Vol. 78/No. 19      May 19, 2014

Below is an excerpt from February 1965: The Final Speeches by Malcolm X, one of Pathfinder’s Books of the Month for May. It contains speeches and interviews Malcolm gave during the last three weeks of his life. In this Feb. 16, 1965, speech at Corn Hill Methodist Church in Rochester, New York, he talks about the Organization of Afro-American Unity, founded in June 1964 after his break with the Nation of Islam three months earlier. Copyright © 1992 by Pathfinder Press. Reprinted by permission.

BY MALCOLM X  
[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.

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] …

As long as your problem is fought within the American context, all you can get as allies is fellow Americans. As long as you call it civil rights, it’s a domestic problem within the jurisdiction of the United States government. And the United States government consists of segregationists, racists. Why, the most powerful men in the government are racists. This government is controlled by thirty-six committees, twenty congressional committees and sixteen senatorial committees. Thirteen of the twenty congressmen that head up the congressional committees are from the South. Ten of the sixteen senators that control the senatorial committees are from the South. Which means that of the thirty-six committees that govern the foreign and domestic directions and temperament of the country in which we live, of the thirty-six, twenty-three of them are in the hands of racists. Outright, stone-cold, dead segregationists. This is what you and I are up against. We are in a society where the power is in the hands of those who are the worst breed of humanity.

Now how are we going to get around them? How are we going to get justice in a Congress that they control? Or a Senate that they control? Or a White House that they control? Or from a Supreme Court that they control?

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. They pretend to give you something while knowing all the time you can’t utilize it.

They come up last year with a civil rights bill that they publicized all around the world as if it would lead us into the promised land of integration. Oh yeah! Just last week, the Right Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King came out of the jailhouse and went to Washington, D.C., saying he’s going to ask every day for new legislation to protect voting rights for Black people in Alabama. Why? You just had legislation. [Laughter] You just had a civil rights bill. You mean to tell me that that highly publicized civil rights bill doesn’t even give the federal government enough power to protect Black people in Alabama who don’t want to do anything but register? Why, it’s another foul trick, the same as you’ve tricked us year in and year out. Another foul trick. [Applause]

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. And there aren’t no days like those. …

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 and make the world see that our problem was no longer a Negro problem or an American problem, but a human problem. A problem for humanity. And a problem which should be attacked by all elements of humanity. A problem that was so complex that it was impossible for Uncle Sam to solve it himself. And therefore we want to get into a body or conference of people who are in such positions that they can help us get some kind of adjustment for this situation before it gets so explosive that no one can handle it.  
 
 
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