Malcolm X Remembered

By Faiz Ahmed

Oakland University

 

The life of Malcolm X is an example of sincerity and devotion. Malcolm X is an example of change, an example of rehabilitation, an example of broadmindedness and fluidity of thought and an example of courage and bravery. He lived for the cause to which he was devoted and he died for that same cause.The life story of Malcolm X is one that can bring anyone to love this great man.

Malcolm X was born to Earl Little who was a Baptist preacher who taught African Americans to respect themselves. He was a follower of the militant Pan Africanist, Marcus Garvey.

Earl Little was assassinated by the Ku Klux Klan because of his unrelenting preaching and the family was later targeted by government agencies which locked up the mother in an insane asylum and parted the children out for adoption.

American society at that time was unrelentingly and openly racist. African Americans were denied decent housing, education, jobs and were forced to live in abject poverty. They were also imprisoned for long durations for petty crimes, a problem which persists to this day. African Americans still get longer sentences for the same crimes that others get lesser sentences for.

Malcolm dropped out of school at a very young age after his school teacher told him to forget his dreams of becoming a lawyer in favor of becoming a carpenter. Malcolm X at this early period in his life then hit the streets and embraced a life of crime.

Still in his teens, Malcolm was sent to prison for eight years, where he met a member of the growing organization called the ‘Nation of Islam’. The NOI preached an ideology of black superiority and condemned whites as devils. It also was an extremely rehabilitative organization, it transformed people who had lost hope in life into becoming honest, upright and law abiding citizens. The Nation of Islam forbade its members from drinking, gambling, drug addiction, uncleanlines, eating pork, adultery and fornication and crime.

However the Nation of Islam was at odds with the religion of Islam in the concept of God, in the concept of the finality of messengerhood and other smaller issues. The NOI did not have any sheikhs or formal religious training. It was an organization developed by blacks who had extremely little exposure to Islam.

The concept of God that the Nation of Islam professed was that God was a black man. This was to counter the Christian claim that Jesus was God and was also white, therefore God was white. The Nation of Islam also shifted in their positions over time and at one time claimed that all blacks were Gods, but later Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the movement himself stopped those teaching after the five percenter spliter broke away.

Malcolm Joined the NOI and moved up in ranks because of his dedication, devotion and superior oratory skills. Malcolm soon rose to the level of Elijah Muhammad’s National Spokesman.

Malcolm participated in debates, spoke at rally’s, took part in protests, helped in setting up the NOI newspaper and preached the NOI doctrine at local NOI mosques and spoke to students in college campuses.

The NOI grew and Malcolm eventually broke apart from the NOI with a heavy heart in 1964. Malcolm then travelled to Mecca and embraced the Sunni practice of Islam. It was in Mecca that he denounced his previous beliefs of black superiority and accepted that people of all colors can live in harmony and the best way to do that would be through the religion of Islam.

Malcolm also changed and rearranged his political philosophy repeatedly as his scope of understanding grew.

In his days as a member of the NOI, Malcolm stuck with the NOI line of willful separation and a separate black homeland in North America.

In those days he opposed integration and believed that the USA was doomed to divinely ordained destruction because of its oppression and that the best way would be to separate. He opposed the ideology of leading African American civil rights leaders like Roy Wilkins, James Farmer and Rev. Martin Luther King.

After his break from the NOI Malcolm started formulating his own ideology and chose to work to organize the black community to become self sufficient instead of relying on White America’s handouts. This was also among the NOI core principles.

Malcolm then went through another change where he encouraged armed self defense and urged blacks to form rifle clubs to protect and patrol their communities from KKK brutality.

After his return from his Hajj pilgrimage, Malcolm was more internationally aware of the world’s problems and became more international in his outlook.

At this juncture in his life he then concluded that he would have to work with other African Leaders and he joined the civil rights movement.

Malcolm offered Rev. Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders the services of armed ‘brothers’ who would oversee voter registration drives to maintain protection for the volunteers, however that offer was declined.

He made a few more trips to the African continent and made many contacts.

