Vol. 77/No. 36      October 14, 2013

This is the trickery that you and I are faced with every day in this society. They on the one hand try and show us how much progress we’re making. But if we look through all of that propaganda we find that our people are still being hung, they’re still disappearing, and no one is finding them, or no one is finding their murderers.

And at the same time also that so much hullabaloo was being made over this new civil rights legislation, a bill went into effect known as the no-knock law or stop-and-frisk law, which was an anti-Negro law. They make one law that’s outright against Negroes and make it appear that it is for our people, while at the same time they pass another bill that’s supposedly designed to give us some kind of equal rights. You know, sooner or later you and I are going to wake up and be fed up, and there’s going to be trouble. …

The only way you can strike at him, you have to have political power. How do we get political power? We have to organize the people of Harlem in a door-by-door campaign, I mean door by door, house by house, people by people, person by person, and you have to make them feel so ashamed that they’re not registered they won’t even come out of the house. We have to create an atmosphere in Harlem—and when I say Harlem, the greater New York area—in which every black man in the greater New York area will feel like he’s a traitor if he’s not a registered voter. His ballot will be like a bullet.

One or the other, we’re at a time in history now where we want freedom, and only two things bring you freedom— the ballot or the bullet. Only two things. Well, if you and I don’t use the ballot and get it, we’re going to be forced to use the bullet. And if you don’t want to use the ballot, I know you don’t want to use the bullet. So let us try the ballot. And if the ballot doesn’t work, we’ll try something else. But let us try the ballot. And the only way we can try the ballot is to organize and put on a campaign that will create a new climate.

The Organization of Afro-American Unity is planning a campaign that will enable us within a matter of weeks to map out the city and touch every person in it who looks like us. There’s only one thing we want them to do: register. That’s all. We’ll make it easy for them. Not register as a Democrat or a Republican, but as an independent. Don’t sell your soul. …

There are more than 10,000 people unemployed in central Harlem and there is not one employment office to accommodate them. Listen to this. The area of highest unemployment in the city is Harlem. There’s not one employment office in Harlem. There are employment agencies. But there’s a difference between an agency and an employment office. An agency sells you a job. If they get you a job, you’ve got to give them four months’ pay. You work for them. That’s slavery, brothers.

Why isn’t there an employment office in Harlem if Harlem has the highest rate of unemployment? Can you see the conspiracy?

What the man does is, he sends you to the agency; you pay for your job, which means that if he gives you the job you’ve got to give him a cut for two months. As soon as your two months’ work is up, the man fires you. This is a game, it’s a conspiracy, between the employer and the employment agency. How many of you know that this is not true? This is true. They sell you a job. Then after they sell you a job, they fire you and sell that same job to somebody else. …

QUESTION: Brother Malcolm, do you think it’s wise that we should make it publicly known that possibly guerrillas are going to Mississippi or other places so the white man can be prepared—

MALCOLM: He’s already prepared, brother. He’s already prepared. Sometimes it is good. If the United States government doesn’t want you and me going into Mississippi organizing our people into the type of units that will enable them to retaliate against the Ku Klux Klan and create a very nasty situation in this country for the whole world to see, then the government should occupy the state of Mississippi.

SAME QUESTIONER: Well, don’t you think the element of surprise would be better able to get the same thing done?

MALCOLM: Before the Chinese came across the Yalu during the Korean war, they told Uncle Sam, don’t come another step, or else we’re going to do such and such a thing. They were so confident in their ability to take on anything Sam had, they said don’t come another step or we’re going to do thus and so.

Brother, let me tell you about a Klansman. He’s a coward. He can be thoroughly organized and if you go like that [stamps his foot], he’ll cut out. That’s why they’re hiding beneath those sheets. You never read where a Klansman does anything, you read where the mob does so and so. Because they’re cowards. Any time you get black people to take a stand against those sheeted so-called knights, you’ll get rid of them overnight. And I for one would announce yes, we are doing it, and get some black people and go on down there. And I don’t think we’d be the loser, no.

In fact, I know we wouldn’t.  
 
 
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