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Front Matter
Title Page and Credits
MALCOLM X TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE

Speeches in the U.S., Britain, and Africa

PATHFINDER

New York London Montréal Sydney

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Edited by Steve Clark

Copyright © 1965, 1970, 1991 by Betty Shabazz and Pathfinder Press All rights reserved

ISBN 0-87348-628-5 paper; ISBN 0-87348-631-5 cloth Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 90-64197 Manufactured in the United States of America

First edition, 1991

Cover and book design by Toni Gorton

Cover portrait by Carole Byard, from the Pathfinder Mural in New York City. Photo by Margrethe Siem.

Pathfinder 410 West Street, New York, NY 10014, U.S.A.

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United States (and Caribbean and Latin America): Pathfinder, 410 West Street, New York, NY 10014

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Contents
Preface 6 About the cover 8

PART 1: IN AFRICA

I'm not an American, I'm a victim of Americanism UNIVERSITY OF GHANA, MAY 13, 1964

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PART 2: IN BRITAIN

Any means necessary to bring about freedom OXFORD UNIVERSITY, DECEMBER 3, 1964

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The oppressed masses of the world cry out for action against the common oppressor

LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS, FEBRUARY 11, 1965

-27-

PART 3: IN THE UNITED STATES

See for yourself, listen for yourself, think for yourself WITH YOUNG CIVIL RIGHTS FIGHTERS, JANUARY 1, 1965

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The American system of exploitation and oppression

INTERVIEW WITH THE `YOUNG SOCIALIST,' JANUARY 18, 1965

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APPENDIX

An authentic voice of the forces of the American revolution

IN TRIBUTE TO MALCOLM X, BY JACK BARNES, MARCH 5, 1965

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Notes 101

Index 107

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Preface
"When you get into a conversation on racism and discrimination and segregation," Malcolm X observed in January 1965, "you will find young people more incensed over it -- they feel more filled with an urge to eliminate it."

With this in mind, Malcolm X seized every occasion to talk with young people. "It is the teenagers abroad, all over the world, who are actually involving themselves in the struggle to eliminate oppression and exploitation," he said.

Five such discussions during the last year of Malcolm X's life are presented in this book.

These talks were given following Malcolm X's March 1964 break with the Nation of Islam. Malcolm X had already long been a revolutionary advocate of Black rights and an intransigent opponent of the U.S. government and its imperialist policies. During the final months of 1964 and early 1965 he expressed an increasingly anti-capitalist and, then, prosocialist point of view as well.

The speeches and the interview in this collection reflect how his political outlook was evolving, a process still under way when he was assassinated in February 1965.

They also reflect the wide audience Malcolm X had won among young people on several continents. During the year before his death, he made two extensive trips to Africa and the Middle East and several short trips to Europe. Three of the five discussions in this collection took place in Africa and Britain.

During this period the influence of Malcolm X's ideas also spread to young fighters against segregation in the United States, such as the high school students from McComb, Mississippi, whom he met with at the beginning of 1965.

Most of the material in this book is printed here for the first time. That is the case with the speeches at Oxford

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University and the London School of Economics, only a few paragraphs of which have previously been in print. Excerpts from the talk to the students from McComb appeared in the Pathfinder pamphlet previously published under the title Malcolm X Talks to Young People. The speeches in Oxford and London and to the McComb students have been transcribed by Pathfinder from audiotape.

The speech at the University of Ghana was transcribed from audiotape by Ed Smith. It first appeared in Smith's Where To, Black Man? An American Negro's African Diary (Chicago: Quadrangle, 1967) and has long been out of print.

Two other items in this book are taken from the pamphlet version of Malcolm X Talks to Young People: the interview Malcolm X gave in January 1965 to the Young Socialist magazine, and a tribute to him shortly following his death by Jack Barnes, then national chairman of the Young Socialist Alliance.

Alice Windom, who helped organize events for Malcolm X during his May 1964 trip to Ghana, provided photographs and information on this visit. Additional information on this trip was supplied by Ed Smith. Pathfinder also appreciates the assistance provided by the staff of the Library of the Oxford Union Society and the British Library of Political and Economic Science.

Aid in obtaining and identifying photographs was provided by Dr. Daniel T. Williams, university archivist of Tuskegee University; Le Dzung, press attaché of the Permanent Mission of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam to the United Nations; G.M. Cookson; and the Friends of the Pathfinder Mural.

Steve Clark

December 1990

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About the cover

The cover portrait of Malcolm X was painted by artist and sculptor Carole Byard. It forms part of the Pathfinder Mural, a six-story mural on the building that houses the Pathfinder offices in Lower Manhattan. Byard also painted portraits of antislavery fighters Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth on the mural.

The Pathfinder Mural, dedicated on November 19, 1989, was painted by an international volunteer team of eighty artists from twenty countries. Along with Malcolm X, it features portraits of other revolutionary and working-class leader whose speeches and writings are published by Pathfinder.

About the artist

Carole Byard teaches at Parsons School of Design in New York City. Her art was influenced by travels in Africa in 1972 and 1977. She has exhibited in several anti-apartheid shows as well as shows on Black history and culture, winning numerous awards for her painting, sculpture, and illustrations. The illustrator of a dozen children's books, she is currently working on "Presence and Perception," a series of sculptures. Byard is active in Coast to Coast: National Women Artists of Color.

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Part 1: In Africa I'm not an American, I'm a Victim of Americanism

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I'm not an American, I'm a victim of Americanism
UNIVERSITY OF GHANA, MAY 13, 1964

The remarks that follow were made at the University of Ghana in Legon at a meeting sponsored by the Marxist Forum. The original title of the talk was "The Plight of 22 Million Afro-Americans in the United States." The audience, which filled the university's Great Hall, was the largest that Malcolm X addressed in Africa.

The talk was part of a week-long tour in Ghana that was organized by the Malcolm X Committee, made up of Afro-Americans living in that country. During his visit, Malcolm X met with Ghanaian president Kwame Nkrumah and spoke with ambassadors of at least fifteen countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. He also addressed members of parliament and the Kwame Nkrumah Ideological Institute, gave a press conference, and was honored at dinners given by the Cuban and Chinese ambassadors.

As a result of Malcolm X's trip to Ghana, a chapter of the Organization of Afro-American Unity was set up, composed of U.S. Blacks living there. 1

I intend for my talk to be very informal, because our position in America is an informal position, [Laughter] and I find that it is very difficult to use formal terms to describe a very informal position. No condition of any people on earth is more deplorable than the condition, or plight, of the twenty-two million Black people in America. And our condition is so deplorable because we are in a country that professes to be a democracy and professes to be striving to give justice and freedom and equality to everyone who is born under its constitution. If we were born in South Africa or in Angola or some part of this earth where they don't profess to be for freedom, 2 that would be another thing; but when we are born in a country that stands up and represents itself as the leader of

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the Free World, and you still have to beg and crawl just to get a chance to drink a cup of coffee, then the condition is very deplorable indeed.

So tonight, so that you will understand me and why I speak as I do, it should probably be pointed out at the outset that I am not a politician. I don't know anything about politics. I'm from America but I'm not an American. I didn't go there of my own free choice. [Applause] If I were an American there would be no problem, there'd be no need for legislation or civil rights or anything else. So I just try to face the fact as it actually is and come to this meeting as one of the victims of America, one of the victims of Americanism, one of the victims of democracy, one of the victims of a very hypocritical system that is going all over this earth today representing itself as being qualified to tell other people how to run their country when they can't get the dirty things that are going on in their own country straightened out. [Applause]

So if someone else from America comes to you to speak, they're probably speaking as Americans, and they speak as people who see America through the eyes of an American. And usually those types of persons refer to America, or that which exists in America, as the American Dream. But for the twenty million of us in America who are of African descent, it is not an American dream; it's an American nightmare. [Laughter]

I don't feel that I am a visitor in Ghana or in any part of Africa. I feel that I am at home. I've been away for four hundred years, [Laughter] but not of my own volition, not of my own will. Our people didn't go to America on the Queen Mary, we didn't go by Pan American, and we didn't go to America on the Mayflower. We went in slave ships, we went in chains. We weren't immigrants to America, we were cargo for purposes of a system that was bent upon making a profit. So this is the category or level of which I speak. I may not speak it in the language many of you would use, but I think you will understand the meaning of my terms.

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When I was in Ibadan [in Nigeria] at the University of Ibadan last Friday night, the students there gave me a new name, which I go for -- meaning I like it. [Laughter] "Omowale," which they say means in Yoruba -- if I am pronouncing that correctly, and if I am not pronouncing it correctly it's because I haven't had a chance to pronounce it for four hundred years [Laughter] -- which means in that dialect, "The child has returned." It was an honor for me to be referred to as a child who had sense enough to return to the land of his forefathers -- to his fatherland and to his motherland. Not sent back here by the State Department, [Laughter] but come back here of my own free will. [Applause]

I am happy and I imagine, since it is the policy that whenever a Black man leaves America and travels in any part of Africa, or Asia, or Latin America and says things contrary to what the American propaganda machine turns out, usually he finds upon his return home that his passport is lifted. 3 Well, if they had not wanted me to say the things I am saying, they should never have given me a passport in the first place. The policy usually is the lifting of the passport. Now I am not here to condemn America, I am not here to make America look bad, but I am here to tell you the truth about the situation that Black people in America find themselves confronted with. And if truth condemns America, then she stands condemned. [Applause]

This is the most beautiful continent that I've ever seen; it's the richest continent I've ever seen, and strange as it may seem, I find many white Americans here smiling in the faces of our African brothers like they have been loving them all of the time. [Laughter and applause] The fact is, these same whites who in America spit in our faces, the same whites who in America club us brutally, the same whites who in America sic their dogs upon us, just because we want to be free human beings, the same whites who turn their water hoses upon our women and our babies because we want to integrate with them, are

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over here in Africa smiling in your face trying to integrate with you. [Laughter]

I had to write a letter back home yesterday and tell some of my friends that if American Negroes want integration, they should come to Africa, because more white people over here -- white Americans, that is -- look like they are for integration than there is in the entire American country. [Laughter] But actually what it is, they want to integrate with the wealth that they know is here -- the untapped natural resources which exceed the wealth of any continent on this earth today.

When I was coming from Lagos to Accra Sunday, I was riding on an airplane with a white man who represented some of the interests, you know, that are interested in Africa. And he admitted -- at least it was his impression -- that our people in Africa didn't know how to measure wealth, that they worship wealth in terms of gold and silver, not in terms of the natural resources that are in the earth, and that as long as the Americans or other imperialists or twentieth-century colonialists could continue to make the Africans measure wealth in terms of gold and silver, they never would have an opportunity to really measure the value of the wealth that is in the soil, and would continue to think that it is they who need the Western powers instead of thinking that it is the Western powers who need the people and the continent that is known as Africa. The thing is, I hope I don't mess up anybody's politics or anybody's plots or plans or schemes, but then I think that it can be well proved and backed up.

Ghana is one of the most progressive nations on the African continent primarily because it has one of the most progressive leaders and most progressive presidents. [Applause] The president of this nation has done something that no American, no white American, wants to see done -- well, I should say "no American" because all the Americans over there are white Americans.

