Vol. 73/No. 39      October 12, 2009

The panelists were Sobukwe Shukura, host of the radio show “Revolutionary African Perspectives” and member of the All African Peoples Revolutionary Party; Samuel T. Livingston, a professor of history at Morehouse College; and Steve Clark, editor of several collections of Malcolm’s speeches published by Pathfinder Press, managing editor of New International magazine, and a member of the Socialist Workers Party National Committee.

Morris Gardner, program manager at the Auburn Avenue Research Library in downtown Atlanta, chaired the event, attended by more than 100 people. The meeting was part of a series of discussions with authors on the history of African Americans. Gardner said the library had evolved from a segregated institution founded in 1934 as the Negro Colored Collection of Non-Circulating Books.  
 
Leader of working class in U.S.
Opening the panel, Clark pointed to Malcolm’s statement in January 1965 that he believed “a showdown” was coming in the world “between the oppressed and those that do the oppressing.” But, Malcolm said, “I don’t think that it will be based on the color of the skin, as Elijah Muhammad had taught.”

Clark said that Malcolm X “was the outstanding leader not only of African Americans but of the working class in the United States in the latter half of the 20th century.” And Malcolm came to recognize, said Clark—reading the quotation chosen by meeting organizers for the flyer—that “the only way we’ll get freedom for ourselves is to identify with every oppressed people in the world.”

The conditions of working people and the oppressed that Malcolm fought to end continue to this day, Clark said. World capitalism is at the opening of its deepest economic, financial, and social crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s and World War II. As examples, he pointed to lack of electrification, drinkable water, adequate nutrition, and minimal health standards for billions in Asia, Africa, and Latin America; rapidly rising joblessness in the United States, highest among workers and youth who are Black; and the exploding numbers in U.S. prisons, jails, or on probation or parole.

Clark said Malcolm’s conviction in the need for revolution in the United States and worldwide set him apart from other leaders of the struggle for Black rights. “It’s not correct, as many say, that there was a political convergence during that last year between Malcolm and Martin Luther King,” Clark noted.

Malcolm respected King’s courage and commitment to the fight for Black freedom and saw a pressing need for united action to advance that goal—a central reason he had broken from the Nation of Islam, Clark said. But Malcolm disagreed with King’s opposition to organized self-defense in face of racist violence, his conviction that capitalism could be reformed, and his support for the imperialist Democratic Party.

Clark closed by pointing to the experiences that had led Malcolm to stop using the term “Black nationalism” to describe his political course. Malcolm told the Young Socialist magazine in January 1965 that he had recently met the Algerian ambassador to Ghana, who “is a revolutionary in the true sense of the word” and “was a white man.” When Malcolm spoke about Black nationalism, the Algerian asked him, “Where does that leave me?” Malcolm continued: “So he showed me where I was alienating people who were true revolutionaries dedicated to overturning the system of exploitation that exists on this earth by any means necessary… . And if you notice, I haven’t been using the expression for several months.”  
 
Culture, politics, pan-Africanism
Sobukwe Shukura, who introduced himself as a revolutionary pan-Africanist, focused on “Malcolm X’s relationship to culture.” Malcolm recognized “that each people have their own culture” and come to revolution in that way, he said.

Malcolm X was able “to translate complex ideas into popular, simple messages people can understand,” Shukura said. Malcolm “was a master in understanding the need for unities. He never forgot the need for cultural unity or that his culture was African.”

There are limitations within nationalism, he said. Malcolm X recognized the need for class struggle, Shukura added, pointing to Malcolm’s explanation of the conflict under slavery between “house Negroes,” who grew to identify with the plantation owners, and “field Negroes,” who rebelled against them.

Shukura said Malcolm X had helped reintroduce “the idea of what revolution is.” He saw the need for the “transformation of power,” hailing the revolutions in China and Cuba.

Samuel Livingston emphasized that Malcolm X engaged in struggle not only through politics but “understood the power of culture,” of African-American culture and history. Malcolm encouraged Blacks “to rediscover their humanity” as a road “toward creating the future.”

Malcolm “rallied to the defense” of those around the world targeted by U.S. government assaults, Livingston said. He noted Washington’s organization of the overthrow of the elected government of Iran in 1953 and the murder of Congolese revolutionary leader and prime minister Patrice Lumumba in 1961. Malcolm championed Lumumba’s cause, said Livingston.

