The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is an African-American civil rights organization. SCLC is closely associated with its first president, Martin Luther King Jr., who had a large role in the American civil rights movement.
On January 10, 1957, following the Montgomery bus boycott victory against the white democracy and consultations with Bayard Rustin, Ella Baker, and others, Martin Luther King Jr. invited about 60 black ministers and leaders to Ebenezer Church in Atlanta. Prior to this, Rustin, in New York City, conceived the idea of initiating such an effort and first sought C. K. Steele to make the call and take the lead role. Steele declined, but told Rustin he would be glad to work right beside him if he sought King in Montgomery for the role. Their goal was to form an organization to coordinate and support nonviolent direct action as a method of desegregating bus systems across the South. In addition to King, Rustin, Baker, and Steele, Fred Shuttlesworth of Birmingham, Joseph Lowery of Mobile, and Ralph Abernathy of Montgomery, all played key roles in this meeting The group continued this initial meeting on January 11, calling it (in keeping with the recent bus segregation issue) a Southern Negro Leaders Conference on Transportation and Nonviolent Integration when they held a press conference that day. The press conference allowed them to introduce their efforts:
communicating what they had included in telegrams sent that day to applicable members of the Executive branch of the U.S. government (President Eisenhower, Vice President Nixon, and Attorney General Brownell)
sharing an outline of their overall position regarding the restrictions against the "elementary democratic rights [of America's] Negro minority"
and providing a short list of concerns they wished to raise with "white Southerners of goodwill".
On February 15, a follow-up meeting was held in New Orleans. Out of these two meetings came a new organization with King as its president. Shortening the name used for their January meetings, the group briefly called their organization Negro Leaders Conference on Nonviolent Integration, then Southern Negro Leaders Conference. At its third meeting, in August 1957, the group settled on Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) as its name, expanding its focus beyond buses to ending all forms of segregation.[5] A small office was established in the Prince Hall Masonic Temple Building on Auburn Avenue in Atlanta with Ella Baker as SCLC's first—and for a long time only—staff member.
SCLC was governed by an elected Board, and established as an organization of affiliates, most of which were either individual churches or community organizations such as the Montgomery Improvement Association and the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR). This organizational form differed from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) who recruited individuals and formed them into local chapters.[citation needed]
The organization also drew inspiration from the crusades of evangelist Billy Graham, who befriended King after he appeared at a Graham crusade in New York City in 1957. Despite tactical differences, which arose from Graham's willingness to continue affiliating himself with segregationists, the SCLC and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association had similar ambitions and Graham would privately advise the SCLC.
Wikipedia
My Notes: the pamphlet below was printed by the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) who took up the struggle to free Gary Tyler in 1976. He was freed after spending 41 years in Jail
Gary Tyler (born July 1958), from St. Rose, Louisiana, is an African-American man
who is a former prisoner at the Louisiana State Prison in Angola,
Louisiana. He was freed after 41 years in jail after being tried as an
adult and convicted of first-degree murder at age 17 by an all-white
jury; he received the mandatory death sentence for that crime, according to
state law. When he entered Louisiana State Prison (Angola), he was the
youngest person on death row. Many observers believe that Tyler was wrongfully
convicted, as his trial and defense were seriously flawed. He was imprisoned
from 1975 until April 29, 2016. He had been convicted of the October 7, 1974
shooting death of a 13-year-old white boy and wounding of another, on a day of
violent protests by whites against black students at Destrehan High School in St. Charles Parish, Louisiana.
Although desegregation had started in 1968 at the school, racial tensions had
increased during 1974.
In 1976 the United States
Supreme Court ruled in Roberts v. Louisiana that the state's
death penalty law was unconstitutional, as it required mandatory sentences for
convictions of certain capital charges, without consideration of mitigating
factors. The Supreme Court ordered state court reviews and the commutation of
sentences of persons on death row to the next lower level of punishment.
Tyler's sentence was commuted to life in prison without parole for 20 years. His defense appealed the
conviction. The United States
Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled in 1980 that Tyler's trial had
convicted him on "unconstitutional charges" and was
"fundamentally unfair"; it remanded the case to the lower courts and
ordered a new trial. But on state appeal, it changed its ruling in 1981, saying
that attorney error by Tyler's original defense counsel did not allow redress.
Tyler was recommended by the state parole board for a pardon, but governors had
failed to act on this. Tyler's cause was taken up
again in 2007 by human rights organizations and a variety of public figures
after his case was reviewed by a columnist of the New York Times. In
2012 the United States Supreme Court ruled that persons who were minors at the
time of a crime for which they were convicted, could not be sentenced to life
imprisonment without parole, and applied this retroactively. It ordered state
courts to review such cases. Tyler was released in 2016 after the state
arranged a plea deal. He pleaded guilty to manslaughter,
which had a maximum sentence of 21 years; since he had already served nearly
twice that, he was released from prison.
Events
In 1974 formerly all-white Destrehan High School in St. Charles Parish
was filled with racial tensions among the students as the administration
reluctantly integrated, 20 years after the ruling of Brown v. Board of Education (1954).
The school board bussed black students to the school to achieve this. Because
of fights breaking out and a violent protest being conducted by white students,
officials closed the school early the day of the events.
Black students were sent home on
their regular bus. On October 17, 1974, Tyler was 16 and on the bus. As they
were leaving Destrehan High School, the bus was attacked by an angry mob of
100-200 whites, mostly students. The whites were angry about integration at the
school. Timothy Weber, a 13-year-old boy standing outside the bus with other
classmates, was shot and fatally wounded. He later died. Police searched the
bus more than once, but no gun was ever found. The bus driver said he believed
the shot had come from outside. All the students from the bus were taken to the
police station and interrogated under extreme pressure.
Tyler was arrested for disturbing
the peace when he talked back to a police officer; he was soon charged with the
murder of 13-year-old Weber. His mother Juanita Tyler and he said that he was
beaten severely by the police in an attempt to make him confess, but he
refused. Other witnesses later told of being intimidated and threatened by the
police. As columnist Bob Herbert wrote in 2007, "A white boy had been
killed and some black had to pay. Mr. Tyler, as good a black as any, was taken
to a sheriff’s substation where he was beaten unmercifully amid shouted
commands that he confess. He would not."
The racially charged atmosphere had
been heightened by the arrival of David Duke
in Destrehan. He was emerging as a leader in the Ku Klux
Klan and neo-Nazi politics in Louisiana and the United States. He brought
what he called 'security teams' to protect white residents.
Gary Tyler, a former
American political prisoner in Louisiana, giving a lecture at the
University of California, Hastings College of the Law.
Tyler was imprisoned from 1975 (jailed since 1974) until April 29, 2016
having been convicted aged 17 of the 1974 shooting death of a
13-year-old white boy. Originally sentenced to death, Tyler was the
youngest prisoner on death row. The United States Court of Appeals for
the Fifth Circuit ruled the trial was "fundamentally unfair" and Amnesty
International has categorized him with all other political prisoner
around the world.
Trial
and conviction
Sixteen-year-old Tyler was
charged as an adult for first-degree murder, which under state law
required the death penalty if he was convicted. If it had not been prosecuted
as a capital crime and he had been charged as a juvenile, his maximum sentence
would have been imprisonment in a juvenile facility until age 21. At the trial, the police
produced a gun they claimed to have found on the bus, after it had been
searched several times. (It had been allegedly stolen from the Sheriff
department's firing range.) They said a witness testified that Tyler had pulled
it from a slit in the seat. But, in the decades following the conviction, the
witness recanted her testimony, and the gun disappeared from the evidence room.
