Remembering Malcolm X

[H2O Man]

Malcolm X was born on this day in 1925. Malcolm avoided politics until he left the Nation of Islam, but in the last year of his life he advocated a program of voter education and registration. While he recommended that black people register as independents, he was most closely associated with progressive democrats, such as Percy Sutton and Adam Clayton Powell.

Today, I thought it would be worth looking through a few quotes, both by and about Malcolm X. Here are a dozen I like:

{1} "Mrs. Handler had never met Malcolm before this fateful visit. She served us coffee and cakes while Malcolm spoke in the courteous, gentle manner that was his in private. It was obvious to me that Mrs. Handler was impressed by Malcolm. His personality filled our living room. …

"Mrs. Handler was quiet and thoughtful after Malcolm’s departure. Looking up suddenly, she said, ‘You know, it was like having tea with a black panther.’

"The description startled me. The black panther is an aristocrat in the animal kingdom. He is beautiful. He is dangerous. As a man, Malcolm X had the physical bearing and the inner self-confidence of a born aristocrat. And he was potentially dangerous. No man in our time aroused fear and hatred in the white man as did Malcolm, because in him the white man sensed an implacable foe who could not be had for any price …."
--H.S. Handler; Introduction to The Autobiography of Malcolm X

{2} "I’m the man you think you are. ….No, if we’re both human beings we’ll both do the same thing. And if you want to know what I’ll do, figure out what you’ll do. I’ll do the same thing – only more of it."
--Malcolm X; Militant Labor Forum; January 7, 1965

{3} "Without education, you are not going anywhere in this world."
--Malcolm X; Militant Labor Forum; May 29, 1964

{4} "I know often when people talk about Malcolm X, they make him seem larger than life, and that’s dangerous. Because young people, hearing about him – will be led to think they could never be like him, you see. He’s not accessible, then. The truth is, the man was as large as life, a man of great profundity, with a wonderful sense of humor and a loving sense of his people."
--Maya Angelou

{5} "We were willing to listen to Malcolm because, on one hand, Malcolm inspired us. Malcolm said things in New York, in Chicago, around the country, that maybe some people in the South and in other parts of the country didn’t have the courage to say."
--John Lewis

{6} "In Malcolm X’s shadow cabinet there were different people who had expertise on different subjects. I was the man in history and historical information and personality. There were other people in politics, another person occasionally on sociology. The diversity of people in this shadow cabinet, none of them Muslims, was equivalent to the faculty of a good university."
--John Henrik Clarke

{7} Question: "Are you going to go out to register people as Democrats, as Republicans, or what? Are you going to fight the party machines?

Malcolm: "We are going to encourage our people to register as independent voters. First become registered. … We feel that there are more unregistered Negroes in Harlem than there are registered Negroes in both parties. So that any grass-roots operation – and we already have the thing set up where we can register them house by house, we can organize them house by house, block by block ….

"…we intend to try to get a mass involvement, mass participation, and we believe that we can do this by carrying on an education program, where politics is concerned, among the masses to make them see what those who now control the political picture are doing to them. …."
--The Editors Speak; WLIB Radio, NYC; July 4, 1964

{8} "While we did not always see eye to eye on methods to solve the race problem, I always had a deep affection for Malcolm and felt that he had a great ability to put his finger on the existence and the root of the problem. He was an eloquent spokesman for his point of view and no one can honestly doubt that Malcolm had a great concern for the problems we face as a race."
--Martin Luther King, Jr; telegraph to Malcolm’s wife, Betty ; February 26, 1965

{9} "Malcolm has become a sort of a tabula rasa, or blank slate, on which people of different positions can write their own interpretations of his politics and legacy."
--Robin D.G. Kelly; historian

{10} "I was the invited speaker at the Harvard Law School Forum. I happened to glance through a window. Abruptly, I realized that I was looking in the direction of the apartment house that was my old burglary gang’s hideout."
--Malcolm X; The Autobiography of Malcolm X

{11} "My greatest lack has been, I believe, that I don’t have the kind of academic education I wish I had been able to get – to have been a lawyer, perhaps. I do believe that I might have made a good lawyer. I have always loved verbal battle, and challenge."
--Malcolm X; The Autobiography of Malcolm X

{12} "…he would forgo doing homework and bury himself in the works of prodigious black authors who sought to explain or amplify the feelings of powerlessness and anger embedded in the hearts of black men: Langston Hughes, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Richard Wright, W.E.B. DuBois. Of these readings, he said he most closely identified with the Autobiography of Malcolm X. Since becoming a politician, Obama has steered clear of quoting such a militant and revolutionary figure as Malcolm X. But in his book, he wrote that the activist’s ;force of will’ and ‘repeated acts of self-creation spoke to me’."
--David Mendell; Obama: From Promise to Power

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. My favorite eulogy ever written.

