Vol. 75/No. 44      December 5, 2011

Below is an excerpt from the May 1990 preface by Steve Clark to Malcolm X on Afro-American History, one of Pathfinder’s Books of the Month for November. The book contains a Jan. 24, 1965, speech by Malcolm X as well as excerpts from other speeches by Malcolm on the history of Blacks in the U.S. Copyright © 1967 by Betty Shabazz and Pathfinder Press. Reprinted by permission.

BY STEVE CLARK  
Malcolm X was an intransigent opponent of the U.S. government and its imperialist policies. He fought the racist oppression of Blacks and the profit-driven plunder of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. He expressed this revolutionary political outlook in the opening years of the 1960s while a major spokesperson for the Nation of Islam. Following his March 1964 break with the Nation, Malcolm’s views continued to evolve—first in an anticapitalist, and then increasingly in a prosocialist direction.

During the last year of his life, Malcolm organized the Muslim Mosque, Inc. Alongside it, in June 1964, he founded a secular political group, the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU). He spent much of the last year of his life in Africa and the Middle East observing, speaking, and meeting with political leaders there. He visited and addressed audiences in France and Britain as well.

On January 24, 1965, Malcolm X gave the speech on Afro-American history published here. Four weeks later he was assassinated in New York City.

Around the time Malcolm gave this talk, he was interviewed by a reporter for the Village Voice, a New York weekly. “The greatest mistake of the movement,” he said, “has been trying to organize a sleeping people around specific goals. You have to wake the people up first, then you’ll get action.”

“Wake them up to their exploitation?” the reporter asked.

“No, to their humanity, to their own worth, and to their heritage,” he responded. For Malcolm, an understanding of the historical achievements of Black people, as well as the origins and evolution of their oppression in recent centuries, was an essential weapon in the hands of those struggling for their liberation.

Chattel slavery’s crime, Malcolm explains in this speech, was to dehumanize Blacks—stripping them of their humanity and heritage—as it exploited them. “We got to where we had no language, no history, no name. The white man named us after himself—Jones, Smith, Johnson, Bunche, and names like those… . He convinced us that our people back home were savages and animals in the jungle.”

Malcolm repeatedly emphasized the common interests of the oppressed. “Our interests are worldwide rather than limited just to things American, or things New York, or things Mississippi,” he explained, and “we look upon ourselves not as a dark minority on the white American stage, but rather … as a part of the dark majority who now prevail on the world stage… . When you realize you are part of the majority, you approach your problem as if odds are on your side rather than odds are against you. You approach demanding rather than using the begging approach.”

At a time when many saw imperialism as invincible, Malcolm focused on how the growing struggle of the exploited was changing the world. “There is no nation today,” he said in this speech, “that can brag about its power being unlimited, or that it can take unilateral action in any area of the earth that they desire. No white nation can do this. But just twenty years ago they could do it. Twenty years ago the United States could do it, twenty years ago England could do it, France could do it, even little old runt Belgium could do it, and Holland could do it. But they can’t do it now.”

Malcolm pointed to the Cuban revolution, which triumphed against a U.S.-backed tyrant, Fulgencio Batista, in 1959. “The Cuban revolution—that’s a revolution. They overturned the system,” he said in November 1963. Six months later, at a meeting sponsored by the Militant Labor Forum on May 29, 1964, he explained, “When Castro was up in the mountains of Cuba, they told him the odds were against him. Today he’s sitting in Havana and all the power this country has can’t remove him.”

Malcolm’s internationalism, combined with optimism in the future and confidence in the capacities of the oppressed, was well founded. The pattern he described has continued, with the crushing defeat of the U.S. government in Vietnam in 1975; the defeat of the South African army at Cuito Cuanavale, Angola, in early 1988 by Cuban, Angolan, and Namibian forces; and the unfolding democratic revolution against the apartheid system in South Africa in the late 1980s and as the 1990s opened.

Today tens of millions around the world are attracted to this outstanding working-class revolutionary leader whose words speak the unvarnished truth about their lives, history, common struggle, and aspirations.

The January 24, 1965, speech was planned to be the first of three Malcolm would give at Harlem’s Audubon Ballroom on consecutive Sundays, as part of laying the political groundwork for the new program the OAAU leaders were preparing. The first talk was to focus on Afro-American history, from the ancient African civilizations through slavery to the present day; the second, to discuss current conditions; and the third, to discuss the future of the Black struggle and present the new program.

The second of these public meetings took place on January 31. But the third meeting was not held on February 7 because Malcolm had accepted last-minute invitations to speak in London and Paris that week. It was postponed to Monday, February 15.

Early in the morning of February 14—a few hours after his return from Britain—Malcolm’s home was firebombed while he and his family slept. As a result, the presentation of the new program was postponed again and the February 15 meeting devoted instead to his speech on the attack and the issues it raised.

At the next OAAU meeting on February 21, Malcolm was cut down by assassins’ bullets as he started to speak.  
 
 
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