Despite the lack of physical
evidence tying him to the crime, Tyler was convicted at trial in 1975 by an all-white
jury in a Louisiana state court. Observers thought the case was
marked by several flaws, and noted that his court-appointed defense lawyer had
no experience in capital cases. As Bob
Herbert wrote in 2007 in The New York Times, the lawyer "had
never handled a murder case, much less a death
penalty case. He kept his meetings with his client to a minimum and would
later complain about the money he was paid." Under Louisiana law, since it
was a capital case, conviction incurred the mandatory sentence of death, to be
accomplished by electrocution. Tyler was taken to Louisiana State Prison, where at age 17, he
was the youngest inmate on death row.
Changes
in the death penalty laws
In Roberts v. Louisiana (1976), the United
States Supreme Court ruled that Louisiana's death penalty statute was
unconstitutional as it made the death penalty mandatory for certain murders,
and it did not allow for consideration of mitigating factors or the exercise of
mercy to spare a defendant's life. The USSC directed the Louisiana Supreme
court to review the cases of all inmates on death row and commute their
sentences to life in prison without parole, the next lower level of punishment.
As a result, the Louisiana Supreme Court sentenced Tyler to life imprisonment
without parole for at least 20 years. He joined the general prison population
at Angola to serve his sentence.
The US Supreme Court ruled in Miller
v. Alabama (2012), that mandatory life sentences without parole for
persons convicted as minors was unconstitutional for all juvenile offenders,
even for persons convicted of murder. The court ruled that this decision had to
be applied retroactively, potentially affecting nearly 3000 persons nationally
who had been convicted as minors and received such sentences.
Tyler gained freedom following
Louisiana Supreme Court review and consultation with the St. Charles Parish
district attorney's office on his case. It drove a hard deal. The DA and court
agreed to vacate Tyler's conviction for first-degree murder if Tyler agreed to
enter a guilty plea to manslaughter. The judge sentenced him to the maximum of
21 years for that charge. Since Tyler had already served 41 years, nearly twice
that time, he was finally released from prison on April 29, 2016.
Appeals
and controversy
Tyler's case was appealed by defense
counsel. In 1980 the United States
Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that Tyler had been
"convicted on an unconstitutional charge" (per the 1976 USSC Roberts
decision) and that the trial was "fundamentally unfair". They noted
that his attorney had failed to object to the judge making an improper charge
to the jury, instructing them to "find that the defendant, Tyler, had
intended 'the natural and probably consequences of his act', i.e. to kill or
inflict great bodily harm on more than one person." The court vacated
Tyler's conviction and remanded the case to the lower court, ordering a new
trial. But the state appealed this decision based on his attorney's failure to
object to the judge's instruction, which normally prevents redress of the
conviction. In 1981 the Appeals Court reversed its earlier ruling. While
reiterating its judgment that the trial had been unfair, it withdrew its
instruction for another trial, because of his attorney's error. The US Supreme
Court did not accept this case for hearing.
In 1989 the Louisiana Board of
Appeals recommended a pardon, based on Tyler's good behavior in prison. Five
witnesses recanted the testimony they had presented at his trial. At the time
Governor Buddy Roemer, a Democrat, was running against David Duke
for election. He refused to consider the pardon as the election was racially
charged. He feared a backlash from white voters if he freed Tyler.
Human-rights organizations,
including Amnesty International, have argued that the
legal process and procedures were flawed by the racially charged atmosphere of
the period and by police intimidation of Tyler and witnesses. Due to the racial
and political issues when Tyler was convicted, in 1994 Amnesty International described him as a
"political prisoner".
In 2007 Bob
Herbert of The New York Times wrote three columns about
the case and the injustice committed against Tyler. His work helped raise the
visibility of Tyler's plight. Amnesty International, a coalition of sports
figures, and other groups made a renewed effort to gain executive clemency for
Tyler. In 2007 his attorneys filed a petition with the Louisiana Parole Board
requesting that they commute his life sentence to a defined number of years,
which was necessary by state law in order to gain approval by the governor for
executive clemency. Tyler did not gain a pardon; he had by then served 32 years
in prison.
Tyler's supporters have claimed that
there was a miscarriage of justice in his case. Some of the issues include:
The white community of Destrehan High School, like
others in the Deep South, was vehemently against integration and was
anti-black. The school board had reluctantly adopted busing to achieve
integration of the school 20 years after the Supreme Court ruled that
segregation of public schools was unconstitutional. On the day of the
shooting, 100-200 white students had been involved in a violent protest
against black students.
The bus driver has insisted that he believes the shot
was fired from outside of the bus.
The bus driver observed the first search of the bus and
said that no gun was found on it.
The gun which the police claim was used in the murder
(and produced as evidence at the trial), was a Colt .45 government-issue.
It was identified by officers of the parish sheriff's department as having
been stolen from their firing range. The gun later disappeared from the
sheriff's evidence room.
The jury for Tyler's trial was all
white; blacks had been excluded by the prosecution.
The 1981 US Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit, ruled that
the trial was based on an unconstitutional charge as it required a
mandatory sentence (given the USSC's decision in Roberts v. Louisiana (1976) and was
"fundamentally unfair", flawed by the trial judge's improper charge
to the jury that the jury must find that the defendant, Tyler, had
"intended the natural and probable consequences of his act".
Much has been written about the relationship between MLK and Carmichael. The media reported that there were deep divisions between the two men. There were differences, but they were not based on violence or non-violence. Carmichael felt that blacks had a right to self-defense and a right to control institutions within their communities. This is why he called for "Black Power".
Black Community News Service, Saturday September 27, 1969\
This
issue was a critique of the Nixon-Mitchell Law enforcement policies.
Nixon nominated John Mitchell as Attorney General to clamp down on
leftist movements in 1969.
The author points out that: "The black , anyone else with thoughts of rebellion and liberation, were put on notice that there was going to be a new "chief of Politics," a new administrator and overseer of the repressive capitalist state apparatus." pp. 4
John
Newton Mitchell was the 67th Attorney General of the United States
under President Richard Nixon. Prior to that, he had been a municipal
bond lawyer, chairman of Nixon's 1968 presidential campaign, and one of
Nixon's closest personal friends. Wikipedia
John Olson / Time Life Pictures / Getty
After managing Richard Nixon's presidential campaign, Mitchell
was appointed head of the Department of Justice. While there, he backed
two Supreme Court nominees that were deemed unqualified, approved
unconstitutional wiretaps, prosecuted anti-war protesters and was
involved in the famed Pentagon Papers suit. It was an ignominious reign
(on its own, enough, perhaps, to merit inclusion on this list), but
Mitchell wasn't done. In 1974, he was indicted for conspiring to plan
the Watergate break-in and for perjuring himself during the ensuing
cover-up. Convicted the following year, he served 19 months in prison.
Malcolm X (1925–1965) was an American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a popular
figure during the civil rights movement. He is best known for
his controversial advocacy for the rights of blacks; some consider him a man
who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its crimes against black
Americans, while others accused him of preaching racism and
violence.