By Ossie Davis, the actor:

"Here - at this final hour, in this quiet place - Harlem has come to bid farewell to one of its brightest hopes -extinguished now, and gone from us forever. For Harlem is where he worked and where he struggled and fought - his home of homes, where his heart was, and where his people are - and it is, therefore, most fitting that we meet once again - in Harlem - to share these last moments with him. For Harlem has ever been gracious to those who have loved her, have fought her, and have defended her honor even to the death.

It is not in the memory of man that this beleaguered, unfortunate, but nonetheless proud community has found a braver, more gallant young champion than this Afro-American who lies before us - unconquered still. I say the word again, as he would want me to : Afro-American - Afro-American Malcolm, who was a master, was most meticulous in his use of words. Nobody knew better than he the power words have over minds of men. Malcolm had stopped being a 'Negro' years ago. It had become too small, too puny, too weak a word for him. Malcolm was bigger than that. Malcolm had become an Afro-American and he wanted - so desperately - that we, that all his people, would become Afro-Americans too.

There are those who will consider it their duty, as friends of the Negro people, to tell us to revile him, to flee, even from the presence of his memory, to save ourselves by writing him out of the history of our turbulent times. Many will ask what Harlem finds to honor in this stormy, controversial and bold young captain - and we will smile. Many will say turn away - away from this man, for he is not a man but a demon, a monster, a subverter and an enemy of the black man - and we will smile. They will say that he is of hate - a fanatic, a racist - who can only bring evil to the cause for which you struggle! And we will answer and say to them : Did you ever talk to Brother Malcolm? Did you ever touch him, or have him smile at you? Did you ever really listen to him? Did he ever do a mean thing? Was he ever himself associated with violence or any public disturbance? For if you did you would know him. And if you knew him you would know why we must honor him.

Malcolm was our manhood, our living, black manhood! This was his meaning to his people. And, in honoring him, we honor the best in ourselves. Last year, from Africa, he wrote these words to a friend: 'My journey', he says, 'is almost ended, and I have a much broader scope than when I started out, which I believe will add new life and dimension to our struggle for freedom and honor and dignity in the States. I am writing these things so that you will know for a fact the tremendous sympathy and support we have among the African States for our Human Rights struggle. The main thing is that we keep a United Front wherein our most valuable time and energy will not be wasted fighting each other.' However we may have differed with him - or with each other about him and his value as a man - let his going from us serve only to bring us together, now.

Consigning these mortal remains to earth, the common mother of all, secure in the knowledge that what we place in the ground is no more now a man - but a seed - which, after the winter of our discontent, will come forth again to meet us. And we will know him then for what he was and is - a Prince - our own black shining Prince! - who didn't hesitate to die, because he loved us so."

[H2O Man]

15. The power of

that eulogy is still there today.

[Me.]

2. Were The Black Panthers Inspired To So Name Themselves

from the Handler quote?

[H2O Man]

16. The timing is interesting.

I remember that the BPP headquarters had a large Malcolm X poster displayed on their wall.

Another footnote: friend Rubin used to wear a robe into the ring that had a black panther on the back.

[applegrove]

3. I read his biography. He seemed to morph into something bigger every decade of his

life. He was in the midst of another transformation when he was killed. We can only wonder what sort of politician he would have made when he died in his forties.

[H2O Man]

17. Yep.

It is known that he was having a lot of indirect contact with Martin Luther King, Jr., through an attorney in Chicago. Martin was interested in Malcolm's connecting the civil rights movement in the US to the human rights struggle in Africa. Where this might have led, had Malcolm reached his 40s, is fascinating to think about.

[malaise]

4. Thanks H2O Man

Long time no see. :hi:

[H2O Man]

18. Hello!

I've beenhanging out in GD-P. Curious place, that.