President Nkrumah is doing something there that the government in America does not like to see done, and that

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is he's restoring the African image. He is making the African proud of the African image; and whenever the African becomes proud of the African image and this positive image is projected abroad, then the Black man in America, who up to now has had nothing but a negative image of Africa -- automatically the image that the Black man in America has of his African brothers changes from negative to positive, and the image that the Black man in America has of himself will also change from negative to positive.

And the American racists know that they can rule the African in America, the African-American in America, only as long as we have a negative image of ourselves. So they keep us with a negative image of Africa. And they also know that the day that the image of Africa is changed from negative to positive, automatically the attitude of twenty-two million Africans in America will also change from negative to positive.

And one of the most important efforts to change the image of the African is being made right here in Ghana. And the Ghanaian personality can be picked right out of any group of Africans anywhere on this planet, because you see nothing in him that reflects any kind of feeling of inferiority or anything of that sort. And as long as you have a president who teaches you that you can do anything that anybody else under the sun can do, you got a good man. [Applause]

Not only that, we who live in America have learned to measure Black men: the object we use to measure him is the attitude of America toward him. When we find a Black man who's always receiving the praise of the Americans, we become suspicious of him. When we find a Black man who receives honors and all kinds of plaques and beautiful phrases and words from America, we immediately begin to suspect that person. Because it has been our experience that the Americans don't praise any Black man who is really working for the benefit of the Black man, because they realize that when you begin to work in

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earnest to do things that are good for the people on the African continent, all the good you do for people on the African continent has got to be against someone else, because someone else up to now has benefited from the labor and the wealth of the people on this continent. So our yardstick in measuring these various leaders is to find out what the Americans think about them. And these leaders over here who are receiving the praise and pats on the back from the Americans, you can just flush the toilet and let them go right down the drain. [Laughter]

This president here is disliked. Don't think that it's just the American press, it's the government. In America when you find a concerted effort of the press to always speak in a bad way about an African leader, usually that press is actually reflecting government opinion. But America is a very shrewd government. If it knows that its own governmental position will cause a negative reaction from the people that it wants to continue to exploit, it will pretend to have a free press and at the same time sic that free press on a real African leader and stand on the sideline and say that this is not government policy. But everything that happens in America is government policy. [Laughter]

Not only is the president of this country disliked, the president of Algeria, Ben Bella, is disliked because he is revolutionary, he's for freedom of everybody. [Egyptian president] Nasser is disliked because he's for freedom of everybody. All of them are referred to as dictators. As soon as they get the mass of their people behind them, they're a dictator. As soon as they have unity of their people in their country, they're a dictator. If there is no division, fighting, and squabbling going on, the leader of that country is a dictator if he is an African; but as long as it is in America, he's just an American president who has the support of the people. [Laughter and applause]

I am coming to America in a minute, but I just want to comment on our relations I've noticed since being here. I heard that there is a conflict among some of our brothers

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and sisters over here concerning whether or not it's advisable for the government to play such a prominent role in guiding the education -- the curriculum and what not -- of the people of the country and in the various universities. Yes, anytime you have a people who have been colonized for as long as our people have been colonized, and you tell them now they can vote, they will spend all night arguing and never get anywhere. Everything needs to be controlled until the colonial mentality has been completely destroyed, and when that colonial mentality has been destroyed at least to the point where they know what they are voting for, then you give them a chance to vote on this and vote on that. But we have this trouble in America, as well as other areas where colonialism has existed, the only way they can practice or apply democratic practices is through advice and counsel.

So my own honest, humble opinion is, anytime you want to come out from under a colonial mentality, let the government set up the educational system and educate you in the direction or way they want you to go in; and then after your understanding is up to the level where it should be, you can stand around and argue or philosophize or something of that sort. [Laughter and applause]

There is probably no more enlightened leader on the African continent than President Nkrumah, because he lived in America. He knows what it is like there. He could not live in that land as long as he did and be disillusioned, or confused, or be deceived. Anytime you think that America is the land of the free, you come there and take off your national dress and be mistaken for an American Negro, and you will find out you're not in the land of the free. [Applause] America is a colonial power. She is just as much a colonial power in 1964 as France, Britain, Portugal, and all these other European countries were in 1864. She's a twentieth-century colonial power; she's a modern colonial power, and she has colonized twenty-two million African-Americans. While there are only eleven million Africans colonized in South Africa, four or five million

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colonized in Angola, there are twenty-two million Africans colonized in America right now on May 13, 1964. What is second-class citizenship if nothing but twentieth-century colonialism? They don't want you to know that slavery still exists, so rather than call it slavery they call it second-class citizenship.

Either you are a citizen or you are not a citizen at all. If you are a citizen, you are free; if you are not a citizen, you are a slave. And the American government is afraid to admit that she never gave freedom to the Black man in America and won't even admit that the Black man in America is not free, is not a citizen, and doesn't have his rights. She skillfully camouflages it under these pretty terms of second-class citizenship. It's colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism . . . [Inaudible] [Laughter]

One of our brothers just landed here today from New York. He told me that when he left New York, the police were walking in Harlem six abreast. Why? Because Harlem is about to explode. You know what I mean by "Harlem"? Harlem is the most famous city on this earth; there is no city on the African continent with as many Africans as Harlem. In Harlem they call it little Africa, and when you walk through Harlem, you're in Ibadan, everyone there looks just like you. And today the police were out in force, with their clubs. They don't have police dogs in Harlem, 'cause those kind of people who live in Harlem don't allow police dogs to come in Harlem. [Laughter] That's the point, they don't allow police dogs to come in Harlem. . . . [Inaudible]

They are troubled with the existence of little gangs who have been going around killing people, killing white people. 4 Well now, they project it abroad as an antiwhite gang. No, it's not an antiwhite gang, it's an antioppression gang. It's an antifrustration gang. They don't know what else to do. They've been waiting for the government to solve their problems; they've been waiting for the president to solve their problems; they've been waiting for the Senate and the Congress and the Supreme Court to solve

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their problems; they've been waiting for Negro leaders to solve their problems; and all they hear are a lot of pretty words. So they become frustrated and don't know what to do. So they do the only thing they know how: they do the same thing the Americans did when they got frustrated with the British in 1776 -- liberty or death.

This is what the Americans did; they didn't turn the other cheek to the British. No, they had an old man named Patrick Henry who said, "Liberty or death!" I never heard them refer to him as an advocate of violence; they say he's one of the Founding Fathers, because he had sense to say, "Liberty or death!"

And there is a growing tendency among Black Americans today, who are able to see that they don't have freedom -- they are reaching the point now where they are ready to tell the Man no matter what the odds are against them, no matter what the cost is, it's liberty or death. If this is the land of the free, then give us some freedom. If this is the land of justice, then give us some justice. And if this is the land of equality, give us some equality. This is the growing temper of the Black American, of the African-American, of which there are twenty-two million.

Am I justified in talking like this? Let me see. I was in Cleveland, Ohio, just two months ago when this white clergyman was killed by the bulldozer. 5 I was in Cleveland, I was there. Now you know if a white man in the garb, in the outfit, the costume, or whatever you want to call it, of a priest . . . [Inaudible] if they run over him with a bulldozer, what will they do to a Black man? They run over someone who looks like them who is demonstrating for freedom, what chance does a Black man have? This wasn't in Mississippi, this was in Cleveland in the North. This is the type of experience the Black man in America is faced with every day. . . . [Inaudible]

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Part 2: In Britain: Any Means Necessary to Bring About Freedom the Oppressed Masses of the World Cry Out for Action Against the Common Oppressor

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Any Means Necessary to Bring About Freedom
OXFORD UNIVERSITY, DECEMBER 3, 1964

The following remarks were given as part of a debate sponsored by the Oxford Union, a student organization at Britain's Oxford University. The debate was televised to an audience of millions by Britain's national network, the British Broadcasting Corporation.

The proposition under debate was "Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue," a statement popularized in July 1964 by Barry Goldwater in his speech accepting the Republican Party nomination for president of the United States.

The fifth of six speakers in the debate, Malcolm X took the floor immediately following Conservative Party member of Parliament Humphry Berkeley, who opposed the motion. The other two opposing speakers were Lord Stoneham, a Labour Party member of the House of Lords, and Cambridge student union president Christie Davies. Speaking for the proposition besides Malcolm X were Eric Abrahams, a student from Jamaica and president of the Oxford Union; and Scottish poet and Communist Party member Hugh MacDiarmid. Tariq Ali, a student of Pakistani origin, chaired. There was no question period.

The first part of Malcolm X's remarks is not available. According to press accounts, he began by denouncing the bombing of defenseless villages in the Congo (today Zaire) that year, a question he also takes up in other speeches in the present collection.

The audience, which included many students originally from Africa and Asia, greeted Malcolm's remarks with long and enthusiastic applause. The minutes of the meeting record that in a vote held after the debate, the motion Malcolm X was defending received 137 votes to 228 against.

You make my point, [Laughter] that as long as a white man does it, it's all right. A Black man is supposed to have no feelings. [Applause] So when a Black man strikes back, he's an extremist. He's supposed to sit passively and have no feelings, be nonviolent,

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and love his enemy. No matter what kind of attack, be it verbal or otherwise, he's supposed to take it. But if he stands up and in any way tries to defend himself, [Malcolm laughs] then he's an extremist. [Laughter and applause]

No. I think that the speaker who preceded me is getting exactly what he asked for. [Laughter] My reason for believing in extremism -- intelligently directed extremism, extremism in defense of liberty, extremism in quest of justice -- is because I firmly believe in my heart that the day that the Black man takes an uncompromising step and realizes that he's within his rights, when his own freedom is being jeopardized, to use any means necessary to bring about his freedom or put a halt to that injustice, I don't think he'll be by himself.

I live in America, where there are only 22 million Blacks against probably 160 million whites. One of the reasons that I'm in no way reluctant or hesitant to do whatever is necessary to see that Black people do something to protect themselves [is that] I honestly believe that the day that they do, many whites will have more respect for them. And there will be more whites on their side than are now on their side with this little wishy-washy "love-thy-enemy" approach that they've been using up to now.

And if I'm wrong, then you are racialists. [Malcolm laughs; laughter and applause from the audience]

As I said earlier, in my conclusion, I'm a Muslim. I believe in the religion of Islam. I believe in Allah, I believe in Muhammad, I believe in all of the prophets. I believe in fasting, prayer, charity, and that which is incumbent upon a Muslim to fulfill in order to be a Muslim. In April I was fortunate to make the hajj to Mecca, and went back again in September to try and carry out my religious functions and requirements.

But at the same time that I believe in that religion, I have to point out I'm also an American Negro, and I live in a society whose social system is based upon the castration

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of the Black man, whose political system is based on castration of the Black man, and whose economy is based upon the castration of the Black man. A society which, in 1964, has more subtle, deceptive, deceitful methods to make the rest of the world think that it's cleaning up its house, while at the same time the same things are happening to us in 1964 that happened in 1954, 1924, and in 1984.

They came up with what they call a civil rights bill in 1964, supposedly to solve our problem, and after the bill was signed, three civil rights workers were murdered in cold blood. 6 And the FBI head, [J. Edgar] Hoover, admits that they know who did it. They've known ever since it happened, and they've done nothing about it. Civil rights bill down the drain. No matter how many bills pass, Black people in that country where I'm from -- still, our lives are not worth two cents. And the government has shown its inability, or its unwillingness, to do whatever is necessary to protect life and property where the Black American is concerned.