Born Malcolm Little in Omaha,
Nebraska, he relocated to New York City's Harlem
neighborhood in 1943, after spending his teenage years in a series of foster
homes following his father's murder and his mother's hospitalization. In
New York, Little engaged in several illicit activities, and was eventually
sentenced to ten years in prison in 1946 for larceny and
breaking and entering. In prison, he joined the Nation
of Islam (NOI) and changed his name to MalcolmX.
After his release, he quickly became one of the organization's most influential
leaders after being paroled in 1952. During the civil rights
movement, MalcolmX served as the public face of
the controversial group for a dozen years, where he advocated for black
supremacy, the separation of black and white Americans, and
rejected the notion of the civil rights movement for its emphasis on racial integration. He also expressed pride in
some of the social achievements he made with the Nation, particularly its free drug rehabilitation program. In the 1950s,
MalcolmX endured surveillance from the Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI) for the Nation's supposed links to communism. In the 1960s, MalcolmX began to grow disillusioned with the Nation of
Islam, and in particular, with its leader Elijah
Muhammad. Expressing many regrets about his time with them, which he had
come to regard as largely wasted, he instead embraced Sunni
Islam. MalcolmX then began to advocate for
racial integration and disavowed racism after completing Hajj, whereby he also
became known as el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz. After a brief period of travel
across Africa, he notably repudiated the Nation of Islam, and founded Muslim Mosque, Inc. (MMI) and the Organization of Afro-American Unity
(OAAU) to emphasize Pan-Africanism. Throughout 1964, his conflict
with the Nation of Islam intensified, and he was repeatedly sent death threats.
On February21, 1965, MalcolmX
was preparing to address the OAAU in Manhattan when he was assassinated by Thomas
Hagan, Thomas Johnson, and Norman Butler, three members of the Nation of
Islam. The trio were sentenced to indeterminate life sentences and were
required to serve a minimum of 20 years in prison. Conspiracy theories
regarding the assassination, and whether it was conceived or aided by leading
members of the Nation or with law enforcement agencies, have persisted for
decades after the shooting. MalcolmX
was posthumously honored with Malcolm
X Day, which commemorates him in various cities and countries worldwide.
Hundreds of streets and schools in the U.S. have been renamed in his honor,
while the Audubon Ballroom, the site of his assassination,
was in-part redeveloped in 2005 to accommodate the Malcolm
X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center.
Because of Ku Klux
Klan threats—Earl's UNIA activities were said to be "spreading
trouble"—the
family relocated in 1926 to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and shortly thereafter
to Lansing, Michigan. There the family was
frequently harassed by the Black Legion, a white racist group. When the family home
burned in 1929, Earl accused the Black Legion. When Malcolm was six, his
father died in what was officially ruled a streetcar
accident, though his mother Louise believed Earl had been murdered by the Black
Legion. Rumors that white racists were responsible for his father's death were
widely circulated and were very disturbing to Malcolm X as a child. As an
adult, he expressed conflicting beliefs on the question. After a dispute with
creditors, Louise received a life insurance benefit (nominally $1,000—about
$16,000 in 2018 dollars) in payments of $18 per month; the issuer of another,
larger policy refused to pay, claiming her husband Earl had committed suicide.
To make ends meet Louise rented out part of her garden, and her sons hunted
game In 1937 a man Louise had been
dating—marriage had seemed a possibility—vanished from her life when she
became pregnant with his child. In late 1938 she had a nervous
breakdown and was committed to Kalamazoo State Hospital.
The children were separated and sent to foster
homes. Malcolm and his siblings secured her release 24 years later. Malcolm Little excelled in
junior high school but dropped out after a white teacher told him that
practicing law, his aspiration at the time, was "no realistic goal for a
nigger". Later MalcolmX recalled feeling that the white
world offered no place for a career-oriented black man, regardless of talent.
From age 14 to 21, Little held
a variety of jobs while living with his half-sister Ella Little-Collins in Roxbury,
a largely African-American neighborhood of
Boston. After a short time in Flint,
Michigan, he moved to New York City's Harlem
neighborhood in 1943, where he engaged in drug dealing, gambling, racketeering,
robbery, and pimping. According to recent biographies,
Little also occasionally had sex with other men, usually for money. He
befriended John Elroy Sanford, a fellow dishwasher at Jimmy's Chicken Shack in
Harlem who aspired to be a professional comedian. Both men had reddish hair, so
Sanford was called "Chicago Red" after his hometown and Little was
known as "Detroit Red". Years later, Sanford became famous as Redd Foxx.
Summoned by the local draft board for military service
in World WarII, he feigned mental disturbance
by rambling and declaring: "I want to be sent down South. Organize them
nigger soldiers... steal us some guns, and kill
us [some] crackers". He was declared "mentally
disqualified for military service". In late 1945, Little returned
to Boston, where he and four accomplices committed a series of burglaries
targeting wealthy white families. In 1946, he was arrested while picking up a
stolen watch he had left at a shop for repairs, and in February began serving
an eight-to-ten-year sentence at Charlestown State Prison for larceny and
breaking and entering.
When Little was in prison, he
met fellow convict John Bembry, a self-educated man he would later describe as
"the first man I had ever seen command total respect...
with words".Under Bembry's influence, Little developed a voracious
appetite for reading. At this time, several of his
siblings wrote to him about the Nation
of Islam, a relatively new religious movement preaching black self-reliance
and, ultimately, the return of the African
diaspora to Africa, where they would be free from white American and
European domination. He showed scant interest at first, but after his brother
Reginald wrote in 1948, "Malcolm, don't eat any more pork and don't smoke
any more cigarettes. I'll show you how to get out of prison", he quit
smoking and began to refuse pork. After a visit in which Reginald described the
group's teachings, including the belief that white people are devils, Little
concluded that every relationship he'd had with whites had been tainted by dishonesty,
injustice, greed, and hatred. Little, whose hostility to religion had earned
him the prison nickname "Satan”, became receptive to the message of the
Nation of Islam. In late 1948, Little wrote to Elijah
Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of Islam. Muhammad advised him to
renounce his past, humbly bow in prayer to God,
and promise never to engage in destructive behavior again. Though he later
recalled the inner struggle he had before bending his knees to pray, Little
soon became a member of the Nation of Islam, maintaining a regular
correspondence with Muhammad. In 1950, the FBI opened a file on Little after
he wrote a letter from prison to President
Truman expressing opposition to the Korean War
and declaring himself a Communist. That year, little also began signing his
name "MalcolmX". Muhammad instructed
his followers to leave their family names behind when they joined the Nation of
Islam and use "X" instead. When the time was right, after they had
proven their sincerity, he said, he would reveal the Muslim's "original
name". In his autobiography, MalcolmX
explained that the "X" symbolized the true African family name that
he could never know. "For me, my 'X' replaced the white slavemaster name
of 'Little' which some blue-eyed devil named Little had imposed upon my
paternal forebears."
Early
ministry
After his parole in August 1952,
MalcolmX visited Elijah Muhammad in Chicago. In
June 1953 he was named assistant minister of the Nation's Temple Number One in
Detroit. Later that year he established Boston's Temple Number11; in March 1954, he expanded Temple Number12 in Philadelphia; and two months later he was
selected to lead Temple Number7 in
Harlem, where he rapidly expanded its membership. In 1953, the FBI began surveillance
of him, turning its attention from MalcolmX's
possible communist associations to his rapid ascent in the Nation of Islam. During 1955, MalcolmX continued his successful recruitment of members on
behalf of the Nation of Islam. He established temples in Springfield, Massachusetts (Number13); Hartford, Connecticut (Number14); and Atlanta, Georgia (Number15).
