Malcolm X: Legacy of a revolutionary

Socialist Worker
February 18, 2005 | Pages 6 and 7
http://www.socialistworker.org/2005-1/531/531_06_MalcolmX.shtml

LEE SUSTAR looks at Malcolm X and the relevance of his ideas 40 years after his
assassination.

WHEN THE historic leaders of African American struggle are briefly acknowledged
during Black History Month in February, schoolchildren get to hear a few quotations:
Frederick Douglass indictment of slavery, Rosa Parks refusal to sit at the back of a
segregated bus, Martin Luther Kings dream of a non-racist U.S.

Malcolm X, however, is usually left mute. Seen, perhaps--in a photo in a textbook, a

name on a street sign or community college, even as an image on a U.S. postage stamp.
But very seldom heard.

Im not standing here

speaking to you as an
American, or a patriot, or
a flag-saluter, or a flag-
waver--no, not I. Im
speaking as a victim of
this American system.
And I see America through
the eyes of the victim. I
dont see any American
dream; I see an American
nightmare.
-- Malcolm X, The Ballot or the
Bullet, April 3, 1964

Its not hard to understand why.

Every time you see a white man,
think about the devil youre seeing!
Malcolm said when he was the
leading spokesperson for the Nation
of Islam, a Black nationalist
religious group headed by Elijah
Muhammad with an estimated
100,000 members at its peak. Think
of how it was on your slave
foreparents bloody, sweaty backs
that he built this empire thats today
the richest of all nations--where his
evil and greed cause him to be hated
around the world!

Just in case a student stumbles upon

such quotes, a typical summary of
Malcolms life reassures us that he
broke with [the Nation of Islam],
rejecting racial separatism and
continued to speak out until his
assassination on February 21, 1965,
urging Blacks to take pride in their
race and to take action to claim their
civil and human rights.

This mild rendering of Malcolms

political development comes from a
Web-based diversity calendar
posted by the Los Alamos National
Laboratory--birthplace of the atomic
bombs dropped on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki in the Second World War,
and the ongoing site of U.S. nuclear
weapons development.

The Los Alamos officials, of course,

omitted Malcolms devastating
summary of U.S. foreign policy: I
could see that America itself is a
society where there is no
brotherhood, and that this society is
controlled primarily by racists and
segregationists, Malcolm said in a
speech shortly before he was
murdered. And from Washington,
D.C., they exercise the same forms
of brutal oppression against dark-
skinned people in South and North
Vietnam, or in the Congo, or in
Cuba, or in any other place on this
earth where theyre trying to exploit
and oppress. This is a society whose
government doesnt hesitate to
inflict the most brutal form of
punishment and oppression upon
dark-skinned people all over the
world.

Malcolms politics did evolve after

his break with the Nation of Islam--
not into a safely mainstream civil
rights leader, but into a revolutionary
and an internationalist who
forcefully confronted questions of
imperialism and racism that remain
before us today.
----------------

BORN MALCOLM Little in 1925 in

Omaha, Nebraska, Malcolms
childhood was ravaged by racist
violence.

His father was a Baptist minister and

follower of the Black nationalist
leader Marcus Garvey, who
advocated independent Black
economic development and
emigration to Africa. The family
later moved to Lansing, Mich.,
where their home was burned down
by a white supremacist group.

A racist gang was also believed to be

responsible for killing Malcolms
father by pushing him in front of a
streetcar. Malcolms mother became
mentally ill under the strain of trying
to raise eight children alone. Her
children were sent to live in foster
homes.

Malcolm did well in school, but was

told by a teacher that his idea of
being a lawyer was no realistic goal
for a nigger. He dropped out,
moving to New York and later
Boston, where he became a drug
dealer and hustler.
That life ended with Malcolms
arrest and conviction on burglary
charges in 1946. While in prison, his
brother Reginald converted him to
the Nation of Islam, also known as
the Black Muslims. Like many
Nation of Islam members, he used
X to stand in for a name that was
stolen during slavery.

Malcolm used the prisons library to

complete his education. Once
released in 1952, he quickly became
the Nations most effective organizer
and best-known spokesperson.

