Vol. 77/No. 7      February 25, 2013

Below is an excerpt from a speech by Malcolm X in Rochester, N.Y., Feb. 16, 1965, five days before his assassination. It is included in February 1965: The Final Speeches, one of Pathfinder’s Books of the Month for February. Copyright © 1992 by Betty Shabazz and Pathfinder Press. Reprinted by permission.

BY MALCOLM X

The [Black Muslim] movement itself attracted the most militant, the most dissatisfied, the most uncompromising elements of the Black community. And also the youngest elements of the Black community.

And as this movement grew and it attracted such a militant, uncompromising, dissatisfied element, the movement itself was supposedly based upon the religion of Islam and therefore supposedly a religious movement. But because the world of Islam or the orthodox Muslim world would never accept the Black Muslim movement as a bona fide part of it, it put those of us who were in it in a sort of religious vacuum. It put us in a position of identifying ourselves by a religion, while the world in which that religion was practiced rejected us as not being bona fide practitioners, practitioners of that religion.

Also the government tried to maneuver us and label us as political rather than religious so that they could charge us with sedition and subversion. This is the only reason. But although we were labeled political, because we were never permitted to take part in politics we were in a vacuum politically. We were in a religious vacuum. We were in a political vacuum. We were actually alienated, cut off from all type of activity with even the world that we were fighting against.

We became a sort of a religious-political hybrid, all to ourselves. Not involved in anything but just standing on the sidelines condemning everything. But in no position to correct anything because we couldn’t take action.

Yet at the same time, the nature of the movement was such that it attracted the activists. Those who wanted action. Those who wanted to do something about the evils that confronted all Black people. We weren’t particularly concerned with the religion of the Black man. Because whether he was a Methodist or a Baptist or an atheist or an agnostic, he caught the same hell.

So we could see that we had to have some action, and those of us who were activists became dissatisfied, disillusioned. And finally dissension set in and eventually a split. Those who split away were the real activists of the movement, who were intelligent enough to want some kind of program that would enable us to fight for the rights of all Black people here in the Western Hemisphere. …

[W]e set up the Organization of Afro-American Unity, in which anybody in the community could participate in an action program designed to bring about complete recognition and respect of Black people as human beings.

And the motto of the Organization of Afro-American Unity is “By any means necessary.” We don’t believe in fighting a battle in which the ground rules are to be laid down by those who suppress us. We don’t believe that we can win in a battle where the ground rules are laid down by those who exploit us. We don’t believe that we can carry on a struggle trying to win the affection of those who for so long have oppressed and exploited us.

We believe that our fight is just. We believe that our grievances are just. We believe that the evil practices against Black people in this society are criminal and that those who engage in such criminal practices are to be looked upon themselves as nothing but criminals. And we believe that we are within our rights to fight those criminals by any means necessary.

This doesn’t mean that we’re for violence. But we have seen that the federal government has shown its inability, its absolute unwillingness, to protect the lives and the property of Black people. We have seen where organized white racists, Klansmen, Citizens’ Councilmen, and others can come into the Black community and take a Black man and make him disappear and nothing be done about it. We have seen that they can come in. [Applause] …

[O]nce you properly analyze the ingredients that opened the doors even to the degree that they were cracked open, when you see what it was, you’ll better understand your position today. And you’ll better understand the strategy that you need today. Any kind of movement for freedom of Black people based solely within the confines of America is absolutely doomed to fail. [Applause] …

You say, “Well, look at the beautiful decision that the Supreme Court handed down.” Brother, look at it! Don’t you know these men on the Supreme Court are masters of legal—not only of law, but legal phraseology. They are such masters of the legal language that they could very easily have handed down a desegregation decision on education so worded that no one could have gotten around. But they come up with that thing worded in such a way that here ten years have passed, and there’s all kind of loopholes in it. They knew what they were doing. …

So, since we see—I don’t want you to think I’m teaching hate. I love everybody who loves me. [Laughter] But I sure don’t love those who don’t love me. [Laughter]

Since we see all of this subterfuge, this trickery, this maneuvering—it’s not only at the federal level, the national level, the local level, and all levels. The young generation of Blacks that’s coming up now can see that as long as we wait for the Congress and the Senate and the Supreme Court and the president to solve our problems, you’ll have us going in circles for another thousand years. …

So one of the first steps that we became involved in, those of us who got into the Organization of Afro-American Unity, was to come up with a program that would make our grievances international.  
 
 
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