Hundreds of African Americans were joining the Nation of Islam every month. Besides his skill as a speaker,
MalcolmX had an impressive physical presence.
He stood 6 feet 3 inches (1.91 m) tall and weighed about 180
pounds (82 kg) One writer described him as "powerfully built",
and another as "mesmerizingly handsome...
and always spotlessly well-groomed".
Marriage
and family
In 1955, Betty
Sanders met Malcolm X after one of his lectures, then again at a
dinner party; soon she was regularly attending his lectures. In 1956 she joined
the Nation of Islam, changing her name to Betty X. One-on-one dates were
contrary to the Nation's teachings, so the couple courted at social events with
dozens or hundreds of others, and Malcolm X made a point of inviting her
on the frequent group visits he led to New York City's museums and libraries.
Malcolm X proposed during a
telephone call from Detroit in January 1958, and they married two days later.
They had six daughters: Attallah (b. 1958, named after Attila
the Hun); Qubilah (b. 1960, named after Kublai
Khan); Ilyasah (b. 1962, named after Elijah Muhammad);
Gamilah Lumumba (b. 1964, named after Gamal Abdel Nasser and Patrice
Lumumba); and twins Malikah and Malaak (b. 1965 after their father's death,
and named in his honor).
Hinton
Johnson incident
The American public first became
aware of Malcolm X in 1957, after Hinton Johnson, a Nation of Islam
member, was beaten by two New York City police officers. On April 26,
Johnson and two other passersby—also Nation of Islam members—saw the
officers beating an African American man with nightsticks. When they attempted
to intervene, shouting, "You're not in Alabama ... this is New
York!" one of the officers turned on Johnson, beating him so severely that
he suffered brain contusions and subdural hemorrhaging. All four African
American men were arrested. Alerted by a witness, Malcolm X and a small
group of Muslims went to the police station and demanded to see Johnson. Police
initially denied that any Muslims were being held, but when the crowd grew to
about five hundred, they allowed Malcolm X to speak with Johnson.
Afterward, Malcolm X insisted on arranging for an ambulance to take
Johnson to Harlem Hospital.
Johnson's injuries were treated and
by the time he was returned to the police station, some four thousand people
had gathered outside. Inside the station, Malcolm X and an attorney were
making bail arrangements for two of the Muslims. Johnson was not bailed, and
police said he could not go back to the hospital until his arraignment
the following day. Considering the situation to be at an impasse, Malcolm X
stepped outside the station house and gave a hand signal to the crowd. Nation
members silently left, after which the rest of the crowd also dispersed. One
police officer told the New York Amsterdam News: "No one
man should have that much power." Within a month the New York City Police
Department arranged to keep Malcolm X under surveillance; it also made
inquiries with authorities in other cities in which he had lived, and prisons
in which he had served time. A grand jury
declined to indict the officers who beat Johnson. In October, Malcolm X
sent an angry telegram to the police commissioner. Soon the police department
assigned undercover officers to infiltrate the Nation of Islam.
Increasing
prominence
By the late 1950s, Malcolm X
was using a new name, Malcolm Shabazz or Malik el-Shabazz, although he was
still widely referred to as Malcolm X. His comments on issues and events
were being widely reported in print, on radio, and on television, and he was
featured in a 1959 New York City television broadcast about the Nation of
Islam, The Hate That Hate Produced.
From his adoption of the Nation of
Islam in 1952 until he broke with it in 1964, Malcolm X promoted the Nation's
teachings. These included the beliefs:
that black people are the original people of the world
Many whites and some blacks were
alarmed by Malcolm X and the statements he made during this period. He and
the Nation of Islam were described as hatemongers, black supremacists, racists,
violence-seekers, segregationists, and a threat to improved race relations. He
was accused of being antisemitic. One of the goals of the civil rights movement was to end disenfranchisement of
African Americans, but the Nation of Islam forbade its members from
participating in voting and other aspects of the political process. Civil rights
organizations denounced him and the Nation as irresponsible extremists whose
views did not represent African Americans.
Malcolm X was equally critical
of the civil rights movement. He called Martin Luther King Jr. a "chump",
and said other civil rights leaders were "stooges" of the white
establishment. He called the 1963 March on Washington
"the farce on Washington",and said he did not know why so many black
people were excited about a demonstration "run by whites in front of a
statue of a president who has been dead for a hundred years and who didn't like
us when he was alive".
While the civil rights movement
fought against racial segregation, Malcolm X
advocated the complete separation of African Americans from whites. He
proposed that African Americans should return to Africa
and that, in the interim, a separate country for black people in America should
be created. He rejected the civil rights movement's strategy of nonviolence,
arguing that black people should defend and advance themselves "by any means necessary". His speeches
had a powerful effect on his audiences, who were generally African Americans in
northern and western cities. Many of them—tired of being
told to wait for freedom, justice, equality and respect—felt that he
articulated their complaints better than did the civil rights movement.
Effect
on Nation membership
Malcolm X is widely regarded as
the second most influential leader of the Nation of Islam after Elijah
Muhammad. He was largely credited with the group's dramatic increase in
membership between the early 1950s and early 1960s (from 500 to 25,000 by one
estimate; from 1,200 to 50,000 or 75,000 by another).
He inspired the boxer Cassius Clay
(later known as Muhammad Ali) to join the Nation, and the two became
close; In January 1964, Clay brought Malcolm X and his family to Miami to
watch him train for his fight against Sonny Liston. When
Malcolm X left the Nation of Islam, he tried to convince Clay to join him
in converting to Sunni Islam, but Clay instead broke ties with him—which
Clay later described as one of his greatest regrets.
Malcolm X mentored and guided
Louis X (later known as Louis
Farrakhan), who eventually became the leader of the Nation of Islam.
Malcolm X also served as a mentor and confidant to Elijah Muhammad's son, Wallace D. Muhammad; the son told Malcolm X
about his skepticism toward his father's "unorthodox approach" to
Islam. Wallace Muhammad was excommunicated from the Nation of Islam several
times, although he was eventually readmitted.
Disillusionment
and departure
During 1962 and 1963, events caused
Malcolm X to reassess his relationship with the Nation of Islam, and particularly
its leader, Elijah Muhammad.
Lack of
Nation of Islam response to LAPD violence
In late 1961, there were violent
confrontations between Nation of Islam members and police in South Central Los
Angeles, and numerous Muslims were arrested. They were acquitted, but tensions
had been raised. Just after midnight on April 27, 1962, two LAPD officers shoved and beat several
Muslims outside Temple Number 27 without provocation. A large crowd of angry
Muslims came outside from the mosque. The officers attempted to intimidate the
crowd. One officer was disarmed by the crowd; his partner was shot in the elbow
by a third officer. More than 70 backup officers arrived. They raided the
mosque and randomly beat Nation of Islam members. Police officers shot seven
Muslims, including William X Rogers, who was hit in the back and paralyzed for
life, and Ronald Stokes, a Korean War veteran, who was shot from behind while
raising his hands over his head to surrender, killing him.