So my contention is that whenever a people come to the conclusion that the government which they have supported proves itself unwilling or proves itself unable to protect our lives and protect our property because we have the wrong color skin, we are not human beings unless we ourselves band together and do whatever, however, whenever is necessary to see that our lives and our property is protected. And I doubt that any person in here would refuse to do the same thing, were he in the same position. Or I should say, were he in the same condition. [Applause]

Just one step farther to see, am I justified in this stand? And I say, I'm speaking as a Black man from America, which is a racist society. No matter how much you hear it talk about democracy, it's as racist as South Africa or as racist as Portugal, or as racist as any other racialist society on this earth. The only difference between it and South Africa: South Africa preaches separation and practices

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separation; America preaches integration and practices segregation. This is the only difference. They don't practice what they preach, whereas South Africa preaches and practices the same thing. I have more respect for a man who lets me know where he stands, even if he's wrong, than one who comes up like an angel and is nothing but a devil. [Applause]

The system of government that America has consists of committees. There are sixteen senatorial committees that govern the country and twenty congressional committees. Ten of the sixteen senatorial committees are in the hands of southern racialists, senators who are racialists. Thirteen of the twenty -- well this was before the last election, I think it's even more so now. Ten of the sixteen committees, senatorial committees, are in the hands of senators who are southern racialists. Thirteen of the twenty congressional committees were in the hands of southern congressmen who are racialists. Which means out of the thirty-six committees that govern the foreign and domestic direction of that government, twenty-three are in the hands of southern racialists -- men who in no way believe in the equality of man, and men who would do anything within their power to see that the Black man never gets to the same seat or to the same level that they are on.

The reason that these men from that area have that type of power is because America has a seniority system. And these who have that seniority have been there longer than anyone else because the Black people in the areas where they live can't vote. And it is only because the Black man is deprived of his vote that puts these men in positions of power, that gives them such influence in the government beyond their actual intellectual or political ability, or even beyond the number of people from the areas that they represent.

So we can see in that country that no matter what the federal government professes to be doing, the power of the federal government lies in these committees. And any

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time any kind of legislation is proposed to benefit the Black man or give the Black man his just due, we find it is locked up in these committees right here. And when they let something through the committee, usually it is so chopped up and fixed up that by the time it becomes law, it's a law that can't be enforced.

Another example is the Supreme Court desegregation decision that was handed down in 1954. 7 This is a law, and they have not been able to implement this law in New York City, or in Boston, or in Cleveland, or Chicago, or the northern cities. And my contention is that any time you have a country, supposedly a democracy, supposedly the land of the free and the home of the brave, and it can't enforce laws -- even in the northernmost, cosmopolitan, and progressive part of it -- that will benefit a Black man, if those laws can't be enforced or that law can't be enforced, how much heart do you think we will get when they pass some civil rights legislation which only involves more laws? If they can't enforce this law, they will never enforce those laws.

So my contention is that we are faced with a racialistic society, a society in which they are deceitful, deceptive, and the only way we can bring about a change is to talk the kind of language -- speak the language that they understand. The racialists never understand a peaceful language. The racialist never understands the nonviolent language. The racialist we have, he's spoken his language to us for four hundred years.

We have been the victim of his brutality. We are the ones who face his dogs that tear the flesh from our limbs, only because we want to enforce the Supreme Court decision. We are the ones who have our skulls crushed, not by the Ku Klux Klan but by policemen, only because we want to enforce what they call the Supreme Court decision. We are the ones upon whom water hoses are turned, with pressure so hard that it rips the clothes from our backs -- not men, but the clothes from the backs of women and children. You've seen it yourselves. Only because we

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want to enforce what they call the law.

Well, any time you live in a society supposedly based upon law, and it doesn't enforce its own law because the color of a man's skin happens to be wrong, then I say those people are justified to resort to any means necessary to bring about justice where the government can't give them justice. [Prolonged applause]

I don't believe in any form of unjustified extremism. But I believe that when a man is exercising extremism, a human being is exercising extremism in defense of liberty for human beings, it's no vice. And when one is moderate in the pursuit of justice for human beings, I say he's a sinner.

And I might add, in my conclusion -- In fact, America is one of the best examples, when you read its history, about extremism. Old Patrick Henry said, "Liberty or death!" That's extreme, very extreme. [Laughter and applause]

I read once, passingly, about a man named Shakespeare. I only read about him passingly, but I remember one thing he wrote that kind of moved me. He put it in the mouth of Hamlet, I think it was, who said, "To be or not to be" -- he was in doubt about something. [Laughter] "Whether it was nobler in the mind of man to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" -- moderation -- "or to take up arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them."

And I go for that. If you take up arms, you'll end it. But if you sit around and wait for the one who's in power to make up his mind that he should end it, you'll be waiting a long time.

And in my opinion the young generation of whites, Blacks, browns, whatever else there is -- you're living at a time of extremism, a time of revolution, a time when there's got to be a change. 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 it's going to be built is with extreme methods. And I for one will join in with anyone, I don't care what color you are, as long as you

-- 26 --
want to change this miserable condition that exists on this earth.

Thank you. [Applause]

-- 27 --

The Oppressed Masses of the World Cry Out for Action Against the Common Oppressor
LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS, FEBRUARY 11, 1965

The speech that follows was given at the London School of Economics to a meeting called by the school's Africa Society. An initial section of Malcolm X's remarks is unavailable.

A central theme of Malcolm X's talk was the U.S. intervention against liberation forces in the Congo (today Zaire). The Congo had declared its independence from Belgium June 30, 1960. It was one of almost thirty former colonies in Africa that won political independence between 1956 and 1964. White-minority rule continued, however, across most of southern Africa: in the Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique, in Southern Rhodesia (today Zimbabwe), in South-West Africa (today Namibia), and in South Africa.

The first independent government of the Congo was headed by Patrice Lumumba, who had led the liberation struggle there. Washington and its allies moved swiftly to destabilize this government, sending Belgian and United Nations troops into the capital, Léopoldville (today Kinshasa). They also backed a proimperialist breakaway regime set up by Moise Tshombe in a southern province.

The U.S.-led intervention succeeded by late 1960 in winning over a faction within the Congolese government, and Lumumba was deposed. He was later arrested and handed over to Tshombe's forces, who murdered him in January 1961.

In 1964 Tshombe was installed in Léopoldville as prime minister of the central government. Lumumba's followers, centered in the eastern town of Stanleyville (today Kisangani) and the surrounding Oriental and Kivu provinces, led a revolt against Tshombe's imperialist-backed government. Belgian troops and hired mercenaries were sent in to crush the uprising. Washington later admitted that U.S. planes flown by U.S. pilots "under contract" to the Tshombe regime had taken part in the operation.

That element is the one that controls or has strong influence in the power structure. It uses the press

-- 28 --
skillfully to feed statistics to the public to make it appear that the rate of crime in the Black community, or community of nonwhite people, is at such a high level. It gives the impression or the image that everyone in that community is criminal.

And as soon as the public accepts the fact that the dark-skinned community consists largely of criminals or people who are dirty, then it makes it possible for the power structure to set up a police-state system. Which will make it permissible in the minds of even the well-meaning white public for them to come in and use all kinds of police methods to brutally suppress the struggle on the part of these people against segregation, discrimination, and other acts that are unleashed against them that are absolutely unjust.

They use the press to set up this police state, and they use the press to make the white public accept whatever they do to the dark-skinned public. They do that here in London right now with the constant reference to the West Indian population and the Asian population having a high rate of crime or having a tendency toward dirtiness. They have all kinds of negative characteristics that they project to make the white public draw back, or to make the white public be apathetic when police-state-like methods are used in these areas to suppress the people's honest and just struggle against discrimination and other forms of segregation.

A good example of how they do it in New York: Last summer, when the Blacks were rioting -- the riots, actually they weren't riots in the first place; they were reactions against police brutality. 8 And when the Afro-Americans reacted against the brutal measures that were executed against them by the police, the press all over the world projected them as rioters. When the store windows were broken in the Black community, immediately it was made to appear that this was being done not by people who were reacting over civil rights violations, but they gave the impression that these were hoodlums, vagrants,

-- 29 --
criminals, who wanted nothing other than to get into the stores and take the merchandise.

But this is wrong. In America the Black community in which we live is not owned by us. The landlord is white. The merchant is white. In fact, the entire economy of the Black community in the States is controlled by someone who doesn't even live there. The property that we live in is owned by someone else. The store that we trade with is operated by someone else. And these are the people who suck the economic blood of our community.

And being in a position to suck the economic blood of our community, they control the radio programs that cater to us, they control the newspapers, the advertising, that cater to us. They control our minds. They end up controlling our civic organizations. They end up controlling us economically, politically, socially, mentally, and every other kind of way. They suck our blood like vultures.

And when you see the Blacks react, since the people who do this aren't there, they react against their property. The property is the only thing that's there. And they destroy it. And you get the impression over here that because they are destroying the property where they live, that they are destroying their own property. No. They can't get to the Man, so they get at what he owns. [Laughter]

This doesn't say it's intelligent. But whoever heard of a sociological explosion that was done intelligently and politely? And this is what you're trying to make the Black man do. You're trying to drive him into a ghetto and make him the victim of every kind of unjust condition imaginable. Then when he explodes, you want him to explode politely! [Laughter] You want him to explode according to somebody's ground rules. Why, you're dealing with the wrong man, and you're dealing with him at the wrong time in the wrong way.

Another example of how this imagery is mastered, at the international level, is the recent situation in the

-- 30 --
Congo. Here we have an example of planes dropping bombs on defenseless African villages. When a bomb is dropped on an African village, there's no way of defending the people from the bomb. The bomb doesn't make a distinction between men and women. That bomb is dropped on men, women, children, and babies. Now it has not been in any way a disguised fact that planes have been dropping bombs on Congolese villages all during the entire summer. There is no outcry. There is no concern. There is no sympathy. There is no urge on the part of even the so-called progressive element to try and bring a halt to this mass murder. Why?

Because all the press had to do was use that shrewd propaganda word that these villages were in "rebel-held" territory. "Rebel-held," what does that mean? That's an enemy, so anything that they do to those people is all right. You cease to think of the women and the children and the babies in the so-called rebel-held territory as human beings. So that anything that is done to them is done with justification. And the progressives, the liberals don't even make any outcry. They sit twiddling their thumbs, as if they were captivated by this press imagery that has been mastered here in the West also.