[seemslikeadream]

5. a key place in the imaginative landscape of the Panthers:

Among his tales of police brutality and revolutionary fervour, Seale inserted a chapter entitled ‘Huey Digs Bob Dylan’. The setting is the home of radical lawyer Beverly Axelrod in 1966: Newton and Seale are laying up the pages for the first issue of their party newspaper, cunningly titled The Black Panther. ‘While we were laying that paper out, in the background we could hear a record, and the song was named “Ballad of a Thin Man” by Bob Dylan. Now the melody was in my head... but I didn’t really hear the words. This record played after we stayed up laying out the paper. And it played the next night after we stayed up laying out the paper. I think it was around the third afternoon that the record was playing. We played that record over and over and over.

‘Huey P. Newton made me recognize the lyrics. Not only the lyrics of the record, but what the lyrics meant in the record. What the lyrics meant in the history of racism that had perpetuated itself in the world. Huey would say: “Listen, listen – man, do you hear what he is saying?” Huey had such insight into how racism existed, how racism had perpetuated himself. He had such a way of putting forth in very clear words what he related directly to those symbolic things or words that were coming out from Bobby Dylan. ‘I remember that the song got to the point where he was talking about this cat handing in his ticket and he walked up to the geek, and the geek handed him a bone. Well, this didn’t relate to me, so I said: “Huey, look, wait a minute, man”. I said, “What are you talking about a geek? What is a geek? What the hell is a geek?” And Huey explains it.’

Newton’s explanation runs for almost a page: ‘“a geek”, he tells Seale, “is usually a circus performer”, who has been badly injured and can’t work any longer. But he knows no other life than the circus, so he agrees to do the lowliest jobs just to stay in the community. Maybe he even agrees to eat live chickens in a cage as a freak attraction.’ Newton continues: ‘These people who are coming in to see him are coming in for entertainment, so they are the real freaks. And the geek knows this, so during his performance, he eats the raw chicken and he hands one of the members of the audience a bone. ‘Then to put it on the broader level, what Dylan is putting across is middle-class people or upper-class people who sometimes take a Sunday afternoon off and put their whole family into a limousine, and they go down to the black ghettos to watch the prostitutes and watch the decaying community.(...) That makes the middle-class and upper-class people, who are down there because they get pleasure out of it, freaks.

And this goes into the one-eyed midget. What is the one-eyed midget? He screams and howls at Mr. Jones. Mr. Jones doesn’t know what’s happening. Then the one-eyed midget says, give me some juice or go home. And this again is very symbolic of people who are disadvantaged. They’re patronizing Mr. Jones, the middle-class people. You know, they’re not interested in them coming down for entertainment. But if they’ll pay them for a trick, then they’ll tolerate them, or else they’ll drive them out of the ghettoes. This song is hell. You’ve got to understand that this song is saying a hell of a lot about society.’

Seale digests this explanation, and notes: ‘Bobby Dylan says, you don’t know what’s happening, do you, Mr. Jones? And to hand him the naked bone was too much – was really too much.’

An insignificant if amusing interlude, you might think, suggesting that Huey P. Newton missed his vocation as a literary critic. But as Seale explains later in the chapter, ‘Ballad of a Thin Man’ came to occupy a key place in the imaginative landscape of the Panthers: ‘This song Bobby Dylan was singing became a very big part of that whole publishing operation of the Black Panther paper. And in the background, while we were putting this paper out, this record came up and I guess a number of papers were published, and many times we would play that record. Brother Stokely Carmichael also liked that record. This record became so related to us, even to the brothers who had held down most of the security for the set.
http://www.judasmagazine.com/pages.asp/peterdoggettj1.asp


http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1706334390337317969&q=ballad+of+a+thin+man&ei=qyoySMOLKZT44gLy_9TbCQ&hl=en

You walk into the room
With your pencil in your hand
You see somebody naked
And you say, "Who is that man?"
You try so hard
But you don't understand
Just what you'll say
When you get home

Because something is happening here
But you don't know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?

You raise up your head
And you ask, "Is this where it is?"
And somebody points to you and says
"It's his"
And you say, "What's mine?"
And somebody else says, "Where what is?"
And you say, "Oh my God
Am I here all alone?"

Because something is happening here
But you don't know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?

You hand in your ticket
And you go watch the geek
Who immediately walks up to you
When he hears you speak
And says, "How does it feel
To be such a freak?"
And you say, "Impossible"
As he hands you a bone

Because something is happening here
But you don't know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?

You have many contacts
Among the lumberjacks
To get you facts
When someone attacks your imagination
But nobody has any respect
Anyway they already expect you
To just give a check
To tax-deductible charity organizations

You've been with the professors
And they've all liked your looks
With great lawyers you have
Discussed lepers and crooks
You've been through all of
F. Scott Fitzgerald's books
You're very well read
It's well known

Because something is happening here
But you don't know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?