The Nations base was in Northern

and Midwestern cities that had seen
a massive expansion of the Black
population during the economic
boom of the Second World War.
Crowded into ghettos, excluded
from the best-paying jobs and forced
to send their children to schools that
were effectively as segregated as
those in the South, African
Americans in the North had many
grievances, but few political outlets.

The McCarthyite anticommunist

witch-hunts had marginalized the
left and purged the labor movement
of radicals. The emerging civil rights
movement focused on dismantling
legal segregation in the South, but
had little to offer African American
workers in the North.

The Nation partly filled this void by

preaching Black self-reliance,
bitterly denouncing racism in the
North and advocating self-defense
from racist violence.

Malcolm in particular harshly

criticized civil rights leaders for their
doctrine of nonviolent protest, and
for ignoring the problems of Blacks
in the North. They front-paged
what I felt about Northern white and
Black Freedom Riders going South
to demonstrate, he said. I called
it ridiculous; their own North
ghettos, right at home, had enough
rats and roaches to kill to keep all of
the Freedom Riders busy...The
Norths liberals have been so long
pointing accusing fingers at the
South and getting away with it that
they have fits when they are exposed
as the worlds worst hypocrites.

Malcolm derided the 1963 March on

Washington as the farce on
Washington, and criticized Martin
Luther Kings advocacy of
nonviolence.

Yet the Nation also failed to provide

a real political alternative. It
advocated a strict moral code
regarding alcohol, drugs and
sexuality and was admired for its
anti-racist stance. But it abstained
from the civil rights movement and
politics generally--restrictions that
Malcolm chafed against. It could be
heard increasingly in the Negro
communities: Those Muslims talk
tough, but they never do anything
unless somebody bothers Muslims,
he said later.

The tensions broke into the open

after the assassination of President
John F. Kennedy in November 1963,
described by Malcolm as an example
of the chickens coming home to
roost--a reference to the violence
used by the U.S. government at
home and around the world. Elijah
Muhammad used the incident to
silence Malcolm for 90 days--
which led to a permanent break.

At first, Malcolm continued to

accept the overall framework of the
Nation of Islam. But a trip to Africa
and the Middle East accelerated
Malcolms transformation--
religiously, into an orthodox Sunni
Muslim; and politically, into a
revolutionary who re-conceptualized
what had been called the Negro
freedom struggle as a Black
liberation movement bound up with
anti-colonial and anti-imperialist
struggles worldwide.

Just days before his death, Malcolm

told a group of Columbia University
students that it was incorrect to
classify the revolt of the Negro as
simply a racial conflict of Black
against white, or as purely an
American problem. Rather, we are
seeing today a global rebellion of the
oppressed against the oppressor, the
exploited against the exploiter.
----------------

MALCOLM BECAME an anti-

imperialist during the heroic period
of Third World nationalism. The
Non-Aligned Movement of
developing countries was projecting
a political line independent of the
First World dominated by
Washington, and the nominally
socialist Second World ruled by
Moscow.

In 1964, Malcolm met with several

heads of state who had been leaders
in anti-imperialist and nationalist
movements--Gamal Abdel Nasser of
Egypt, Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya,
Julius Nyere of Tanzania, Kwame
Nkrumah of Ghana and Sekou Tour
of Guinea Conakry.

In one of his last speeches, he

described how imperialism had
changed its methods, with the old
colonial powers in Asia replaced by
the U.S. They switched from the
old, open colonial, imperialistic
approach to the benevolent
approach, he said. They came up
with some benevolent colonialism,
philanthropic colonialism,
humanitarianism, or dollarism.

Malcolm was killed well before the

newly independent countries he saw
as models--like Algeria, Ghana or
Egypt--degenerated into military
dictatorships.

Nevertheless, Malcolms experience

abroad led him to question his
previous political framework. So I
had to do a lot of thinking and
reappraising of my definition of
Black nationalism, he said in an
interview with Young Socialist
magazine. Malcolm stopped using
this term to describe himself. He
also spoke out in favor of womens
freedom, a break from the Nation
of Islams conservative views.

Some have claimed that Malcolm

had effectively become a socialist by
the time he was cut down. While he
did appear at forums organized by
the Socialist Workers Party and
linked capitalism to racism--show
me a capitalist, and Ill show you a
racist, he liked to say--the fact is
that Malcolms new politics hadnt
crystallized yet. He still rejected the
idea of political unity between Black
and white workers, arguing that
there can be no workers solidarity
until there is first some racial
solidarity among Blacks.

