drawn. The minister continued to make statements to the press when asked over the telephone about his suspension. Likewise, close associates at the mosque spoke to Malcolm in private but knew that such conversations were a direct violation of Muhammad’s edict. The statement was a public relations faux pas; however, for Muhammad to declare as he did in a public telegram, that “we with the world are very shocked at the assassination of President Kennedy,’” seemed bizarre for a sect which promoted total separation and political sovereignty. What became painfully clear to many was that Muhammad and Malcolm’s enemies in Chicago had seen an opportunity to enact authority. Such public suspension restored order and quickly escalated hostilities to the point where his return seemed to all besides Malcolm a grave impossibility.

Citation: Malcolm X FBI File, Memo, Director to Chief of Secret...

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 13:08:50 -0400

Citation: Malcolm X FBI File, Memo, Director to Chief of Secret Service, December 6, 1963.

Historian Robin D. G. Kelley on Malcolm’s use of the “house...

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 10:43:00 -0400

Historian Robin D. G. Kelley on Malcolm’s use of the “house Negro” and “field Negro.”

Malcolmology 101, #23: "Message to the Grass Roots"

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 10:36:00 -0400

Although he could not possibly have anticipated it, the last two months of 1963 would come to define the trajectory of Malcolm X’s final two years. First, Malcolm dined with his mother for the first time in 25 years; she was then released from Kalamazoo State Hospital into the care of his brother Philbert in their hometown of Lansing, Michigan. A week later, Malcolm delivered one of his most legendary speeches, “A Message to the Grass Roots” to nearly 2,000 listeners at the Northern Negro Grass Roots Leadership Conference held at Detroit’s King Solomon Baptist Church. Considered by many today to be one of the top 100 American speeches of the 20th century, Malcolm’s speech unified many of the strands of black nationalism, Pan-Africanism, and third-world revolutionary thought which had been emerging in his deliveries for years. Scholar Richard Brent Turner described the speech as a “classic black nationalist speech … [which was] an important signal to insiders and outsiders that Malcolm X had outgrown the political conservativism of the Nation of Islam.”

Indeed, sponsored by Albert Cleage’s Freedom Now Party, the speech was recognized by many outside the NOI as a move toward the radical left. Labor activist Grace Lee Boggs recalled her similar impressions of the speech: “His speech was so analytical, so much less nationalist and more internationalist than Malcolm’s previous speeches, that I whispered in the ear of Rev. Cleage, who was sitting next to me on the platform, ‘Malcolm’s going to split with Elijah Muhammad.’” Likewise, Gloria Richardson, who first met Malcolm X at the speech and went on to collaborate with him in the civil rights organization ACT, remembered: “That was when I really wondered how long it would be before he broke with [the NOI].”

The rhetorical markers which signaled an ideological shift to many were Malcolm’s connections between anti-colonialism, the Bandung Conference, and the struggle of blacks in the U.S. Furthermore, he drew upon aspects of his “Farce on Washington” speech and distinguished between a “Negro” and “black” revolution as he had done the previous month on the West Coast. Again using the parable of the “house Negro” and the “field Negro,” Malcolm claimed that a revolution centered around non-violent activism was not revolutionary at all. “Revolution is bloody,” he charged, “revolution is hostile, revolution knows no compromise … If you’re afraid of black nationalism you’re afraid of revolution. And if you love revolution, you love black nationalism.” Ultimately, choosing to give such a speech in Detroit, the center of labor movements and black working class radicalism in the 1960s, opened Malcolm X to an entirely new audience from that of the NOI.

The text of Malcolm’s speech is available here.