Well, the sword swallower, he comes up to you
And then he kneels
He crosses himself
And then he clicks his high heels
And without further notice
He asks you how it feels
And he says, "Here is your throat back
Thanks for the loan"

Because something is happening here
But you don't know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?

Now you see this one-eyed midget
Shouting the word "NOW"
And you say, "For what reason?"
And he says, "How?"
And you say, "What does this mean?"
And he screams back, "You're a cow
Give me some milk
Or else go home"

Because something is happening here
But you don't know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?

Well, you walk into the room
Like a camel and then you frown
You put your eyes in your pocket
And your nose on the ground
There ought to be a law
Against you comin' around
You should be made
To wear earphones

Because something is happening here
But you don't know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?

[Tech 9]

6. Seize The Time was dictated while Seale was in prison

on bullshit contempt charges stemming from when they trussed him up in the court room

Its almost conversational really, but easy to read and hard to put down

http://lemming.mahost.org/library/seize/index.htm

[seemslikeadream]

8. Thanks Tech 9

[Tech 9]

7. Coming from you this is very apt

{9} "Malcolm has become a sort of a tabula rasa, or blank slate, on which people of different positions can write their own interpretations of his politics and legacy."
--Robin D.G. Kelly; historian

[H2O Man]

19. "Remember this:

nobody puts words in my mouth." -- Malcolm X; February 4, 1965

[satya]

9. Some of my favorite quotes:


"I don't want you to think that I came here to make an anti-American speech. I wouldn't come here for that. I came to make a speech, to tell you the truth. And if the truth is anti-American, then blame the truth, don't blame me." Feb. 11, 1965

"Don't be in a hurry to condemn because he doesn't do what you do or think as you think or as fast. There was a time when you didn't know what you know today."

"You can't separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom."

[H2O Man]

23. Malcolm was a teacher.

I remember him saying that we need to redefine the idea of a classroom, and recognize that it isn't restricted to something with four walls. He also noted that we all are not only students, but have the responsibility to be teachers. The quotes that you provided are evidence of the important lessons that Malcolm left us with. Thank you.

[EFerrari]

10. An important gathering. K&R

[flashl]

11. K&R

[shadowknows69]

12. "How long shall they kill our prophets, while we stand aside and look?"

-Bob Marley

Thank you for everything you did Brother Malcolm.

[shadowknows69]

13. Kicking for Malcolm X

[blindpig]

14. K&R

[NightWatcher]

20. Ya know they murdered X, And tried to blame it on Islam, He turned the power to the have-nots

And then came the shot

Wake Up- RATM

[H2O Man]

22. Not long before

his death, Malcolm was refused entry to France. He had visited that country earlier, with no problem. It seems a stretch to think that Elijah Muhammad had the ability to influence the French government's decision on allowing Malcolm to enter their country.

I had the opportunity to meet James Farmer years ago. In my opinion, he was one of the true heroes of the civil rights era. Farmer had been told by a reliable source that the French government was aware of a plot to kill Malcolm outside of the USA. Again, that was beyond the NOI's abilities.

[mod mom]

21. k & r

[IronLionZion]

24. Youtube Videos

Who taught you to hate yourself?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRSgUTWffMQ

You can't hate the roots of a tree
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gb-tjIUu0i4&feature=related

Malcolm X special from Democracy Now
http://www.democracynow.org/2005/5/19/malcolm_x_make_it_plain



MALCOLM X: Who taught you to hate the color of your skin? Who taught you to hate the texture of your hair? Who taught you to hate the shape of your nose and the shape of your lips? Who taught you to hate yourself from the top of your head to the soles of your feet? Who taught you to hate your own kind? Who taught you to hate the race that you belong to so much so that you don’t want to be around each other? You know. Before you come asking Mr. Muhammad does he teach hate, you should ask yourself who taught you to hate being what God made you.

[countryjake]

25. Kick

[Marnieworld]

26. Thanks for this.

I'm a little late to the party but I will celebrate him today. I read The Autobiography years ago and I have loved Malcom ever since. He was taken down at a time when his message was evolving into something even more profound and powerful, that it was even more of a threat. The timing was very convenient for the powers that be. Just like when MLK was really starting to talk about the war and poverty and then he was gone. For both of them the loss is not just what had come before but what might have been.