It was at this point that Malcolm declared that his ideology was no longer Black Nationalism, rather it was more than that and he had yet to give it a name.

Malcolm was also receiving death threats and he believed it to be the NOI which was incensed and claimed that he had betrayed Elijah Muhammad.

He later on claimed that it was probably not the NOI, rather it was a bigger force that was trying to kill him. He also made mention of the fact that all over Africa and the Middle East he was being followed by white men and he suspected them to be from the CIA.

Malcolm was determined to raise the African American struggle from that of Civil Rights to that of Human Rights and had made sufficient progress in gathering support from African and Arab heads of states to take the matter to the UN. This would definitely embarrass that US government.

Malcolm continued to receive death threats and said that he was certain that the FBI had infiltrated the NOI thoroughly.

He kept up a very strenuous pace at delivering lectures at college campuses, rallies and labor unions. He was also dictating his autobiography to a friend his, Alex Haley.

Malcolm had gained a notorious reputation of being revolutionary and used this reputation to further the cause of the civil rights leaders while undermining his own self image.

He also used the passivity of the non violent civil rights movement to highlight the injustices being inflicted upon African Americans in the USA and used it to embarrass the racist society and the US government on the international stage. He used this methodology most notably during his debate at the Oxford Union, in the UK to argue that “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in the pursuit of justice is a sin”.

Malcolm also used a more militant tone in his arguments and speeches back in the USA as he knew he had few days to live.

Malcolm X had a speaking arrangement in Selma Alabama and he spoke at the same podium along with the wife of Martin Luther King. Rev King was arrested while on a march at that time.

In that speech Malcolm verbally attacked Martin Luther King and the non violent civil rights movement. After that he told Mrs. King “I want Dr. King to know that I didn't come to Selma to make his job difficult. I really did come thinking I could make it easier. If the white people realize what the alternative is, perhaps they will be more willing to hear Dr. King."

Soon after on Feb 21 1965, Malcolm X was assassinated in Harlem, New York at the Audubon Ballroom. He was 39 years old. He was gunned down by three African Americans and it is widely suspected that they were given the orders by FBI infiltrators from within the NOI and made it appear as the work of Elijah Muhammad. Only one of the gunmen was arrested on the spot and the other two maintained their innocence until today.

Malcolm X also known as El Hajj Malik El Shabazz – Omawale was a man of immense wisdom, a man of righteous character, a man who had great devotion to the betterment of the human condition and was militantly against oppression.

Malcolm X Quotes :-

--"Truth is on the side of the oppressed."--

--"If you have no critics you'll likely have no success."--

--"If someone puts their hands on you make sure they never put their hands on anybody else again."--

--"So early in my life, I had learned that if you want something, you had better make some noise."--

--"We cannot think of being acceptable to others until we have first proven acceptable to ourselves."--

--"The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses."--

--"Hence I have no mercy or compassion in me for a society that will crush people, and then penalize them for not being able to stand up under the weight."--

--"To have once been a criminal is no disgrace. To remain a criminal is the disgrace"--

--"I see America through the eyes of the victim. I don't see any American dream--I see an American nightmare."--

--"As long as you are convinced you have never done anything, you can never do anything."--

--"Why am I as I am? To understand that of any person, his whole life, from
Birth must be reviewed. All of our experiences fuse into our personality. Everything that ever happened to us is an ingredient."--

--"It is only after slavery and prison that the sweetest appreciation of freedom can come."--

--"I saw all races, all colors, blue eyed blonds to black skinned Africans in true brotherhood! In unity! Living as one! Worshiping as one! No segregationists, no liberals; they would not have known how to interpret the meaning of those words"-- After Hajj

--"I don't advocate violence; but if a man steps on my toes, I'll step on his..."--

--"I remember one night at Muzdalifa with nothing but the sky overhead I lay awake amid sleeping Muslim brothers and I learned that pilgrims from every land--every color, and class, and rank; high officials and the beggar alike--all snored in the same language."--

First Published With East West Link News - www.ewlnews.com