They refer to the pilots that are dropping the bombs on these babies as "American-trained, anti-Castro Cuban pilots." As long as they are American-trained, this is supposed to put the stamp of approval on it, because America is your ally. As long as they are anti-Castro Cubans, since Castro is supposed to be a monster and these pilots are against Castro, anybody else they are against is also all right. So the American planes with American bombs being piloted by American-trained pilots, dropping American bombs on Black people, Black babies, Black children, destroying them completely -- which is nothing but mass murder -- goes absolutely unnoticed. . . . [Gap in tape]

They take this man Tshombe -- I guess he's a man -- and try and make him acceptable to the public by using the press to refer to him as the only one who can unite the

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Congo. Imagine, a murderer -- not an ordinary murderer, a murderer of a prime minister, the murderer of the rightful prime minister of the Congo -- and yet they want to force him upon the people of the Congo, through Western manipulation and Western pressures. The United States, the country that I come from, pays his salary. They openly admit that they pay his salary. And in saying this, I don't want you to think that I come here to make an anti-American speech. [Laughter] I wouldn't come here for that. I come here to make a speech, to tell you the truth. And if the truth is anti-American, then blame the truth, don't blame me. [Laughter]

He's propped up by American dollars. The salaries of the hired killers from South Africa that he uses to kill innocent Congolese are paid by American dollars. Which means that I come from a country that is busily sending the Peace Corps to Nigeria while sending hired killers to the Congo. [Laughter] The government is not consistent; something is not right there. And it starts some of my African brothers and sisters that have been so happy to see the Peace Corps landing on their shores to take another look at that thing, and see what it really is. [From the audience: "What is it?"] Exactly what it says: Peace Corps, get a piece of their country. [Laughter and applause]

So what the press does with its skillful ability to create this imagery, it uses its pages to whip up this hysteria in the white public. And as soon as the hysteria of the white public reaches the proper degree, they will begin to work on the sympathy of the white public. And once the sympathy reaches the proper degree, then they put forth their program, knowing that they are going to get the support of the gullible white public in whatever they do. And what they are going to do is criminal. And what they are doing is criminal.

How do they do it? If you recall reading in the paper, they never talked about the Congolese who were being slaughtered. But as soon as a few whites, the lives of a

-- [32] --

-- 33 --
few whites were at stake, they began to speak of "white hostages," "white missionaries," "white priests," "white nuns" -- as if a white life, one white life, was of such greater value than a Black life, than a thousand Black lives. They showed you their open contempt for the lives of the Blacks, and their deep concern for the lives of the whites. This is the press. And after the press had gotten the whites all whipped up, then anything that the Western powers wanted to do against these defenseless, innocent freedom fighters from the eastern provinces of the Congo, the white public went along with it. [From the audience: "It's true."] They know it's true.

So to get towards the end of that, what it has done, just in press manipulation, the Western governments have permitted themselves to get trapped, in a sense, in backing Tshombe, the same as the United States is trapped over there in South Vietnam. 9 If she goes forward she loses, if she backs up she loses. She's getting bogged down in the Congo in the same way.

Because no African troops win victories for Tshombe. They never have. The only war, the only battles won by the African troops, in the African revolution, in the Congo area, were those won by the freedom fighters from the Oriental province. They won battles with spears, stones, twigs. They won battles because their heart was in what they were doing. But Tshombe's men from the central Congo government never won any battles. And it was for this reason that he had to import these white mercenaries, the paid killers, to win some battles for him. Which means that Tshombe's government can only stay in power with white help, with white troops.

Well, there will come a time when he won't be able to recruit any more mercenaries, and the Western powers, who are really behind him, will then have to commit their own troops openly. Which means you will then be bogged down in the Congo the same as you're bogged down over there now in South Vietnam. And you can't win in the Congo. If you can't win in South Vietnam, you know you

-- 34 --
can't win in the Congo.

Just let me see. You think you can win in South Vietnam? The French were deeply entrenched. The French were deeply entrenched in Vietnam for a hundred years or so. They had the best weapons of warfare, a highly mechanized army, everything that you would need. And the guerrillas come out of the rice paddies with nothing but sneakers on and a rifle [Laughter] and a bowl of rice, nothing but gym shoes -- tennis shoes -- and a rifle and a bowl of rice. And you know what they did in Dien Bien Phu. They ran the French out of there. 10 And if the French were deeply entrenched and couldn't stay there, then how do you think someone else is going to stay there, who is not even there yet. [From the audience: "You'll have it happen again."] We'll get to you in a minute. [Laughter] I'm going to sit down and you can tell all you want to say. You can even come up here. [From the audience: "Yes, I was just making the point that it was Chinese -- "] Make it later on. [Laughter]

Yes, all of them are brothers. They were still -- they had a bowl of rice and a rifle and some shoes. I don't care whether they came from China or South Vietnam. [The person from the audience continues interrupting; someone else responds, "Shut up!"] And the French aren't there anymore. We don't care how they did it; they're not there anymore. [Malcolm laughs; laughter from the audience] The same thing will happen in the Congo.

See, the African revolution must proceed onward, and one of the reasons that the Western powers are fighting so hard and are trying to cloud the issue in the Congo is that it's not a humanitarian project. It's not a feeling or sense of humanity that makes them want to go in and save some hostages, but there are bigger stakes.

They realize not only that the Congo is a source of mineral wealth, minerals that they need. But the Congo is so situated strategically, geographically, that if it falls into the hands of a genuine African government that has the hopes and aspirations of the African people at heart,

-- 35 --
then it will be possible for the Africans to put their own soldiers right on the border of Angola and wipe the Portuguese out of there overnight.

So that if the Congo falls, Mozambique and Angola must fall. And when they fall, suddenly you have to deal with Ian Smith. 11 He won't be there overnight once you can put some troops on his borders. [Applause] Oh yes. Which means it will only be a matter of time before they will be right on the border with South Africa, and then they can talk the type of language that the South Africans understand. And this is the only language that they understand. [Applause]

I might point out right here and now -- and I say it bluntly -- that you have had a generation of Africans who actually have believed that they could negotiate, negotiate, negotiate, and eventually get some kind of independence. But you're getting a new generation that is being born right now, and they are beginning to think with their own mind and see that you can't negotiate upon freedom nowadays. If something is yours by right, then you fight for it or shut up. If you can't fight for it, then forget it. [Applause]

So we in the West have a stake in the African revolution. We have a stake for this reason: as long as the African continent was dominated by enemies, and as long as it was dominated by colonial powers, those colonial powers were enemies of the African people. They were enemies to the African continent. They meant the African people no good, they did the African people no good, they did the African continent no good.

And then in the position that they were, they were the ones who created the image of the African continent and the African people. They created that continent and those people in a negative image. And they projected this negative image abroad. They projected an image of Africa in the people abroad that was very hateful, extremely hateful.

And because it was hateful, there are over a hundred

-- 36 --
million of us of African heritage in the West [who] looked at that hateful image and didn't want to be identified with it. We shunned it, and not because it was something to be shunned. But we believed the image that had been created of our own homeland by the enemy of our own homeland. And in hating that image we ended up hating ourselves without even realizing it. [Applause]

Why? Because once we in the West were made to hate Africa and hate the African, why, the chain-reaction effect was it had to make us end up hating ourselves. You can't hate the roots of the tree without hating the tree, without ending up hating the tree. You can't hate your origin without ending up hating yourself. You can't hate the land, your motherland, the place that you came from, and we can't hate Africa without ending up hating ourselves.

The Black man in the Western Hemisphere -- in North America, Central America, South America, and in the Caribbean -- is the best example of how one can be made, skillfully, to hate himself that you can find anywhere on this earth.

The reason you're having a problem with the West Indians right now is because they hate their origin. Because they don't want to accept their origin, they have no origin, they have no identity. They are running around here in search of an identity, and instead of trying to be what they are, they want to be Englishmen. [Applause] Which is not their fault, actually. Because in America our people are trying to be Americans, and in the islands you got them trying to be Englishmen, and nothing sounds more obnoxious than to find somebody from Jamaica running around here trying to outdo the Englishman with his Englishness. [Laughter and applause]

And I say that this is a very serious problem, because all of it stems from what the Western powers do to the image of the African continent and the African people. By making our people in the Western Hemisphere hate Africa, we ended up hating ourselves. We hated our African characteristics. We hated our African identity. We hated

-- 37 --
our African features. So much so that you would find those of us in the West who would hate the shape of our nose. We would hate the shape of our lips. We would hate the color of our skin and the texture of our hair. This was a reaction, but we didn't realize that it was a reaction.

Imagine now, somebody got nerve enough, some whites have the audacity to refer to me as a hate teacher. If I'm teaching someone to hate, I teach them to hate the Ku Klux Klan. But here in America, they have taught us to hate ourselves. To hate our skin, hate our hair, hate our features, hate our blood, hate what we are. Why, Uncle Sam is a master hate teacher, so much so that he makes somebody think he's teaching love, when he's teaching hate. When you make a man hate himself, why you really got it and gone. [Laughter and applause]

By skillfully making us hate Africa and, in turn, making us hate ourselves, hate our color and our blood, our color became a chain. Our color became to us a chain. It became a prison. It became something that was a shame, something that we felt held us back, kept us trapped.

So because we felt that our color had trapped us, had imprisoned us, had brought us down, we ended up hating the Black skin, which we felt was holding us back. We ended up hating the Black blood, which we felt was holding us back. This is the problem that the Black man in the West has had.

The African hasn't realized that this was the problem. And it was only as long as the African himself was held in bondage by the colonial powers, was kept from projecting any positive image of himself on our continent, something that we could look at proudly and then identify with -- it was only as long as the African himself was kept down that we were kept down.

But to the same degree, during these recent years, that the African people have become independent, and they have gotten in a position on that continent to project their own image, their image has shifted from negative to positive. And to the same degree that it has shifted from

-- 38 --
negative to positive, you'll find that the image of the Black man in the West of himself has also shifted from negative to positive. To the same degree that the African has become uncompromising and militant in knowing what he wants, you will find that the Black man in the West has followed the same line.

Why? Because the same beat, the same heart, the same pulse that moves the Black man on the African continent -- despite the fact that four hundred years have separated us from that mother continent, and an ocean of water has separated us from that mother continent -- still, the same pulse that beats in the Black man on the African continent today is beating in the heart of the Black man in North America, Central America, South America, and in the Caribbean. Many of them don't know it, but it's true. [Applause]

As long as we hated our African blood, our African skin, our Africanness, we ended up feeling inferior, we felt inadequate, and we-felt helpless. And because we felt so inferior and so inadequate and so helpless, instead of trying to stand on our own feet and do something for ourselves, we turned to the white man, thinking he was the only one who could do it for us. Because we were taught, we have been taught, that he was the personification of beauty and the personification of success.

At the Bandung Conference in nineteen fifty -- [From the audience: "five"] five, [Laughter] one of the first and best steps toward real independence for nonwhite people took place. The people of Africa and Asia and Latin America were able to get together. They sat down, they realized that they had differences. They agreed not to place any emphasis any longer upon these differences, but to submerge the areas of differences and place emphasis upon areas where they had something in common. 12

This agreement that was reached at Bandung produced the spirit of Bandung. So that the people who were oppressed, who had no jet planes, no nuclear weapons, no armies, no navies -- and despite the fact that they didn't

-- 39 --
have this, their unity alone was sufficient to enable them, over a period of years, to maneuver and make it possible for other nations in Asia to become independent, and many more nations in Africa to become independent.

And by 1959, many of you will recall how colonialism on the African continent had already begun to collapse. It began to collapse because the spirit of African nationalism had been fanned from a spark to a roaring flame. And it made it impossible for the colonial powers to stay there by force. Formerly, when the Africans were fearful, the colonial powers could come up with a battleship, or threaten to land an army, or something like that, and the oppressed people would submit and go ahead being colonized for a while longer.

