DuBois Malcolm King

Frustration with being regarded as "a marginal voice" often encourages clergy to embrace the language of the modern state. Preachers begin to talk like politicians, and while gaining some credibility as political power brokers, in the process they tend to lose the prophetic edge that they could and should bring to the political debate and to the process of imagining a better society.

This is a temptation to which Dr. King never yielded. He consistently employed theological concepts and language to challenge the modern state to be more just and inclusive. He opined on practical and concrete political matters, but only insofar as they were outgrowths of the theological and ethical principles he espoused.

It is humbling, hopeful, and empowering to consider that preachers, church women, and Sunday school children led a revolution in our lifetime. They marched, prayed, voted, and challenged the nation to, in the words of Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., "conform America's political reality to her political rhetoric." They have passed the baton to us. --Robert M. Franklin, "Awesome Music, Great Preaching, and Revolutionary Action: The Mind of Martin Luther King, Jr.," The Princeton Seminary Bulletin, XXIII (2), 2003.

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For Malcolm, the most persuasive element of the Nation of Islam was its affirmation of black people’s cultural history.^[xxxiv] In the “Domination system,” silence and violence often go together, Campbell states, and notes that amnesia and a “disconnection from history” are important allies of the powers.^[xxxv] Human captivity to the powers often, he continues, results from ignorance and denial about the realities of the past. Further, when people are silenced by the System and when they feel their voices will not be heard and do not matter, they are not only the victims of violence, but also often become the breeding ground of further violence, as their pent-up oppression goes unexpressed and finally explodes.

According to Cone, Malcolm was not silent; he was angry and he wanted the world to know that he was angry. Malcolm could not understand, Cone notes, how anyone could be a human being and not be angry about what white people had done to black people in America. Malcolm was particularly angered by white people’s assertion that he was teaching hatred and often responded, “History is not hatred.” Malcolm believed, Cone points out, that God is the executor of justice and notes that Malcolm’s concept of justice was “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and an arm for an arm, and a head for a head, and a life for a life.”^[xxxvi]As such, Malcolm believed the “solution” to the problem of racial injustice “will be brought about by God.”^[xxxvii] Living Scripture in Community

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Amin Sharif Amin Sharif Table

A Blues for the Birmingham Four (poem)

Bloody Sunday at Pettus Bridge (poem)

H. Rap Brown's Die Nigger Die! (book review)

Resurrection in Mississippi (poem for Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner)

Retrospective on Soul on Ice (book review)

Six Killed in "Bombingham"

What Will Be After An Iraqi War

Big Tom the Red by Manning Johnson

Bio-Sketches of Civil Rights Activists

Amite County Bob Moses & Terror in Mississippi (1960) By Jack Newfield

Beginning [Students Sit-In in Greensboro] By Jack Newfield

Forty Years of Determined Struggle by Rudolph Lewis

Karenga on Malcolm & the Need for Struggle (commentary)

"Kish Mir Tuchas, Baby" (Stokely Carmichael)

Kwanzaa & Its Founder (bio-sketch)

Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party Perspective by Jack Newfield

Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange, O.S.P. (bio-sketch)

Philip Berrigan, Civil Rights Activist (Obituary) A Bio-Chronology

When I Lay Dying Psalm for Two Voices

Who are the Real Enemies? Widen the Prison Gates

Randolph & the “Great White Father” (A. Philip Randolph)

Reverend Dr. Vashti Murphy McKenzie

Scipio Africanus Jones

Thomas Wyatt Turner (bio-sketch and writings)

Walter Lively: A Christ Among Us by Rudolph Lewis (essay)

What It Means to Be Negro by Daisy Bates

What's Next by Julian Bond (essay)

Book Reviews

Foiling the Arsonists [Benjamin Banneker] by Winfield Swanson

Seat of Honor -- Homer Plessy (bio-sketch0

We as Freemen by Keith Medley (on Homer Plessy)

Clarence Munford

Atlantic Slave Traffic by Clarence Munford

The Benefits of Whiteness by Clarence Munford

Boukman and His Comrades by Clarence Munford

Race and Reparations (Book Review)

Eldridge Cleaver

Black Panther Platform & Program

Cleaver Bio

Cleaver Speaks to Skip Gates

Daniel Berrigan on Cleaver

Fire Last Time

The Fire Now

Ishmael Reed's Preface

Maxwell Geismar's "Introduction"