Several Muslims were indicted after
the event, but no charges were made against the police. Furthermore, the
coroner ruled that Stokes's killing was justified. To Malcolm X, the
desecration of the mosque and the violence demanded action, and he used what
Farrakhan later called his "gangster like past" to rally the more
hardened of the Nation of Islam members to take violent action against the
police. Malcolm X sought Elijah Muhammad's approval but was denied.
Malcolm X was stunned by this response. Malcolm X also spoke of the
Nation of Islam starting to work with civil rights organizations, local black
politicians, and religious groups, another initiative blocked by Muhammad.
Louis X saw this as an important turning point in the deteriorating
relationship between Malcolm X and Muhammad.
Sexual
misbehavior by Elijah Muhammad
Rumors were circulating that
Muhammad was conducting extramarital affairs with young Nation secretaries—which
would constitute a serious violation of Nation teachings. After first
discounting the rumors, Malcolm X came to believe them after he spoke with
Muhammad's son Wallace and with the women making the
accusations. Muhammad confirmed the rumors in 1963, attempting to justify his
behavior by referring to precedents set by Biblical prophets.
Nation
of Islam response to his remarks on the Kennedy assassination
On December 1, 1963, when asked
to comment on the assassination of John F. Kennedy,
Malcolm X said that it was a case of "chickens coming home to roost". He
added that "chickens coming home to roost never did make me sad; they've
always made me glad." The New York Times wrote, "in further
criticism of Mr. Kennedy, the Muslim leader cited the murders of Patrice
Lumumba, Congo leader, of Medgar
Evers, civil rights leader, and of the Negro girls bombed earlier this
year in a Birmingham church. These, he said, were
instances of other 'chickens coming home to roost'." The remarks prompted
a widespread public outcry. The Nation of Islam, which had sent a message of
condolence to the Kennedy family and ordered its ministers not to comment on
the assassination, publicly censured their former shining star. Malcolm X
retained his post and rank as minister, but was prohibited from public speaking
for 90 days.
Media
attention to Malcolm X over Muhammad
Malcolm X had by now become a
media favorite, and some Nation members believed he was a threat to Muhammad's
leadership. Publishers had shown interest in Malcolm X's autobiography,
and when Louis
Lomax wrote his 1963 book about the Nation, When the Word Is Given,
he used a photograph of Malcolm X on the cover. He also reproduced five of
his speeches, but featured only one of Muhammad's—all of which greatly upset
Muhammad and made him envious.
Departure
from Nation of Islam
On March 8, 1964, Malcolm X
publicly announced his break from the Nation of Islam. He was still a Muslim,
he said, but felt that the Nation had "gone as far as it can" because
of its rigid teachings. He said he was planning to organize a black
nationalist organization to "heighten the political
consciousness" of African Americans. He also expressed a desire to work
with other civil rights leaders, saying that Elijah Muhammad had prevented him
from doing so in the past.
Media
attention to Malcolm X over Muhammad
Malcolm X had by now become a
media favorite, and some Nation members believed he was a threat to Muhammad's
leadership. Publishers had shown interest in Malcolm X's autobiography,
and when Louis
Lomax wrote his 1963 book about the Nation, When the Word Is Given,
he used a photograph of Malcolm X on the cover. He also reproduced five of
his speeches, but featured only one of Muhammad's—all of which greatly upset
Muhammad and made him envious.
Departure
from Nation of Islam
On March 8, 1964, Malcolm X
publicly announced his break from the Nation of Islam. He was still a Muslim,
he said, but felt that the Nation had "gone as far as it can" because
of its rigid teachings. He said he was planning to organize a black
nationalist organization to "heighten the political
consciousness" of African Americans. He also expressed a desire to work
with other civil rights leaders, saying that Elijah Muhammad had prevented him
from doing so in the past.
Activity
after leaving Nation of Islam
After leaving the Nation of Islam,
Malcolm X founded Muslim Mosque, Inc. (MMI), a religious
organization, and the Organization of Afro-American Unity
(OAAU), a secular group that advocated Pan-Africanism.
On March 26, 1964, he met Martin Luther King Jr. for the first and
only time—and only long enough for photographs to be taken—in Washington,
D.C., as both men attended the Senate's debate on the Civil Rights bill. In April, Malcolm X
gave a speech titled "The Ballot or the Bullet", in which
he advised African Americans to exercise their right to vote wisely but
cautioned that if the government continued to prevent African Americans from
attaining full equality, it might be necessary for them to take up arms.
In the weeks after he left the
Nation of Islam, several Sunni Muslims encouraged Malcolm X to learn about
their faith. He soon converted to the Sunni faith.
Pilgrimage
to Mecca
In April 1964, with financial help
from his half-sister Ella Little-Collins, Malcolm X flew to Jeddah, Saudi
Arabia, as the start of his Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca obligatory for
every Muslim who is able to do so. He was delayed in Jeddah when his U.S.
citizenship and inability to speak Arabic
caused his status as a Muslim to be questioned. He had received Abdul Rahman Hassan Azzam's book The
Eternal Message of Muhammad with his visa approval, and he contacted the
author. Azzam's son arranged for his release and lent him his personal hotel
suite. The next morning Malcolm X learned that Prince Faisal had designated him as a state
guest. Several days later, after completing the Hajj rituals, Malcolm X
had an audience with the prince.
Malcolm X later said that
seeing Muslims of "all colors, from blue-eyed blonds to black-skinned
Africans," interacting as equals led him to see Islam as a means by which
racial problems could be overcome.
Pilgrimage
to Mecca
In April 1964, with financial help
from his half-sister Ella Little-Collins, Malcolm X flew to Jeddah, Saudi
Arabia, as the start of his Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca obligatory for
every Muslim who is able to do so. He was delayed in Jeddah when his U.S.
citizenship and inability to speak Arabic
caused his status as a Muslim to be questioned. He had received Abdul Rahman Hassan Azzam's book The
Eternal Message of Muhammad with his visa approval, and he contacted the
author. Azzam's son arranged for his release and lent him his personal hotel
suite. The next morning Malcolm X learned that Prince Faisal had designated him as a state
guest. Several days later, after completing the Hajj rituals, Malcolm X
had an audience with the prince.
Malcolm X later said that
seeing Muslims of "all colors, from blue-eyed blonds to black-skinned
Africans," interacting as equals led him to see Islam as a means by which
racial problems could be overcome.
Africa
MalcolmX had already visited the United Arab Republic (a short-lived political
union between Egypt and Syria), Sudan, Nigeria, and Ghana in 1959 to make
arrangements for a tour of Africa by Elijah Muhammad. After his journey to
Mecca in 1964, he visited Africa a second time. He returned to the United States
in late May and flew to Africa again in July. During these visits he met
officials, gave interviews, and spoke on radio and television in Egypt,
Ethiopia, Tanganyika,
Nigeria, Ghana, Guinea, Sudan, Senegal, Liberia, Algeria, and Morocco In Cairo,
he attended the second meeting of the Organization of African Unity as a
representative of the OAAU. By the end of this third visit, he had met with
essentially all of Africa's prominent leaders; Kwame
Nkrumah of Ghana, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, and Ahmed
Ben Bella of Algeria had all invited MalcolmX
to serve in their governments. After he spoke at the University of Ibadan, the Nigerian Muslim
Students Association bestowed on him the honorary Yoruba
name Omowale ("the son who has come home"). He later called
this his most treasured honor.