But by 1959 all of the fear had left the African continent and the Asian continent. And because this fear was gone, especially in regards to the colonial powers of Europe, it made it impossible for them to continue to stay in there by the same methods that they had employed up to that time.

So it's just like when a person is playing football. If he has the ball and he gets trapped, he doesn't throw the ball away, he passes it to some of his teammates who are in the clear. And in 1959, when France and Britain and Belgium and some of the others saw that they were trapped by the African nationalism on that continent, instead of throwing the ball of colonialism away, they passed it to the only one of their team that was in the clear -- and that was Uncle Sam. [Laughter] Uncle Sam grabbed the ball [Laughter and applause] and has been running with it ever since. [Laughter and applause]

The one who picked it up, really, was John F. Kennedy. He was the shrewdest backfield runner that America has produced in a long time -- oh yes he was. He was very tricky; he was intelligent; he was an intellectual; he surrounded himself with intellectuals who had a lot of foresight and a lot of cunning. The first thing they did was to give a reanalysis of the problem. They realized they were

-- 40 --
confronted with a new problem.

The newness of the problem was created by the fact that the Africans had lost all fear. There was no fear in them anymore. Therefore the colonial powers couldn't stay there by force, and America, the new colonial power, neocolonial power, or neoimperialist power, also couldn't stay there by force. So they come up with a "friendly" approach, a new approach which was friendly. Benevolent colonialism or philanthropic imperialism. [Laughter] They called it humanitarianism, or dollarism. And whereas the Africans could fight against colonialism, they found it difficult to fight against dollarism, or to condemn dollarism. It was all a token friendship, and all of the so-called benefits that were offered to the African countries were nothing but tokens.

But from '54 to '64 was the era of an emerging Africa, an independent Africa. And the impact of those independent African nations upon the civil rights struggle in the United States was tremendous. Number one, one of the first things the African revolution produced was rapid growth in a movement called the Black Muslim movement. The militancy that existed on the African continent was one of the main motivating factors in the rapid growth of the group known as the Black Muslim movement, to which I belonged. And the Black Muslim movement was one of the main ingredients in the entire civil rights struggle, although the movement itself never . . . [Gap in tape]

Martin Luther King has held Negroes in check up to recently. But he's losing his grip, he's losing his influence, he's losing his control.

I know you don't want me to say that. But, see, this is why you're in trouble. You want somebody to come and tell you that your house is safe, while you're sitting on a powder keg. [Laughter and applause] This is the mentality, this is the level of Western mentality today. Rather than face up to the facts concerning the danger that you're in, you would rather have someone come along and

-- 41 --
jive you and tell you that everything is all right and pack you to sleep. [Laughter] Why, the best thing that anybody can tell you is when they let you know how fed up with disillusionment and frustration the man in your house has become.

So to bring my talk to a conclusion, I must point out that just as John F. Kennedy realized the necessity of a new approach on the African problem -- and I must say that it was during his administration that the United States gained so much influence on the African continent. They removed the other colonial powers and stepped in themselves with their benevolent, philanthropic, friendly approach. And they got just as firm a grip on countries on that continent as some of the colonial powers formerly had on that continent. Not only on the African continent but in Asia too. They did it with dollars.

They used a new approach on us in the States, also. Friendly. Whereas formerly they just outright denied us certain rights, they began to use a new, tricky approach. And this approach was to make it appear that they were making moves to solve our problems. They would pass bills, they would come up with Supreme Court decisions. The Supreme Court came up with what they called a desegregation decision in 1954 -- it hasn't been implemented yet; they can't even implement it in New York City, where I live -- outlawing the segregated school system, supposedly to eliminate segregated schooling in Mississippi and Alabama and other places in the South. And they haven't even been able to implement this Supreme Court decision concerning the educational system in New York City and in Boston and some of the so-called liberal cities of the North.

This was all tokenism. They made the world think that they had desegregated the University of Mississippi. This shows you how deceitful they are. They took one Negro, named [James] Meredith, and took all of the world press down to show that they were going to solve the problem [Laughter] by putting Meredith in the University of Mississippi.

-- 42 --
I think it cost them something like $15 million and they had to use about seven thousand troops -- one or the other -- to put one Black man in the University of Mississippi.

And then Look magazine came out with a story afterwards showing the exposé where the attorney general -- at that time Robert Kennedy -- had made a deal with Governor Barnett. They were going to play a game on the Negro. Barnett was the racist governor from Mississippi. Kennedy was one of these shining liberal progressives -- Robert, that is. And they had made a deal, according to Look magazine -- which all belongs to the same setup, so they must know what they are talking about. [Laughter and applause] Look magazine said that Robert Kennedy had told Barnett, "Now, since you want the white votes in the South, what you do is you stand in the doorway and pretend like you're going to keep Meredith out. And when I come, I'm going to come with the marshals, and force Meredith in. So you'll keep all the white votes in the South, and I'll get all the Negro votes in the North." 13 [Laughter and applause]

This is what we face in that country. And Kennedy is supposed to be a liberal. He's supposed to be a friend of the Negro. He's supposed to be the brother of John F. Kennedy -- all of them in the same family. You know, he being the attorney general, he couldn't go down with that kind of deal unless he had the permission of his older brother, who was his older brother at that time.

So they come up only with tokenism. And this tokenism that they give us benefits only a few. A few handpicked Negroes gain from this; a few handpicked Negroes get good jobs; a few handpicked Negroes get good homes or go to a decent school. And then they use these handpicked Negroes, they put 'em on television, blow 'em up, and make it look like you got a whole lot of 'em, when you only got one or two. [Laughter]

And this one or two is going to open up his mouth and talk about how the problem is being solved. And the

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whole world thinks that America's race problem is being solved, when actually the masses of Black people in America are still living in the ghettos and the slums; they still are the victims of inferior housing; they are still the victims of a segregated school system, which gives them inferior education. They are still victims, after they get that inferior education, where they can only get the worst form of jobs.

And they do this very skillfully to keep us trapped. They know that as long as they keep us undereducated, or with an inferior education, it's impossible for us to compete with them for job openings. And as long as we can't compete with them and get a decent job, we're trapped. We are low-wage earners. We have to live in a run-down neighborhood, which means our children go to inferior schools. They get inferior education. And when they grow up, they fall right into the same cycle again.

This is the American way. This is the American democracy that she tries to sell to the whole world as being that which will solve the problems of other people too. It's the worst form of hypocrisy that has ever been practiced by any government or society anywhere on this earth, since the beginning of time. And if I'm wrong you can -- [Applause]

It is the African revolution that produced the Black Muslim movement. It was the Black Muslim movement that pushed the civil rights movement. And it was the civil rights movement that pushed the liberals out into the open, where today they are exposed as people who have no more concern for the rights of dark-skinned humanity than they do for any other form of humanity.

To bring my talk to a conclusion, all of this created a hot climate, a hot climate. And from 1963, '64 it reached its peak. Nineteen sixty-three was started out in America by all of the politicians talking about this being the hundredth year since the Emancipation Proclamation. 14 They were going to celebrate all over America "a century of progress in race relations." This is the way January and

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February and March of 1963 started out.

And then Martin Luther King went into Birmingham, Alabama, just trying to get a few Negroes to be able to sit down at a lunch counter and drink an integrated cup of coffee. That's all he wanted. [Laughter and applause] That's all he wanted. They ended up putting him in jail. They ended up putting thousands of Negroes in jail. And many of you saw on television, in Birmingham, how the police had these big vicious dogs biting Black people. They were crushing the skulls of Black people. They had water hoses turned on our women, stripping off the clothes from our own women, from our children.

And the world saw this. The world saw what the world had thought was going to be a year which would celebrate a hundred years of progress toward good race relations between white and Black in the United States -- they saw one of the most inhuman, savage displays there in that country.

Right after that, this was followed by the assassination of John F. Kennedy, all by the same problem, and Medgar Evers, another one by the same problem. And it ended in the bombing of a church in Alabama where four little girls, Christians, sitting in Sunday school, singing about Jesus, were blown apart by people who claim to be Christians. 15 And this happened in the year 1963, the year that they said in that country would mark a hundred years of good relations between the races.

By 1964-1964 was the year in which three civil rights workers, who were doing nothing other than trying to show Black people in Mississippi how to register and take advantage of their political potential -- they were murdered in cold blood. They weren't murdered by some unknown element. They were murdered by an organized group of criminals known as the Ku Klux Klan, which was headed by the sheriff and his deputy and a clergyman. A preacher, a man of the cloth, was responsible for the murder. And when they tell you what was done to the body of that little Black one that they found -- all three

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were murdered, but when they found the three bodies they said that every bone in the body of the Black one was broken, as if these brutes had gone insane while they were beating him to death. This was in 1964.

Now 1965 is here, and you got these same old people, jumping up talking about the "Great Society" now is coming into existence. 16 [Laughter] Nineteen sixty-five will be the longest and the hottest and the bloodiest year that has yet been witnessed in the United States. Why? I'm not saying this to advocate violence. [Laughter] I'm saying this after a careful analysis of the ingredients -- the sociological, political dynamite that exists in every Black community in that country.

Africa is emerging. It's making the Black man in the Western Hemisphere militant. It's making him shift from negative to positive in his image of himself and in his confidence in himself. He sees himself as a new man. He's beginning to identify himself with new forces. Whereas in the past he thought of his problem as one of civil rights -- which made it a domestic issue, which kept it confined to the jurisdiction of the United States, a jurisdiction in which he could only seek the aid of white liberals within continental United States -- today the Black man in the Western Hemisphere, especially in the United States, is beginning to see where his problem is not one of civil rights, but it is rather one of human rights. And that in the human rights context it becomes an international issue. It ceases to be a Negro problem, it ceases to be an American problem. It becomes a human problem, a problem of human rights, a problem of humanity, a problem for the world.

And by shifting his entire position from civil rights to human rights, he puts it on the world stage and makes it possible where today he no more has to rely on only the white liberals within continental United States to be his supporters. But he brings it onto the world stage and makes it possible for all of our African brothers, our Asian brothers, our Latin American brothers, and those people

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in Europe, some of whom claim to mean right, also to step into the picture and do whatever is necessary to help us to see that our rights are guaranteed us -- not sometime in the long future, but almost immediately.

So the basic difference between the struggle of the Black man in the Western Hemisphere today from the past: he has a new sense of identity; he has a new sense of dignity; he has a new sense of urgency. And above all else, he sees now that he has allies. He sees that the brothers on the African continent, who have emerged and gotten independent states, can see that they have an obligation to the lost brother who went astray and then found himself today in a foreign land. They are obligated. They are just as obligated to the brother who's gone away as they are to the brother who's still at home.

And just as you see the oppressed people all over the world today getting together, the Black people in the West are also seeing that they are oppressed. Instead of just calling themselves an oppressed minority in the States, they are part of the oppressed masses of people all over the world today who are crying out for action against the common oppressor.

