Reader Ad Slot
Reader Ad Slot placeholder
If you would like to support SpookStack without paying out of pocket, please consider allowing advertising cookies. It helps cover hosting costs and keeps the archive free to browse. You can change this choice at any time.
Malcolm X — Part 33
Page 31
31 / 120
call -_—-——
in the political arena are being pro-
jected by a rival movement, “Black
Nationalism.” The two principal an-
{agonists are: Minister Malcolm X,
New York leader of the Muslims; and
the “Messenger of Allah,” Muhammad,
MALCOLM X
ERTAINLY the sect’s most adept
CS strategist, uncompromising in his
contention that Negroes will never
get justice from white peopie, has
been__38-vear-old Malcolm |X. Born
—Ntaleotlm Little in“Gmaha, Nebr, he is
an ex-convict who absorbed the Mus-
lim religion while serving a seven-year
sentence for larceny in Massachusetts.
Once out of prison, he shed his
past life (along with his original sur-
namé, 4s wel] as an alias, “Big Red")
and adopted the new last name X. This
is conimon practice among Muslims,
who adopt the symbolic X to connote
the niystery of their origins.
Tall, dynamic, with rugged good
looks, Malcolm rose in the sect to be-
fae
“come the Big X—and the Messenger’ 3
ambassador to the Islamic countries of
the Middle East and Africa. His flam-
boyant style, his biting humor and the
brutal clarity of his logic—the white
man ig responsible for the degradation
of the Negro—creates in white audi-
ences a sense of collective guilt. At
the same time, he wins admiration
from Negroes, whose bitterness he can
exploit.
The turnouts for Malcolm X“atweer>
jioug Negro
i |
and white colleges, _ including
“Harvard, make civil rights
leaders unhappy. And in the
past few months as he began
to overshadow Muhammad and
the Chicago-based officiais,
Muslim leaders also became
unhappy. Muhammad moved
to silence him. His opportunity
was not long in coming.
When Malcolm X told &
Black Muslim rally at Man-
hattan Center that the assas-
sination of President Kennedy
was an instance of “the chick-
ens coming home to roost,”
Muhammad rebuked him, say-
ing. “He will not be permit-
ted to speak | in public.” That,
under the code. seemed to end
Malcolm's career.
But after 90 days of si-
lence, he broke the code with
a public announcement on
March § that he was leav-
ing the Muslims to organize
his own party. He told « tele-
vision audiemer “lt -hard to
make a rooster stop crowing
once the sun has risen.” He
claims that he has only cre-
ated a new mosque in New
York, the Muslim Mosque, Inc.
But he calls his philosophy—
political, economic, social and
cultural -- “Black National-
ism."
Ovnr a glass of ginger ale
the other day {he eats only
one meal a day. and, like all
Moslems, eschews smoking.
drinking, gambling and the
eating of pork}, Malcolm
talked of his ambitions, The
three elements that distinguish
his new party from the old
group are: (1) personal inde-
pendence that will allow him
to act, speak and be scen as
master of his own house; (2)
“self defense units — rifle
clubs — ready to “execute on
the spot” those who threaten
Negroes; (3) nationalist ap-
peal to all Negroes, not just
Muslims, allowing cooperation
with the interracial civil
rights movement.
-_Thig new program_is anath--
_ ema to Muhammad. i.5-
ims. ¥ Yet Malcoim X insists
‘that he is “and always Will
be” a Muslim and that, so far
as he is concerned, Muham-
mad cannot reject him hbe-
cause no Muslim can be re-
jected by the spiritual head,
“But it is time for the Ne-
groes to defend themselves,”
Malcolm said, “If no one will
"say that, T will. If a person
threatens you, by coming in
the churches, bombing the
churches, killing little giris,
shooting little boys, then the
Negroes should defcnd them-
selves, even if it means tak-
ing rifles and shotguns, and
driving from our door the peo-
ple who are brutalizing
Negroes. The Negroes should
not wait for white investi- .
gators, They should find the
guilty ones themselves and ex-
ecute them on the spot.
tee
VERY American citizen
is guaranteed under the Con-
stitution the right to bear arma
in self-defense. Since he has
the legal right to own a Shot-
gun or rifle, I would advise
the Negro to have one.” Later,
Malcolm told a press confer-
ence that Negroes “should
form rifle clibs" to defend
their lives and property.
“All the past actions of the
demonstrations and the sit-ins
and boycotts have been imma-
ture, boyish; that's why," he
added contemptuously, “they
call the Negroes ‘boys.’ “ The
time has come for Negroes to
fight back, he said. He in-
tends to tell the Negroes
“that what has been called the
Negro revolution in the United
States is a deception practiced
upon them, because they have
only to examine the failure of
this so-called revolution to pro-
duce any positive results in
the past year. I shall tell them
Aane
what a real revolution means.
In my conversation, IT
asked him: “Do you expert
thén to initiate a Cuban or an
Algerian-style revolution?”
“I say that if you follow the
whole thing to its legies!con-
Reveal the original PDF page, then click a word to highlight the OCR text.
Community corrections
No user corrections yet.
Comments
No comments on this document yet.
Bottom Reader Ad Slot
Bottom Reader Ad Slot placeholder
If you would like to support SpookStack without paying out of pocket, please consider allowing advertising cookies. It helps cover hosting costs and keeps the archive free to browse. You can change this choice at any time.
Continue Exploring
Reader
Topic
Agency Collection
Explore This Archive Cluster
letter
bureau
Related subtopics
Subtopic
Subtopic
Subtopic
Subtopic
Subtopic
Subtopic