Tearing the Goats Flesh

Retrospective on Soul on Ice By Amin Sharif

Freedom Ain't Come Yet! by Aduku Addae

Freedom Journal Lynching (news report, 1827)

Harold Cruse

The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual

Huey P. Newton

Defection of Eldridge Cleaver & Reactionary Suicide

Demythologizing Huey Newton by Cornish Rogers

I Am We

Manifesto: Revolutionary Suicide: The Way of Liberation

“Imagine! Niggers Speaking French!!!” by John Maxwell

Interview with Gore Vidal

Kil Ja Kim

Black Immigrants Deported in Higher Numbers

Bought Colored Kids

Image of the Black Criminal

To White Women Who Think

White Anti-Racist is an Oxymoron

Lil Joe Lil Joe Bio Lil Joe Index

Comments on Addae's "ABCs"

PaxAmerica in Decline

WTO Summit in Cancun and Singapore Issues

Malcolm X Malcolm X Videos

The Achievements of Elijah Muhammad (commentary)

Appeal to African Heads of State

Honoring Malcolm X by Junious Ricardo Stanton (essay)

In Remembrance of Malcolm X ”El Hajj Malik El Shabazz” by M. Quinn

Letter to Yvonne by Rudolph Lewis (commentary)

Living Scripture in Community by George W. Miller (essay)

Malcolm X Birthday Observance (report)

Malcolm X Letter to Elijah Muhammad

Malcolm X Is Dead! by Amin Sharif (essay)

The Malcolm X Tour 2003

Martin and Malcolm on Nonviolence (James Cone)

The Meaning Of Malcolm X By C. Eric Lincoln (essay)

Peter Bailey

To Take One's X by Randall H. Evans (review)

Review of My Face Is Black by Gayraud S. Wilmore. Jr.

Books by & About Malcolm X

Malcolm X: The Man and His Times / Seventh Child: A Family Memoir of Malcolm X / Martin and Malcolm and America

Ghosts in Our Blood: With Malcolm X in Africa, England, and the Caribbean

The Black Muslims in America / The Autobiography of Malcolm X / Malcolm X Speaks / By Any Means Necessary

February 1965: The Final Speeches / For Malcolm: Poems on the Life and Death of Malcolm X

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Martin Luther King

Cardinal Bernardin on Dr. King (commentary)

Chaos or Community

Commemoration of the 1963 March on Washington by Lil Joe

Chronology of the Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Edward Kennedy on Dr. King (commentary)

Ernest Withers--Civil Rights Photographer (bio; exhibit)

Eulogy by Five Birmingham Girls by Dr. King

I Have a Dream by Martin Luther King, Jr. (speech)

The Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Letter from Alabama Clergymen

Letter from Birmingham Jail

Living Scripture in Community by George W. Miller (essay)

Martin and Malcolm on Nonviolence by James Cone

Martin Luther King Speaks to AFL-CIO (speech)

Martin Luther King’s Vision by Kenneth L. Smith and Ira G. Zepp, Jr. (essay)

Speaks to AFL-CIO

The State of the Dream (Since Dr. King's Death)

What Would "Dr. Kang" Say? by. J.B. Borders

WWMLKD

Books by Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. / Strength to Love / The Measure of a Man / Why We Can't Wait

A Testament of Hope / A Knock at Midnight / The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., 1948-1963

Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community / Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story

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NATO or the UN Supporting the Interests of Capital By Connie White

Positively Black Table

Race, Racism & Reparations by J. Angelo Corlett (Book Review)

Ralph Garlin Clingan

Against Cheap Grace

Nuking Westerns and White Manliness

Rosa Parks

Rosa Parks

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The African World

America Beyond the Color Line

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George H. White & Ida B. Wells Lynching Index

Mahalia Jackson

Moore v. Dempsey

Myths of Low-Wage Workers

Portraits of Blacks

Positively Black Table

The Old South

Press Release from United for a Fair Economy

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Response to Addae

Responses to Skip Gates

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Skip Gates and the Talented Fifth

Six Killed in Bombingham

Social Role of Black Journalism

State Of Black America

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State of the Dream

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Work, Labor & Business Editor's Page