Thank you. [Applause]

-- [47] --

Part 3: In The United States: See for yourself, Listen for yourself, Think for yourself, the American System of Exploitation and Oppression

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See for yourself, Listen for yourself, Think for yourself
A DISCUSSION WITH YOUNG CIVIL RIGHTS FIGHTERS FROM MISSISSIPPI, JANUARY 1, 1965 17

The speech that follows was given at the Hotel Theresa in Harlem to a group of Black high school students from McComb, Mississippi. Thirtyseven of these young civil rights fighters had come to New York on an eight-day study trip sponsored by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

McComb was where SNCC had begun its voter registration project and held Mississippi's first sit-in in 1961. A center of the 1964 voter registration and desegregation campaigns, McComb was also the site of more than a dozen racist bombings.

I was approached, I think we were at the United Nations, and I met Mrs. Walker, about two or three weeks ago, and she said that a group of students were coming up from McComb, Mississippi, and wanted to know if I would meet with you and speak with you. I told her frankly that it would be the greatest honor that I ever had experienced. Because I have never been in the state of Mississippi, number one -- not through any fault of my own, I don't think -- but it's been my great desire to either go there or meet someone from there.

To not take too much of your time, I would like to point out a little incident that I was involved in a short while ago that will give you somewhat of an idea of why I am going to say what I am.

I was flying on a plane from Algiers to Geneva about four weeks ago, with two other Americans. Both of them were white -- one was a male, the other was a female. And after we had flown together for about forty minutes, the lady turned to me and asked me -- she had looked at my

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briefcase and saw the initials M and X -- and she said, "I would like to ask you a question. What kind of last name could you have that begins with X?"

So I told her, "That's it: X."

She was quiet for a little while. For about ten minutes she was quiet. She hadn't been quiet at all up to then, you know. And then finally she turned and she said, "Well, what's your first name?"

I said, "Malcolm."

She was quiet for about ten more minutes. Then she turned and she said, "Well, you're not Malcolm X?" [Laughter]

But the reason she asked that question was, she had gotten from the press, and from things that she had heard and read, she was looking for something different, or for someone different.

The reason I take time to tell you this is, one of the first things I think young people, especially nowadays, should learn how to do is see for yourself and listen for yourself and think for yourself. Then you can come to an intelligent decision for yourself. But if you form the habit of going by what you hear others say about someone, or going by what others think about someone, instead of going and searching that thing out for yourself and seeing for yourself, you'll be walking west when you think you're going east, and you'll be walking east when you think you're going west. So this generation, especially of our people, have a burden upon themselves, more so than at any other time in history. The most important thing we can learn how to do today is think for ourselves.

It's good to keep wide-open ears and listen to what everybody else has to say, but when you come to make a decision, you have to weigh all of what you've heard on its own, and place it where it belongs, and then come to a decision for yourself. You'll never regret it. But if you form the habit of taking what someone else says about a thing without checking it out for yourself, you'll find that other people will have you hating your own friends and loving

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your enemies. This is one of the things that our people are beginning to learn today -- that it is very important to think out a situation for yourself. If you don't do it, then you'll always be maneuvered into actually -- You'll never fight your enemies, but you will find yourself fighting your own self.

I think our people in this country are the best examples of that. Because many of us want to be nonviolent. We talk very loudly, you know, about being nonviolent. Here in Harlem, where there are probably more Black people concentrated than any place else in the world, some talk that nonviolent talk too. And when they stop talking about how nonviolent they are, we find that they aren't nonviolent with each other. At Harlem Hospital, you can go out here on Friday night, which -- today is what, Friday? yes -- you can go out here to Harlem Hospital, where there are more Black patients in one hospital than any hospital in the world -- because there's a concentration of our people here -- and find Black people who claim they're nonviolent. But you see them going in there all cut up and shot up and busted up where they got violent with each other.

So my experience has been that in many instances where you find Negroes always talking about being nonviolent, they're not nonviolent with each other, and they're not loving with each other, or patient with each other, or forgiving with each other. Usually, when they say they're nonviolent, they mean they're nonviolent with somebody else. I think you understand what I mean. They are nonviolent with the enemy. A person can come to your home, and if he's white and he wants to heap some kind of brutality upon you, you're nonviolent. Or he can come put a rope around your neck, you're nonviolent. Or he can come to take your father out and put a rope around his neck, you're nonviolent. But now if another Negro just stomps his foot, you'll rumble with him in a minute. Which shows you there's an inconsistency there.

So I myself would go for nonviolence if it was consistent,

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if it was intelligent, if everybody was going to be nonviolent, and if we were going to be nonviolent all the time. I'd say, okay, let's get with it, we'll all be nonviolent. But I don't go along -- and I'm just telling you how I think -- I don't go along with any kind of nonviolence unless everybody's going to be nonviolent. If they make the Ku Klux Klan nonviolent, I'll be nonviolent. If they make the White Citizens' Council nonviolent, I'll be nonviolent. 18 But as long as you've got somebody else not being nonviolent, I don't want anybody coming to me talking any kind of nonviolent talk. I don't think it is fair to tell our people to be nonviolent unless someone is out there making the Klan and the Citizens' Council and these other groups also be nonviolent.

Now I'm not criticizing those here who are nonviolent. I think everybody should do it the way they feel is best, and I congratulate anybody who can be nonviolent in the face of all that kind of action that I read about in that part of the world. But I don't think that in 1965 you will find the upcoming generation of our people, especially those who have been doing some thinking, who will go along with any form of nonviolence unless nonviolence is going to be practiced all the way around.

If the leaders of the nonviolent movement can go into the white community and teach nonviolence, good. I'd go along with that. But as long as I see them teaching nonviolence only in the Black community, then we can't go along with that. We believe in equality, and equality means you have to put the same thing over here that you put over there. And if just Black people alone are going to be the ones who are nonviolent, then it's not fair. We throw ourselves off guard. In fact, we disarm ourselves and make ourselves defenseless.

Now to try and give you a better understanding of our own position, I guess you have to know something about the Black Muslim movement, which is supposed to be a religious movement in this country, which was extremely militant, vocally militant, or militantly vocal. The Black

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Muslim movement was supposed to be a religious group. And because it was supposed to be a religious group, it never involved itself in civic matters, so it claimed. And by not getting involved in civic matters, what it did, being militant, it attracted the most militant Negroes, or Afro-Americans, in this country, which it actually did. The Black Muslim movement attracted the most dissatisfied, impatient, and militant Black people in this country.

But when it attracted them, the movement itself, by never involving itself in the real struggle that's confronting Black people in this country, in a sense has gotten maneuvered into a sort of a political and civic vacuum. It was militant, it was vocal, but it never got into the battle itself.

And though it professed to be a religious group, the people from the part of the world whose religion it had adopted didn't recognize them or accept them as a religious group. So it was also in a religious vacuum. It was in a vacuum religiously, by claiming to be a religious group and by having adopted a religion which actually rejected them or wouldn't accept them. So religiously it was in a vacuum. The federal government tried to classify it as a political group, in order to maneuver it into a position where they could label it as seditious, so that they could crush it because they were afraid of its uncompromising, militant characteristics. So for that reason, though it was labeled a political group and never took part in politics, it was in a political vacuum. So the group, the Black Muslim movement itself, actually developed into a sort of a hybrid, a religious hybrid, a political hybrid, a hybrid-type organization.

Getting all of these very militant Black people into it, and then not having a program that would enable them to take an active part in the struggle, it created a lot of dissatisfaction among its members. It polarized into two different factions -- one faction that was militantly vocal, and another faction that wanted some action, militant action, uncompromising action. Finally the dissatisfaction

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developed into a division, the division developed into a split, and many of its members left. Those who left formed what was known as the Muslim Mosque, Inc., which is authentically a religious organization that is affiliated with and recognized by all of the official religious heads in the Muslim world. This was called the Muslim Mosque, Inc., whose offices are here.

But this group, being Afro-American or being Black American, realized that although we were practicing the religion of Islam, still there was a problem confronting our people in this country that had nothing to do with religion and went above and beyond religion. A religious organization couldn't attack that problem according to the magnitude of the problem, the complexity of the problem itself. So those in that group, after analyzing the problem, saw the need, or the necessity, of forming another group that had nothing to do with religion whatsoever. And that group is what's named and is today known as the Organization of Afro-American Unity.

The Organization of Afro-American Unity is a nonreligious group of Black people in this country who believe that the problems confronting our people in this country need to be reanalyzed and a new approach devised toward trying to get a solution. Studying the problem, we recall that prior to 1939 in this country, all of our people -- in the North, South, East, and West, no matter how much education we had -- were segregated. We were segregated in the North just as much as we were segregated in the South. And even right now, today, there's as much segregation in the North as there is in the South. There's some worse segregation right here in New York City than there is in McComb, Mississippi; but up here they're subtle and tricky and deceitful, and they make you think that you've got it made when you haven't even begun to make it yet.

Prior to 1939 our people were in a very menial position or condition. Most of us were waiters and porters and bellhops and janitors and waitresses and things of that sort. It was not until war was declared in Germany by

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Hitler, and America became involved in a manpower shortage in regards to her factories plus her army -- it was only then that the Black man in this country was permitted to make a few strides forward. It was never out of some kind of moral enlightenment or moral awareness on the part of Uncle Sam. Uncle Sam only let the Black man take a step forward when he himself had his back to the wall.

In Michigan, where I was brought up at that time, I recall that the best jobs in the city for Blacks were waiters out at the country club. And in those days if you had a job waiting table in the country club, you had it made. Or if you had a job at the State House. Having a job at the State House didn't mean that you were a clerk or something of that sort -- you had the shoeshine stand in the State House. Just by being in there where you could be around all these big politicians, that made you a big-shot Negro. You were shining shoes, but you were a big-shot Negro because you were around big-shot white people and you could bend their ear and get up next to them. And ofttimes in those days, you were chosen to be the voice of the Negro community.

Also right at this time, 1939 or '40, '41, they weren't drafting Negroes in the army or the navy. A Negro couldn't join the navy in 1940 or '41 in this country. He couldn't join. They wouldn't take a Black man in the navy. They would take him if they wanted and make him a cook. But he couldn't just go and join the navy. And he couldn't just go -- I don't think he could just go and join the army. They weren't drafting him when the war first started.

This is what they thought of you and me in those days. For one thing, they didn't trust us. They feared that if they put us in the army and trained us on how to use rifles and other things, that we might shoot at some targets that they hadn't picked out. And we would have. Any thinking man knows what target to shoot at. And if a man doesn't, if he has to have someone else to choose his

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target, then he's not thinking for himself -- they're doing the thinking for him.

So it was only when the Negro leaders -- they had the same type of Negro leaders in those days that we have today -- when the Negro leaders saw all the white fellows being drafted and taken into the army and dying on the battlefield, and no Negroes were dying because they weren't being drafted, the Negro leaders came up and said, "We've got to die too. We want to be drafted too, and we demand that you take us in there and let us die for our country too." This is what the Negro leaders said, back in 1940, I remember. A. Philip Randolph was one of the leading Negroes in those days who said it, and he's one of the Big Six right now; and this is why he's one of the Big Six right now. 19

They started drafting Negro soldiers then, and then they started letting Negroes get into the navy -- but not until Hitler and Tojo 20 and the foreign powers were strong enough to bring pressure upon this country, so that it had its back to the wall and it needed us. At that same time, they let us work in factories. Up until that time we couldn't work in the factories. I'm talking about the North as well as the South. And when they let us work in the factories we began -- at first when they let us in we could only be janitors. Then, after a year or so passed by, they let us work on machines. We became machinists, got a little skill. And as we got a little more skill, we made a little more money, which enabled us to live in a little better neighborhood. When we lived in a little better neighborhood, we went to a little better school, got a little better education, and could come out and get a little better job. So the cycle was broken somewhat.