On February 5, 1965, Malcolm X
flew to Britain again, and on February 8 he addressed the first meeting of
the Council of African Organizations in London. The next day he tried to return
to France, but was refused entry.
On February 12, he visited Smethwick,
near Birmingham,
where the Conservative Partyhad won the parliamentary seat
in the 1964 general election. The
town had become a byword for racial division after Conservative supporters used
the slogan, "If you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Labour."
In Smethwick he compared the treatment of ethnic minority residents with the
treatment of Jews under Hitler, saying: "I would not wait for the fascist
element in Smethwick to erect gas ovens."
Return
to United States
After returning to the U.S., Malcolm X
addressed a wide variety of audiences. He spoke regularly at meetings held by
MMI and the OAAU and was one of the most sought-after speakers on college
campuses. One of his top aides later wrote that he "welcomed every
opportunity to speak to college students".He also addressed public
meetings of the Socialist Workers Party,
speaking at their Militant Labor Forum. He was interviewed on the subjects of
segregation and the Nation of Islam by Robert Penn Warren for Warren's 1965 book Who Speaks for the Negro?
Death
threats and intimidation from Nation of Islam
Throughout 1964, as his conflict
with the Nation of Islam intensified, Malcolm X was repeatedly threatened.
In February, a leader of Temple
Number Seven ordered the bombing of Malcolm X's car. In March, Muhammad
told Boston minister Louis X (later known as Louis
Farrakhan) that "hypocrites like Malcolm should have their heads cut
off"; the April 10 edition of Muhammad
Speaks featured a cartoon depicting Malcolm X's bouncing, severed
head.
On June 8, FBI surveillance
recorded a telephone call in which Betty Shabazz was told that her husband was
"as good as dead". Four days later, an FBI informant received a tip
that "Malcolm X is going to be bumped off." (That same month the
Nation sued to reclaim Malcolm X's residence in East Elmhurst, Queens, New York.
His family was ordered to vacate but on February 14, 1965—the night
before a hearing on postponing the eviction—the house was destroyed by fire.)
On July 9, Muhammad aide John
Ali (suspected of being an undercover FBI agent) referred to Malcolm X by
saying, "Anyone who opposes the Honorable Elijah Muhammad puts their life
in jeopardy." In the December 4 issue of Muhammad Speaks,
Louis X wrote that "such a man as Malcolm is worthy of death".
The September 1964 issue of Ebony
dramatized Malcolm X's defiance of these threats by publishing a
photograph of him holding an M1 carbine while peering out a window.
In February, a leader of Temple
Number Seven ordered the bombing of Malcolm X's car. In March, Muhammad
told Boston minister Louis X (later known as Louis
Farrakhan) that "hypocrites like Malcolm should have their heads cut
off"; the April 10 edition of Muhammad
Speaks featured a cartoon depicting Malcolm X's bouncing, severed
head.
On June 8, FBI surveillance
recorded a telephone call in which Betty Shabazz was told that her husband was
"as good as dead". Four days later, an FBI informant received a tip
that "Malcolm X is going to be bumped off." (That same month the
Nation sued to reclaim Malcolm X's residence in East Elmhurst, Queens, New York.
His family was ordered to vacate but on February 14, 1965—the night
before a hearing on postponing the eviction—the house was destroyed by fire.)
On July 9, Muhammad aide John
Ali (suspected of being an undercover FBI agent) referred to Malcolm X by
saying, "Anyone who opposes the Honorable Elijah Muhammad puts their life
in jeopardy." In the December 4 issue of Muhammad Speaks,
Louis X wrote that "such a man as Malcolm is worthy of death".
The September 1964 issue of Ebony
dramatized Malcolm X's defiance of these threats by publishing a
photograph of him holding an M1 carbine while peering out a window.
Assassination
On February 19, 1965, Malcolm X
told interviewer Gordon Parks that the Nation of Islam was actively
trying to kill him. On February 21, 1965, he was preparing to address the
OAAU in Manhattan's Audubon Ballroom when someone in the 400-person
audience yelled, "Nigger! Get your hand outta my pocket!" As Malcolm X
and his bodyguards tried to quell the disturbance, a man rushed forward and
shot him once in the chest with a sawed-off
shotgun and two other men charged the stage firing semi-automatic handguns.
Malcolm X was pronounced dead at 3:30 pm, shortly after arriving at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital.
The autopsy identified 21 gunshot wounds to the chest, left shoulder, arms and
legs, including ten buckshot wounds from the initial shotgun blast.
One gunman, Nation of Islam member Talmadge
Hayer (also known as Thomas Hagan), was beaten by the crowd before police
arrived. Witnesses identified the other gunmen as Nation members Norman 3X
Butler and Thomas 15X Johnson. All three were convicted of murder in March 1966
and sentenced to life in prison. At trial Hayer confessed, but refused to
identify the other assailants except to assert that they were not Butler and
Johnson. In 1977
and 1978, he signed affidavits reasserting Butler's and Johnson's
innocence, naming four other Nation members as participants in the murder or
its planning. These affidavits did not result in the case being reopened.
Butler, today known as Muhammad
Abdul Aziz, was paroled in 1985 and became the head of the Nation's Harlem
mosque in 1998; he maintains his innocence. In prison Johnson, who changed
his name to Khalil Islam, rejected the Nation's teachings and converted to
Sunni Islam. Released in 1987, he maintained his innocence until his death in
August 2009. Hayer, who also rejected the Nation's teachings while in prison
and converted to Sunni Islam, is known today as Mujahid Halim. He was paroled
in 2010.
A CNN Special Report, Witnessed:
The Assassination of Malcolm X, was broadcast on February 17,
2015. It featured interviews with several people who worked with him, including
A.
Peter Bailey and Earl Grant, as well as the daughter of Malcolm X,
Ilyasah Shabazz.
Funeral
The public viewing, February 23–26
at Unity Funeral Home in Harlem, was attended by some 14,000 to 30,000
mourners. For the funeral on February 27, loudspeakers were set up for the
overflow crowd outside Harlem's thousand-seat Faith Temple of the Church of God in Christ, and a local
television station carried the service live.
There are those who will consider it
their duty, as friends of the Negro people, to tell us to revile him, to flee,
even from the presence of his memory, to save ourselves by writing him out of
the history of our turbulent times. Many will ask what Harlem finds to honor in
this stormy, controversial and bold young captain—and we will smile. Many
will say turn away—away from this man, for he is not a man but a demon, a
monster, a subverted and an enemy of the black man—and we will smile. They
will say that he is of hate—a fanatic, a racist—who can only bring evil to
the cause for which you struggle! And we will answer and say to them: Did you
ever talk to Brother Malcolm? Did you ever touch him, or have him smile at you?
Did you ever really listen to him? Did he ever do a mean thing? Was he ever
himself associated with violence or any public disturbance? For if you did you
would know him. And if you knew him you would know why we must honor him ...
And, in honoring him, we honor the best in ourselves.
Malcolm X was buried at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York. Friends took up the
gravediggers' shovels to complete the burial themselves.
Actor and activist Ruby Dee and
Juanita Poitier (wife of Sidney Poitier) established the Committee of Concerned
Mothers to raise money for a home for his family and for his children's
educations.