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Slavery

The 200th Anniversary of the Haitian Independence by Manes Pierre

African Slavery -- Religion and Colonial Brazil

Anarcha's Story by Alexandria C. Lynch, MS III J Marion Sims

Aristotle and America to 1550 by Lewis Hanke

The Atlantic Slave Trade by Madge Dresser

The Black Hearts of Men By John Stauffer (book review)

Latin America's Indian Question by David Maybury-Lewis and Paul H.Gelles

Pre-Reformation Religious Ideas by James T. Moore

“Time Longer Dan Rope” by Dr. Acklyn Lynch

What It Means to Be Negro by Daisy Bates

Some New Light on the Garvey Movement

Southern Needs by Michael Manley

Stokely Carmichael

Amite County, a perspective on SC by Jack Newfield

Beginning, a perspective on SC by Jack Newfield

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A Tribute to Kwame Toure/Stokely Carmichael

War, Peace, & Empire

ACTION: all out to stop the war

Another look at Israel Table

The Congressional Black Caucus Statement on War with Iraq

The Color Line and the War By Roy Wilkens

ChickenHawks Crow for War by Matt Bivens

The Fight for Global Justice by Danny Glover

Hard Truths: September 11, 2001 by Haki Madhubuti

How the Riots Might have Turned Out by Cornish Rogers

How To Stop The Killing in the Pan African Hood by Marvin X

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Lynching Index

The Military Industrial Complex by Junious Ricardo Stanton

Official: George Bush is Not God

Opium in the Far East

The Pain of Violence and Death in the Hood

PEACE YES / WAR NO by Kalamu ya Salaam

Plummer, Allensworth, Steward, et al

Poll Finds Blacks Least Likely to Back War Against Iraq

Prayers for Fellow Prisoners by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The San Francisco Anti-War March

Securing My Homeland by Judy Simmons

"A Son Goes to War" By Gordon Parks

Thinkable Genocide: the Tragedy of Rwanda

Unending War By John Maxwell

What is Fascism by Junious Ricardo Stanton

What Price the American Empire by Patrick J. Buchanan

What's Next by Julian Bond

World Empire and the Balance of Power by James Burnham

W.E.B. Du Bois

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Credo or Affirmation of Faith

Dawn of Freedom

Du Bois & Civil Religion

Jacob and Esau

Letter to Yolande 1958

Negro Church DuBois'

The Souls of Black Folk (table)

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Once Malcolm was dead and the finger was pointed at the Nation of Islam, many of Malcolm's own followers forgot what their leader was before his conversion to the Nation of Islam. They forgot that Malcolm was a self-admitted criminal with little or no regard for his people. This Malcolm was erased from their memory. Only the iconic firebrand of their cause remained. Malcolm the black revolutionary was much more preferred by his well-meaning followers than Malcolm the Black Muslim.

Oddly enough, many in the Nation of Islam, long after Malcolm had left their ranks, tried to hold on to Malcolm the Black Muslim. They insisted that Malcolm was solely the product of his experience and training in the Nation of Islam. To believe this is to believe that Malcolm never entertained an idea that was not passed down to him by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. We know that history does not bear this out. Malcolm was no robot. He and his mentor had many disagreements over many things. Malcolm X Is Dead

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King’s views on this entire question grew out of his early championship of an egalitarian, socialistic approach to wealth and property. "A life," he wrote, "is sacred. Property is intended to serve life, and no matter how much we surround it with rights and respect, it has no personal being. It is part of the earth man walks on; it is not man." He repeatedly condemned the United States’ economic system for withholding the necessities of life from the masses while heaping luxuries on the few.

One of our major goals, he declared, should be to bridge the gap between abject poverty and inordinate wealth. To this end he began, during the latter part of his life, to advocate a variety of economic programs, including the creation of jobs by government and the institution of a guaranteed annual minimal income. He was impatient with phrases like "human dignity"’ and "brotherhood of man" when they did not find concrete expression in the structures of society.

The point is that King believed it was God’s intention that everyone should have the physical and spiritual necessities of life. He could not envision the Beloved Community apart from the alleviation of economic inequity and the achievement of economic justice. Harvey Cox has aptly pointed out that King combined with this emphasis two traditional biblical themes: the "holiness of the poor" and the "blessed community." In the movement King led, blacks were the embodiment of "the poor" and integration represented the vision of "the holy community." Beloved Community

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updated 16 October 2007