But the cycle was not broken because of some kind of sense of moral responsibility on the part of the government. No, the only time that cycle was broken even to a degree was when world pressure was brought to bear upon the United States government and they were forced to look at the Negro -- and then they didn't even look at us

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as human beings, they just put us into their system and let us advance a little bit farther because it served their interests. But they never let us advance a little bit farther because they were interested in our interests, or interested in us as human beings. Any of you who have a knowledge of history, sociology, political science, or the economic development of this country and its race relations, all you have to do is take what I'm telling you and go back and do some research on it and you'll have to admit that this is true.

It was during the time that Hitler and Tojo were able to make war with this country and put pressure upon them that Negroes in this country advanced a little bit. At the end of the war with Germany and Japan, then Joe Stalin and Communist Russia were a threat. And during that period we made a little bit more advances.

Now the point that I'm making is this: Never at any time in the history of our people in this country have we made advances or advancement, or made progress in any way just based upon the internal good will of this country, or based upon the internal activity of this country. We have only made advancement in this country when this country was under pressure from forces above and beyond its control. Because the internal moral consciousness of this country is bankrupt. It hasn't existed since they first brought us over here and made slaves out of us. They trick up on the confirmation and make it appear that they have our good interests at heart. But when you study it, every time, no matter how many steps they take us forward, it's like we're standing on a -- what do you call that thing? -- a treadmill. The treadmill is moving backwards faster than we're able to go forward in this direction. We're not even standing still -- we're walking forward, at the same time we're going backward.

I say that because the Organization of Afro-American Unity, in studying the process of this so-called progress during the past twenty years, realized that the only time the Black man in this country is given any kind of recognition,

-- NA --

-- NA --

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or shown any kind of favor at all, or even his voice is listened to, is when America is afraid of outside pressure, or when she's afraid of her image abroad. We could see that as long as we sat around and carried on our struggle at a level or in a manner that involved only the good will of the internal forces of this country, we would continue to go backward, there would be no real meaningful changes made. So the Organization of Afro-American Unity saw that it was necessary to expand the problem and the struggle of the Black man in this country until it went above and beyond the jurisdiction of the United States.

For the past fifteen years the struggle of the Black man in this country was labeled as a civil rights struggle, and as such it remained completely within the jurisdiction of the United States. You and I could get no kind of benefits whatsoever other than that which would be forthcoming from Washington, D.C. Which meant, in order for it to be forthcoming from Washington, D.C., all of the congressmen and the senators would have to agree to it.

But the most powerful congressmen and the most powerful senators were from the South. And they were from the South because they had seniority in Washington, D.C. And they had seniority because our people in the South, where they came from, couldn't vote. They didn't have the right to vote.

So when we saw that we were up against a hopeless battle internally, we saw the necessity of getting allies at the world level or from abroad, from all over the world. And so immediately we realized that as long as the struggle was a civil rights struggle, was under the jurisdiction of the United States, we would have no real allies or real support. We decided that the only way to make the problem rise to the level where we could get world support was to take it away from the civil rights label, and put in the human rights label.

It is not an accident that the struggle of the Black man in this country for the past ten or fifteen years has been

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called a struggle for civil rights. Because as long as you're struggling for civil rights, what you are doing is asking these racist segregationists who control Washington, D.C. -- and they control Washington, D.C., they control the federal government through these committees -- as long as this thing is a civil rights struggle, you are asking it at a level where your so-called benefactor is actually someone from the worst part of this country. You can only go forward to the degree that they let you.

But when you get involved in a struggle for human rights, it's completely out of the jurisdiction of the United States government. You take it to the United Nations. And any problem that is taken to the United Nations, the United States has no say-so on it whatsoever. Because in the UN she only has one vote, and in the UN the largest bloc of votes is African; the continent of Africa has the largest bloc of votes of any continent on this earth. And the continent of Africa, coupled with the Asian bloc and the Arab bloc, comprises over two-thirds of the UN forces, and they're the dark nations. That's the only court that you can go to today and get your own people, the people who look like you, on your side -- the United Nations.

This could have been done fifteen years ago. It could have been done nineteen years ago. But they tricked us. They got ahold of our leaders and used our leaders to lead us right back to their courts, knowing that they control their courts. So the leaders look like they're leading us against an enemy, but when you analyze the struggle that we've been involved in for the past fifteen years, the good or the progress that we've made is actually disgraceful. We should be ashamed to even use the word "progress" in the context of our struggle.

So there has been a move on -- and I will conclude in a moment -- there has been a move on to keep the Negro thinking in this country that he was making strides in the civil rights field, only for the purpose of distracting him and not letting him know that were he to acquaint himself with the structure of the United Nations and the

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politics of the United Nations, the aim and the purpose of the United Nations, he could lift his problem into that world body. And he'd have the strongest stick in the world that he could use against the racists in Mississippi.

But one of the arguments against getting you and me to do this has always been that our problem is a domestic problem of the United States. And as such, we should not think to put it at a level where somebody else can come and mess with United States domestic affairs. But you're giving Uncle Sam a break. Uncle Sam's got his hands in the Congo, in Cuba, in South America, in Saigon. Uncle Sam has got his bloody hands in every continent and in everybody else's business on this earth. But at the same time, when it comes to taking forceful action in this country where our rights are concerned, he's always going to tell you and me, "Well, these are states' rights." Or he'll make some kind of off-the-wall alibi that's not a bona fide alibi -- not because it's an alibi, but to justify his inactivity where your and my rights are concerned.

We were successful when we realized that we had to bring this to the United Nations. We knew that we had to get support, we had to get world support, and that the most logical part of the world to look in for support is among people who look just like you and me.

I was fortunate to be able to take a tour of the African continent during the summer -- the Middle East and Africa. I went to Egypt, then to Arabia, Kuwait, Lebanon, and then to Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanganyika, Zanzibar, Nigeria, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, and Algeria. I found while I was traveling on the African continent -- I had already detected it in May -- that someone has very shrewdly planted the seeds of division on this continent to make the Africans not show genuine concern with our problem, just as they plant seeds in your and my minds so that we won't show concern with the African problem. They try and make you and me think that we're separate, and the two problems are separate.

When I went back this time and traveled to those different

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countries, I was fortunate enough to spend an hour and a half with Nasser in Egypt, which is a North African country; and three hours with President Nyerere in Tanganyika, which has now become Tanzania, which is an East African country; and with Prime Minister Obote, Milton Obote, in Uganda, which is also an East African country; and with Jomo Kenyatta in Kenya, which is another East African country; and with President Azikiwe in Nigeria, President Nkrumah in Ghana, and President Sékou Touré in Guinea.

I found that in every one of these African countries, the head of state is genuinely concerned with the problem of the Black man in this country, but many of them thought that if they opened their mouths and voiced concern, that they would be insulted by the American Negro leaders. Because one head of state in Asia voiced his support of the civil rights struggle and a couple of the Big Six had the audacity to slap his face and say they weren't interested in that kind of help -- which in my opinion is asinine. 21 So that the African leaders only had to be convinced that if they took an open stand at the governmental level and showed interest in the problem of Black people in this country, that they wouldn't be rebuffed.

And today you'll find in the United Nations -- and it's not an accident -- that every time the Congo question or anything on the African continent is being debated in the Security Council, they couple it with what's going on, or what is happening to you and me, in Mississippi and Alabama and these other places. In my opinion, the greatest accomplishment that was made in the struggle of the Black man in America in 1964 toward some kind of real progress was the successful linking together of our problem with the African problem, or making our problem a world problem. Because now, whenever anything happens to you in Mississippi, it's not a case of just somebody in Alabama getting indignant, or somebody in New York getting indignant. Whatever happens in Mississippi today, with the attention of the African nations drawn

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toward Mississippi at a governmental level, then the same repercussions that you see all over the world when an imperialist or foreign power interferes in some section of Africa, you see repercussions, you see the embassies being bombed and burned and overturned. Nowadays, when something happens to Black people in Mississippi, you will see the same repercussions all over the world.

I wanted to point this out to you, because it is important for you to know that when you're in Mississippi you're not alone. But as long as you think you're alone, then you take a stand as if you're a minority or as if you're out-numbered, and that kind of stand will never enable you to win a battle. You've got to know that you've got as much power on your side as that Ku Klux Klan has on its side. And when you know that you've got just as much power on your side as the Klan has on its side, you'll talk the same kind of language with that Klan as that Klan is talking with you.

I'll say one more thing, and then I'll conclude.

When I say the same kind of language, I should explain what I mean. See, you can never get good relations with anybody that you can't communicate with. You can never have good relations with anybody that doesn't understand you. There has to be an understanding. Understanding is brought about through dialogue. Dialogue is communication of ideas. This can only be done in a language, a common language. You can never talk French to somebody who speaks only German and think you're communicating. Neither of them -- they don't get the point. You have to be able to speak a man's language in order to make him get the point.

Now, you've lived in Mississippi long enough to know what the language of the Ku Klux Klan is. They only know one language. If you come up with another language, you don't communicate. You've got to be able to speak the same language they speak, whether you're in Mississippi, New York City, or Alabama, or California, or anywhere else. When you develop or mature to the point

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where you can speak another man's language on his level, that man gets the point. That's the only time he gets the point. You can't talk peace to a person who doesn't know what peace means. You can't talk love to a person who doesn't know what love means. And you can't talk any form of nonviolence to a person who doesn't believe in nonviolence. Why, you're wasting your time.

So I think in 1965 -- whether you like it, or I like it, or we like it, or they like it, or not -- you will see that there is a generation of Black people born in this country who become mature to the point where they feel that they have no more business being asked to take a peaceful approach than anybody else takes, unless everybody's going to take a peaceful approach.

So we here in the Organization of Afro-American Unity, we're with the struggle in Mississippi 1,000 percent. We're with the efforts to register our people in Mississippi to vote 1,000 percent. But we do not go along with anybody telling us to help nonviolently. We think if the government says that Negroes have a right to vote, and then when Negroes go out to vote some kind of Ku Klux Klan is going to put them in the river, and the government doesn't do anything about it, it's time for us to organize and band together and equip ourselves and qualify ourselves to protect ourselves. [Applause] And once you can protect yourself, you don't have to worry about being hurt. That's it. [Applause]

DISCUSSION PERIOD

So we're going to have a few minutes now for you to ask questions on all that that has been said, and all that that hasn't been said.

Yes, sir.

QUESTIONER: Could you please say something on the Freedom Democratic Party?

MALCOLM X: Yes. We support the Freedom Democratic

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Party. We have a statement that we're making in support. We had a rally last Sunday night -- no, a week ago Sunday night, to which we invited Mrs. Hamer. She spoke and explained the position of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, and we support it. 22 We know that in Washington --

To give you an example of why we support this, it has as much effect on New York City as it does in Mississippi.