Reactions
Reactions to Malcolm X's
assassination were varied. In a telegram to Betty Shabazz, Martin Luther King Jr. expressed his sadness
at "the shocking and tragic assassination of your husband". He said,
While we did not always see eye to
eye on methods to solve the race problem, I always had a deep affection for
Malcolm and felt that he had a great ability to put his finger on the existence
and root of the problem. He was an eloquent spokesman for his point of view and
no one can honestly doubt that Malcolm had a great concern for the problems
that we face as a race.
Elijah
Muhammad told the annual Savior's
Day convention on February 26, "Malcolm X got just what he
preached", but denied any involvement with the murder. "We didn't
want to kill Malcolm and didn't try to kill him", Muhammad said, adding
"We know such ignorant, foolish teachings would bring him to his own
end."
Writer James
Baldwin, who had been a friend of Malcolm X's, was in London when he
heard the news of the assassination. He responded with indignation towards the
reporters interviewing him, shouting, "You did it! It is because of
you—the men that created this white supremacy—that this man is dead. You are
not guilty, but you did it ... Your mills, your cities, your rape of a
continent started all this."
The New
York Post wrote that "even his sharpest critics recognized his
brilliance—often wild, unpredictable and eccentric, but nevertheless
possessing promise that must now remain unrealized". The New York Times wrote that Malcolm X
was "an extraordinary and twisted man" who "turn[ed] many true
gifts to evil purpose" and that his life was "strangely and pitifully
wasted".Time called him "an unashamed
demagogue" whose "creed was violence."
Outside of the U.S., and
particularly in Africa, the press was sympathetic. The Daily Times of Nigeria wrote that
Malcolm X would "have a place in the palace of martyrs”. The Ghanaian
Times likened him to John Brown, Medgar
Evers, and Patrice Lumumba, and counted him among "a host
of Africans and Americans who were martyred in freedom's cause". In China,
the People's Daily described Malcolm X as a
martyr killed by "ruling circles and racists" in the United States;
his assassination, the paper wrote, demonstrated that "in dealing with
imperialist oppressors, violence must be met with violence". The Guangming
Daily, also published in Beijing, stated that "Malcolm was
murdered because he fought for freedom and equal rights". in Cuba, El
Mundo described the assassination as "another racist crime to
eradicate by violence the struggle against discrimination".
In a weekly column he wrote for the New York Amsterdam News, King reflected
on Malcolm X and his assassination:
Malcolm X came to the fore as a
public figure partially as a result of a TV documentary entitled, The Hate
that Hate Produced. That title points to the nature of Malcolm's life and
death.
Malcolm X was clearly a product
of the hate and violence invested in the Negro's blighted existence in this
nation. ...
In his youth, there was no hope, no
preaching, teaching or movements of non-violence. ...
It is a testimony to Malcolm's personal
depth and integrity that he could not become an underworld Czar but turned
again and again to religion for meaning and destiny. Malcolm was still turning
and growing at the time of his brutal and meaningless assassination. ...
Like the murder of Lumumba, the
murder of Malcolm X deprives the world of a potentially great leader. I
could not agree with either of these men, but I could see in them a capacity
for leadership which I could respect, and which was just beginning to mature in
judgment and statesmanship.
Allegations
of conspiracy
Within days, the question of who
bore responsibility for the assassination was being publicly debated. On
February 23, James Farmer, the leader of the Congress of Racial Equality, announced
at a news conference that local drug dealers, and not the Nation of Islam, were
to blame. Others accused the NYPD, the FBI, or the CIA, citing the lack of police
protection, the ease with which the assassins entered the Audubon Ballroom, and
the failure of the police to preserve the crime scene. Earl Grant, one of
Malcolm X's associates who was present at the assassination, later wrote:
About five minutes later, a most
incredible scene took place. Into the hall sauntered about a dozen policemen.
They were strolling at about the pace one would expect of them if they were
patrolling a quiet park. They did not seem to be at all excited or concerned
about the circumstances.
I could hardly believe my eyes. Here
were New York City policemen, entering a room from which at least a dozen shots
had been heard, and yet not one of them had his gun out! As a matter of
absolute fact, some of them even had their hands in their pockets.
In the 1970s, the public learned
about COINTELPRO
and other secret FBI programs established to infiltrate and disrupt civil
rights organizations during the 1950s and 1960s. John Ali, national secretary
of the Nation of Islam, was believed to have been an FBI undercover agent.
Malcolm X had confided to a reporter that Ali exacerbated tensions between
him and Elijah Muhammad and that he considered Ali his "archenemy" within
the Nation of Islam leadership. Ali had a meeting with Talmadge Hayer, one of
the men convicted of killing Malcolm X, the night before the assassination.
The Shabazz family are among those
who have accused Louis Farrakhan of involvement in Malcolm X's
assassination. In a 1993 speech Farrakhan seemed to acknowledge the possibility
that the Nation of Islam was responsible:
Was Malcolm your traitor or ours?
And if we dealt with him like a nation deals with a traitor, what the hell
business is it of yours? A nation has to be able to deal with traitors and
cutthroats and turncoats.
In a 60 Minutes
interview that aired during May 2000, Farrakhan stated that some things he said
may have led to the assassination of Malcolm X. "I may have been
complicit in words that I spoke", he said, adding "I acknowledge that
and regret that any word that I have said caused the loss of life of a human
being." A few days later Farrakhan denied that he "ordered the
assassination" of Malcolm X, although he again acknowledged that he
"created the atmosphere that ultimately led to Malcolm X's
assassination".
No consensus has been reached on who
was responsible for the assassination. In August 2014, an online petition was
started using the White House online petition mechanism
to call on the government to release without alteration any files they still
held relating to the murder of Malcolm X. In January 2019, members of the
families of Malcolm X, John
F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and Robert
F. Kennedy were among dozens of Americans who signed a public statement
calling for a truth and reconciliation commission
to persuade Congress or the Justice Department to review
the assassinations of all four leaders during the 1960s.
Beliefs
of the Nation of Islam
While he was a member of the Nation
of Islam, Malcolm X taught its beliefs, and his statements often began
with the phrase "The Honorable Elijah Muhammad teaches us that ..."
It is virtually impossible now to discern whether Malcolm X's personal
beliefs at the time diverged from the teachings of the Nation of Islam. After
he left the Nation in 1964, he compared himself to a ventriloquist's dummy who
could only say what Elijah Muhammad told him to say.
Malcolm X taught that black
people were the original people of the world, and that white people were a race
of devils who were created by an evil scientist named Yakub. The Nation of Islam believed that
black people were superior to white people and that the demise of the white
race was imminent. When questioned concerning his statements that white people
were devils, Malcolm X said: "history proves the white man is a
devil." "Anybody who rapes, and plunders, and enslaves, and steals,
and drops hell bombs on people ... anybody who does these things is
nothing but a devil."
Malcolm X said that Islam was
the "true religion of black mankind" and that Christianity was
"the white man's religion" that had been imposed upon African
Americans by their slave-masters. He said that the Nation of Islam followed
Islam as it was practiced around the world, but the Nation's teachings varied
from those of other Muslims because they were adapted to the "uniquely
pitiful" condition of black people in the United States. He taught that Wallace Fard Muhammad, the founder of the
Nation, was God incarnate, and that Elijah Muhammad was his Messenger, or Prophet.