Malcolm X’s political evolution had brought him to pan-Africanism in 1964-65, Livingston concluded. “Internationalism was the lens through which Malcolm’s pan-Africanism was expressed. His Marxism was secondary.”  
 
Obama administration
Chairing the discussion, Gardner presented the panelists with several questions, including “What influences allowed Malcolm X to link the condition of African Americans to the … oppressed outside the United States?” and how Malcolm’s views related to the election and presidency of Barack Obama.

“Malcolm X would have been very critical of the new administration,” answered Livingston. “We live in the seat of a military empire, but Obama”—for whom Livingston said he had campaigned—“is not dealing with it. The U.S. is putting troops in Africa—we need to wake up.”

“Obama’s path is increasing U.S. imperial hegemony,” Livingston concluded, saying he hoped the new president would change course on foreign policy, health care, and other matters.

Clark said one of Malcolm X’s most enduring lessons is the need for working people to organize and act independently of their oppressors and exploiters.

“Just as it was necessary, for the abolition of chattel slavery, to overthrow the slaveholding class and Confederacy through a revolutionary war—the U.S. Civil War—the fight against exploitation, racism, and other forms of oppression today requires a revolution to overthrow the capitalists and put power in the hands of the working class,” Clark said.

“The capitalist class rules through a state power, seated in Washington, and through the Democratic and Republican parties. Barack Obama is the chief executive officer of that state, the mightiest imperialist power on earth, and commander in chief of its armed forces.”

Shukura said Obama is the leader of a “racist imperialist” system “whose failure is obvious and cannot be reformed.” It can only survive “with the exploitation of people here and rape of people abroad. The conditions of our people have not changed.”

A woman in the audience who had participated in the civil rights movement in the 1960s and campaigned for Obama said she thought it was unfair not to give him more time before criticizing him. “There’s a limit to what he can do alone in the White House to change things,” she said. “That’s our job.”  
 
What road forward?
Nathan McCall, a professor at Emory University, asked from the audience: “I thought I heard a disagreement between Steve Clark and Sobukwe Shukura. Clark is saying Malcolm X transcended race and Shukura is saying that for Malcolm X race was central, even though he was for unities. Please clarify.”

Shukura replied that “Malcolm faced the conditions of our community, where the intersection of the problems of nation, class, and gender don’t disappear. The legacy of slavery and colonialism transcends class, and that is true even in Cuba today. I don’t deny that Malcolm viewed capitalism as a system of exploitation. Alliances are necessary, but you can’t say there is only class.

“Capitalism is not just the enemy of African Americans in the U.S.,” Shukura said, “but of all African people.”

Yes, Clark said, differing viewpoints had been presented by the panelists, but not over whether Malcolm or anyone else could “transcend race” under capitalism. Race was a foundation of chattel slavery at capitalism’s origins centuries ago and remains a central way the propertied families rake in enormous profits by seeking to divide working people along lines of skin color, sex, language, and national origin.

“Changing that,” Clark said, “requires a revolution to overturn the state power of the capitalist class, something that can only be organized and led by an organization uniting working people of all races, both sexes, and many national origins. That socialist revolution, in and of itself, can’t and won’t end racism or the second-class status of women.

“But it will remove from power the class with an enormous stake in maintaining oppression and exploitation. It will put power in the hands of the oppressed and exploited—who can use that mighty weapon to wage the ongoing battle to eradicate all forms of exploitation and oppression.”

Those attending the event included students and faculty members from Morehouse School of Medicine, Georgia Tech, Emory University, and Georgia State University; regular participants in Auburn Avenue Research Library events; immigrant workers from Mexico and Guatemala, including members of Cajola United in Solidarity with Guatemala, (simultaneous translation into Spanish was provided); WRFG radio station; Collective Black People Movement; Southern Christian Leadership Conference; NAACP; Unity Brothers United; Socialist Workers Party; and the All African Peoples Revolutionary Party.

From a literature table at the event, participants picked up a variety of books and pamphlets, including Pathfinder collections of speeches by Malcolm and five copies of Revolution, Internationalism, and Socialism: The Last Year of Malcolm X by Jack Barnes, which appears in issue 14 of New International.  
 
 
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