But by the same token, I must point out that those who are depriving you of your rights in Mississippi aren't all in Mississippi. You got these New York Democrats [who] are just as much responsible. The mayor of this city is a Democrat. The senator, you've heard of him, Robert Kennedy, he's a Democrat. The president of the country is a Democrat. The vice president is a Democrat. Now don't you tell me anything about a Democrat in Mississippi who is depriving you of your rights, when the power of the Democratic Party is in Washington, D.C., and in New York City, and in Chicago, and some of these northern cities.

When you put the power or the pressure upon these people who walk around here posing as liberals --

In New York City Negroes can already vote. When you make known in the city of New York the position of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, and why it was necessary to form that party, and what that party is trying to do toward ousting these illegal representatives from Mississippi, then the Negroes in New York City know what it's all about. We want to know, where does [Mayor Robert] Wagner stand, since he's one of the most powerful and influential leaders of the Democratic Party in the United States. And we want to know where the senator, Robert Kennedy, stands, since he's also one of the most powerful and influential leaders of the Democratic Party in the United States. And we've got a Negro [J. Raymond Jones] who's the assistant to the mayor in this city. We want to know where he stands. Plus you got Lyndon B. Johnson and Hubert Humphrey, who professes

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to drool at the mouth over Negroes, to let you know where they stand before January 4. 23

When you get that kind of action off some of these northern Democrats, then you'll get some action in Mississippi. You don't have to worry about that man in Mississippi. The power of the Democratic Party are these people up here who hold all the power in the North.

So we're with you, but we want to go all the way.

See, as a Muslim, I don't get my religion involved in my politics, because they clash. They don't clash, but when you go into something as a Muslim, you've got a whole lot of Negroes who are Christians, who aren't broad-minded enough, so you get into a religious argument, and it doesn't pay.

So I don't enter into this struggle as a Muslim, inasmuch as I enter into it as a member of the Organization of Afro-American Unity. And the stand that the Organization of Afro-American Unity takes is that we get into it without compromising.

You compromise when you're wrong. You don't have to compromise when you're right. Why, you're right. They're not giving you something. This is yours. If you were born in this country, nobody's doing you any favor when they let you vote or when they let you register. They're only recognizing you as a human being and recognizing your right as a human being to exercise your right as a citizen. So they're not doing you any favors.

As long as you approach this thing like somebody has done you a favor, or that you're dealing with a friend, you never can fight that fight. Because when they deal with you, they're not dealing with you like they're dealing with a friend. They look at you like you're an enemy. Now you have to look at them just as if they're an enemy. And once you know what it is you're dealing with, you can deal with that thing. But you can't deal with them with love. Why, man, if there was any love with them, if there was any love in them, you wouldn't have any fight in Mississippi. There's no love there. You have to realize that there's no

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love there, and then you don't be looking for it, and go ahead and fight them.

When you go to vote or register and someone gets in your way, you're supposed to answer them in the same way that they answer you. When you answer them that way, you get a little dialogue. And if you don't have enough of them down there to do it, we'll come down there and help you do it. Because we are tired of this old runaround that our people have been given in this country.

For a long time they accused me of not getting involved in politics. They should've been glad I didn't get involved in politics, because anything I get in, I'm in it all the way. Now if they say that we don't take part in the Mississippi struggle, we will organize brothers here in New York who know how to handle these kinds of affairs, and they'll slip into Mississippi like Jesus slipped into Jerusalem. [Laughter and applause]

This doesn't mean that we're against white people, but we sure are against the Ku Klux Klan and the White Citizens' Councils. Anything that looks like it's against us, we're against it.

Excuse me for raising my voice, but this thing, you know, it gets me upset. Even being involved in a discussion in a country that's supposed to be a democracy. Imagine that, in a country that's supposed to be a democracy, supposed to be for freedom and all of that kind of stuff that they tell you when they want to draft you and put you in the army and send you to Saigon to fight for them. And then you've got to turn around and all night long discuss how you're going to just get a right to register and vote without being murdered. Why, that's the most hypocritical governmental half-truth that has ever been invented since the world was the world.

Yes, ma'am.

QUESTIONER: The question I have is what does the Afro-American Unity do?

MALCOLM X: First, Afro-American means us.

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QUESTIONER: I know what it means, I just want to know: What does it do?

MALCOLM X: How do you mean?

QUESTIONER: What kind of struggles, what does it do?

MALCOLM X: Well, first, it was patterned after the OAU. The OAU is the Organization of African Unity. And the reason we patterned our organization after theirs was they had trouble on the African continent similar to ours. Meaning that there were many independent countries that were so divided against each other that they couldn't come together in a united effort and resolve any of their problems. So some of the more mature African politicians were able to work behind the scenes and get a common understanding, out of which materialized the Organization of African Unity, the purpose of which was to get all African leaders to see the necessity of de-emphasizing their areas of disagreement and emphasizing their areas of agreement, where they had common interests.

This led to the Organization of African Unity being formed, and today they work together in unity and harmony, although there are diverse philosophies, diverse personalities. All of these differences exist; still they can unite together for a common objective.

So studying their problems, and seeing that their problems were similar to ours, we formed ours after the letter and spirit of that OAU, only with an OAAU. 24

Our first objective is -- our first step was to find an area of agreement among Afro-Americans. We found that you have the nationalists, you have the civil rights groups, you have all these diverse elements in the Black community. Some want separation, some want integration; some want this, some want that. So how are you going to find something that they all agree upon? You won't find the nationalists agree on civil rights, because they think it's a farce. You won't find the nationalists agree on integration, because they think it's a farce. They haven't seen anyplace where it has ever materialized. It's only a word, something that's played around, kicked around.

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So we had to find something that both the nationalists and the integrationists would agree upon. And we found that all of them would agree on the necessity of our people in this country being respected and recognized as human beings. So instead of launching our struggle at the civil rights level that would cause a whole lot of argument, we launched it at the human rights level. And we know that anybody that's for civil rights has got to be for human rights, whether you're an integrationist or a separationist or what you are; you still have to be for human rights.

So our first platform was that we recognized the right of the Black man in the Western Hemisphere to exercise his right as a human being. Rights that he was born with, rights that no government has the power to give him. God makes you a human being, and God is the one who gives you your human rights, not a government, or some senators, or a judge, or some representatives. And so this is our stand. We are human beings, and our fight is to see that every Black man, woman, and child in this country is respected and recognized as a human being.

Our method is: any means necessary. That's our motto. We're not restricted to this, or confined to that. We reserve the right to use any means necessary to protect our humanity, or to make the world see that they respect us as human beings. Any means necessary.

When I say that, I don't mean anything illegal. The government -- You're being treated criminally. The criminal is the one who's illegal. The one who's responsible for these criminal conditions, he's a criminal, he's illegal. And whatever you've got to do to stop this crime from being committed against you, as far as I'm concerned you're not illegal.

So that's our first step at the international level. And politically, we devise and support any program that's designed to give the Black man in this country an opportunity to participate as a citizen, a free citizen, in this political system and in this society. We will involve ourselves in programs of our own, or in anyone else's programs,

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as long as it doesn't involve any kind of compromise in its approach to getting our people in this country the rights to register and to vote in whichever direction they desire to.

QUESTIONER: [Inaudible]

MALCOLM X: The voter registration?

QUESTIONER: How important is it?

MALCOLM X: We ourselves have our own voter registration drive in the areas where we are, plus we work with other civil rights groups who also have voter registration drives.

QUESTIONER: [Inaudible]

MALCOLM X: No. Not as yet. . . . [Inaudible] keep it, what's the word, keep it to ourselves, we would keep it confidential. We will never let you know how many members we have.

QUESTIONER: I'm not asking that.

MALCOLM X: I learned that. I'm giving you some light without you asking. That's one thing I learned in the Black Muslim movement that I found most important: never let anybody know what they're dealing with -- its size, its strength, its nothing. The reason for that is, I found, if you're in the jungle or in the woods and you hear something rustling in the bush, you don't know what kind of gun to reach for until you know what's making that noise. Because you might pull out a rabbit gun for an elephant, or you might pull out an elephant gun for a rabbit, and you look foolish either way. It's not good to ever let too much of what you are come out above the ground. The most important part of the tree is the roots, and the roots always remain beneath the ground. That's where the tree gets its life. And the tree dies only when you put those roots up where the light is and it dries up.

So our membership -- its nature, its caliber, its content, all of that -- we keep it to ourselves. But you see here and there, wherever you find dissatisfied Negroes, if they're not our blood brothers, they're at least some relatives,

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some relation. If we're not blood brothers, we're at least related.

Any more?

QUESTIONER: We obviously can't say --

MALCOLM X: You from Mississippi too?

QUESTIONER: No, I'm not.

MALCOLM X: I didn't think so. [Laughter] Keep on asking.

QUESTIONER: Obviously you can't say what you do. I just was wondering what kind of --

MALCOLM X: It's not a case of I can't say what we do. I told you that we involve ourselves in our own programs to get our people registered, as registered voters in this area and wherever else we are. And we work with any other group that's trying to get our people registered so that they can vote. This is in this political area or in the area of politics. Now what else did you want to know, since you don't seem to be satisfied?

QUESTIONER: Well, maybe. Do you think --

MALCOLM X: No, if that's not clear, ask me. I mean, if I didn't clarify your question, go ahead and dig into it a little deeper.

QUESTIONER: No, I think that man from the other . . . [Inaudible] don't vote either, which makes it look like --

MALCOLM X: This is true, which shows you that the reluctance on the part of the Negro to vote isn't always because they don't have the right to. The political history of our people in this country has been that usually you have political machines in most states and in most cities. And they select, as a rule, not Black people to run in the Black community who are intellectually capable to deal with politics as it is, but puppets that serve as their mouthpiece to control the politics of the community. The Black people in Harlem have witnessed this thing year in and year out and have seen how the politics of Harlem and other Negro communities have been pretty much controlled from outside.

So it's not that they're politically lethargic or dead, but they purposely have abstained. But when you give them

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something to point toward, or vote for, you'll find that they'll be just as active as they've been inactive.

It's the purpose of the OAAU to work among that element of inactive Black people, who have been politically inactive in this area. We intend to charge them and get them active out here, so that we can get a little action. Because those are the real activists. Those who haven't been involved in politics actively are the ones who get involved in physical action. They have not seen anything that's good be made to materialize through politics in the past, so they didn't resort to politics. They resorted to things physical, to methods physical, if you understand what I mean.

What we intend to do is try and harness their energy by giving them an understanding of politics, first. Because we don't think that anybody should get us registered as voters and not at the same time give us some education in regards to politics. We don't think that a voter registration program on its own is sufficient. But in line with any voter registration program among Negroes, there must be a voter education program to make our people enlightened in regards to the science of politics, so that they will know what politics is supposed to produce and what the politician is supposed to produce, what his responsibilities are. And then we can't be exploited.

But if you just get Negroes out here and register them, then what you're going to have are more Negroes whose political energy can be exploited by the big city political machines. We don't think that that will ever solve our problems. There has to be voter education as well as voter registration. Most of the Negro politicians don't want this, because those who have been politicians haven't really been trying to solve our problems, inasmuch as they've been getting the handouts from the machine for keeping us in check. When the people realize that, the people wake up.

One of the reasons, if I may add, that Negroes haven't been actively involved in politics is, when the Negro

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leader -- when Negroes go out to try and make other Negroes get registered to vote, they have the wrong motives, usually -- especially the politicians. The young students who are doing it today are a