While the civil rights movement fought against racial segregation, Malcolm X
advocated the complete separation of blacks from whites. The Nation of
Islam proposed the establishment of a separate country for African Americans in
the southerner southwestern United States as an interim measure until African
Americans could return to Africa. Malcolm X suggested the United States
government owed reparations to black people for the unpaid
labor of their ancestors. He also rejected the civil
rights movement's strategy of nonviolence,
advocating instead that black people should defend themselves.
Independent
views
After leaving the Nation of Islam,
Malcolm X announced his willingness to work with leaders of the civil
rights movement, though he advocated some changes to their policies. He felt
that calling the movement a struggle for civil rights would keep the
issue within the United States while changing the focus to human rights
would make it an international concern. The movement could then bring its complaints
before the United Nations, where Malcolm X said the emerging nations of
the world would add their support.
Malcolm X argued that if the
U.S. government was unwilling or unable to protect black people, black people
should protect themselves. He said that he and the other members of the OAAU
were determined to defend themselves from aggressors, and to secure freedom,
justice and equality "by whatever means necessary".
Malcolm X stressed the global
perspective he gained from his international travels. He emphasized the
"direct connection" between the domestic struggle of African
Americans for equal rights with the independence struggles of Third
World nations. He said that African Americans were wrong when they thought
of themselves as a minority; globally, black people were the majority.
In his speeches at the Militant
Labor Forum, which was sponsored by the Socialist Workers Party,
Malcolm X criticized capitalism. After one such speech, when he was asked
what political and economic system he wanted, he said he did not know, but that
it was no coincidence the newly independent countries in the Third World were
turning toward socialism. When a reporter asked him what he thought about
socialism, Malcolm X asked whether it was good for black people. When the
reporter told him it seemed to be, Malcolm X told him, "Then I'm for
it."
Although he no longer called for the
separation of black people from white people, Malcolm X continued to
advocate black nationalism, which he defined as self-determination for the African
American community. In the last months of his life, however, Malcolm X
began to reconsider his support for black nationalism after meeting northern
African revolutionaries who, to all appearances, were white.
After his Hajj, Malcolm X
articulated a view of white people and racism that represented a deep change
from the philosophy he had supported as a minister of the Nation of Islam. In a
famous letter from Mecca, he wrote that his experiences with white people
during his pilgrimage convinced him to "rearrange" his thinking about
race and "toss aside some of [his] previous conclusions". In a
conversation with Gordon Parks, two days before his assassination,
Malcolm said:
Listening to leaders like Nasser, Ben
Bella, and Nkrumah awakened me to the dangers of racism. I
realized racism isn't just a black and white problem. It's brought bloodbaths
to about every nation on earth at one time or another.
Brother, remember the time that
white college girl came into the restaurant—the one who wanted to help the
[Black] Muslims and the whites get together—and I told her there wasn't a
ghost of a chance and she went away crying? Well, I've lived to regret that
incident. In many parts of the African continent I saw white students helping
black people. Something like this kills a lot of argument. I did many things as
a [Black] Muslim that I'm sorry for now. I was a zombie then—like all [Black]
Muslims—I was hypnotized, pointed in a certain direction and told to march.
Well, I guess a men’s entitled to make a fool of himself if he's ready to pay
the cost. It cost me 12 years.
That was a bad scene, brother. The
sickness and madness of those days—I'm glad to be free of them.
Legacy
Malcolm X has been described as
one of the greatest and most influential African Americans in history. He is
credited with raising the self-esteem of black Americans and reconnecting them
with their African heritage. He is largely responsible for the spread of Islam
in the black community in the United States. Many African Americans, especially
those who lived in cities in the Northern and Western United States, felt that
Malcolm X articulated their complaints concerning inequality better than
did the mainstream civil rights movement. One biographer says that by giving
expression to their frustration, Malcolm X "made clear the price that
white America would have to pay if it did not accede to black America's
legitimate demands".
In the late 1960s, increasingly
radical black activists based their movements largely on Malcolm X and his
teachings. The Black Power movement,[64][280]
the Black Arts Movement, and the widespread
adoption of the slogan "Black is beautiful" can all trace their
roots to Malcolm X.
In 1963 Malcolm X began a
collaboration with Alex Haley on his life story, The Autobiography of Malcolm X
He told Haley, "If I'm alive when this book comes out, it will be a
miracle." Haley completed and published it some months after the
assassination.
During the late 1980s and early
1990s, there was a resurgence of interest in his life among young people. Hip-hop
groups such as Public Enemy adopted Malcolm X as an icon,
and his image was displayed in hundreds of thousands of homes, offices, and
schools, as well as on T-shirts and jackets. This wave peaked in 1992 with the
release of the film Malcolm X, an adaptation of The
Autobiography of Malcolm X.
In 1998 Time
named The Autobiography of Malcolm X one of the ten most
influential nonfiction books of the 20th century.
Portrayals
in film and on stage
Denzel
Washington played the title role in the 1992 motion picture Malcolm X]—named
one of the ten best films of the 1990s by both critic Roger
Ebert and director Martin Scorsese. Washington had previously played
the part of Malcolm X in the 1981 Off-Broadway
play When the Chickens Came Home to Roost. Other portrayals include:
The house that once stood at 3448 Pinkney Street
in North Omaha, Nebraska, was the first home of
Malcolm Little with his birth family. The house was torn down in 1965 by new
owners who did not know of its connection with Malcolm X. The site was
listed on the National Register of Historic
Places in 1984.
In Lansing, Michigan, a Michigan
Historical Marker was erected in 1975 on Malcolm Little's childhood home. The
city is also home to El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz Academy, a public charter
school with an Afrocentric focus. The school is in the building where
Little attended elementary school.
In cities around the world, Malcolm X's
birthday (May 19) is commemorated as Malcolm X
Day. The first known celebration of Malcolm X Day took place in
Washington, D.C., in 1971. The city of Berkeley, California, has recognized Malcolm X's
birthday as a citywide holiday since 1979.
Malcolm X Boulevard in New York City
Many cities have renamed streets
after Malcolm X. In 1987, New York mayor Ed Koch
proclaimed Lenox Avenue in Harlem to be Malcolm X Boulevard.
The name of Reid Avenue in Brooklyn, New York, was changed to Malcolm X Boulevard
in 1985. In 1997, Oakland Avenue in Dallas, Texas, was
renamed Malcolm X Boulevard. Main Street in Lansing, Michigan, was renamed
Malcolm X Street in 2010 In 2016, Ankara, Turkey, renamed
the street on which the U.S. is building its new embassy after Malcolm X.
In 1996, the first library named
after Malcolm X was opened, the Malcolm X Branch Library and
Performing Arts Center of the San Diego Public Library system.
By Any Means Necessary: Speeches, Interviews, and a
Letter by Malcolm X.
George Breitman, ed. New York: Pathfinder Press, 1970. OCLC249307.
The End of White World Supremacy: Four Speeches by
Malcolm X. Benjamin Karim, ed. New York:
Monthly Review Press, 1971. OCLC149849.
The Last Speeches.
Bruce Perry, ed. New York: Pathfinder Press, 1989. ISBN978-0-87348-543-2.
Malcolm X Talks to Young People: Speeches in the
United States, Britain, and Africa.
Steve Clark, ed. New York: Pathfinder Press, 1991. ISBN978-0-87348-962-1.
February 1965: The Final Speeches. Steve Clark, ed. New York: Pathfinder Press, 1992. ISBN978-0-87348-749-8.
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