Malcolms continued emphasis on

racial solidarity led to an ambiguity
in his attitude towards Black
politicians. Although he viewed
nearly all of the small number of
Black elected officials of his day as
co-opted, he believed that Blacks
should step up efforts to elect
independent political leaders. This
was to be a task of the group he
founded, the Organization of Afro-
American Unity. Malcolm also
frequently pointed out that Black
votes held the balance of power in
presidential contests between the
Republicans and Democrats--
implying that Black voters should
play political kingmaker.

At the same time, however, he

hammered the Democratic Party at
every opportunity, showing how the
Northern Democrats were beholden
to the racist Dixecrats who
remained in office because of
segregation. Put the Democrats
first, and theyll put you last, he
said.

Upon returning from his travels

abroad, Malcolm established closer
contacts with the Southern struggle,
appearing in Selma, Ala., and
meeting with representatives of civil
rights groups to try to formulate a
common strategy.
Malcolm was murdered before his
new approach could bear fruit.
Ultimately, three members of the
Nation of Islam went to prison for
the killing, although questions about
the possible role of undercover
police have lingered for years.
Current Nation of Islam leader Louis
Farrakhan--who had declared
Malcolm worthy of death in a
newspaper article weeks before his
murder--apologized for the Nations
role many years later.

The Democratic Partys liberal

establishment was relieved by the
assassination. Malcolm X had the
ingredients for leadership, but his
ruthless and fanatical belief in
violence not only set him apart from
the responsible leaders of the civil
rights movement and the
overwhelming majority of Blacks, it
also marked him for notoriety and a
violent end, stated a New York
Times editorial. Yesterday, someone
came out of the darkness that he
spawned and killed him.
----------------

WHILE ITS impossible to briefly

summarize Malcolm Xs legacy,
three elements stand out: an
uncompromising opposition to
racism and imperialism, a
determination to expose the faade
of U.S. democracy, and a
commitment to the revolutionary
transformation of society.

Malcolm thus blazed a trail for the

rise of Black revolutionary
organizations such as the Black
Panther Party for Self-Defense and
the League of Revolutionary Black
Workers--and the revival of the far
left generally in the late 1960s and
early 1970s.

Since Malcolms day, an African

American political establishment
within the Democratic Party has
altered the surface of the U.S.
electoral system--but not its
domination by big business. And
although affirmative action has
helped African Americans counteract
discrimination--and opened doors
for Time Warner CEO Richard
Parsons and government officials
like Colin Powell and Condoleezza
Rice--progress for the Black
working class majority remains
severely limited.

For example, as Barbara Miner

pointed out in a recent article in The
Progressive, unemployment rates for
Black men in 2002 was 50 percent
or higher in Philadelphia, Chicago
and Detroit, and nearly as high in
New York. Add to this picture
deteriorating schools, residential
segregation, racist police violence,
rising social inequality and the
occupation of Iraq, and Malcolms
condemnation of U.S. racism and
imperialism is \as relevant today as
it was four decades ago.

So are his calls to action. [In] my

opinion, the young generation of
whites, Blacks, browns, whatever
else there is, youre living in a time
of revolution, a time when theres
got to be change, Malcolm told a
group of British students in 1964.
People in power have misused it,
and now there has to be a change,
and a better world has to be built,
and the only way its going to be
built is with extreme methods. I, for
one, will join in with anyone--I dont
care what color you are--as long as
you want to change this miserable
condition that exists on this earth.

Listen to Malcolm X

RECORDINGS OF several of
Malcolm Xs speeches are available
on the Web at
www.brothermalcolm.net. Listen to
Malcolms powerful speaking style--
and the audiences enthusiastic
response.

Malcolms words can also be found

in The Autobiography of Malcolm X,
Malcolm X Speaks, By Any Means
Necessary and February 1965: The
Final Speeches. Other important
material can be found in George
Breitmans The Last Year of
Malcolm X: The Evolution of a
Revolutionary.

Finally, Spike Lees 1992 film

Malcolm X has just been released on
DVD, featuring Denzel
Washingtons moving portrayal of
Malcolms life.