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Books by & About Malcolm X
Malcolm X:
The Man and His Times /
Seventh Child: A Family Memoir of Malcolm X
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Martin and Malcolm and America
Ghosts in Our Blood: With Malcolm X in Africa, England,
and the Caribbean
The Black Muslims in America
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The Autobiography of Malcolm X /
Malcolm X Speaks /
By Any Means Necessary
February 1965: The Final Speeches
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Responses to Malcolm's
Letter to Elijah
A Note To
Yvonne
As ever and always, Rudy
Praises and blessings, I showed my
friend Kinya the 4-page Malcolm letter to Elijah and told him I placed a
link to it on the site. He didn't like that. Malcolm's
"impotency" seemed to smear his political black hero and saint.
Ain't it interesting how we all get hung up on the sex thang. Didn't the
same thing happen to King and just lately to Jesse. We won't attempt to
handle the countless others. But let us not forget the recent Catholic
Bishops Conference in Texas. Keep in mind there are a lot of Catholics in
Texas and they are gaining more and more power. So Texas is important.
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I told him today I thought it was a
most interesting letter on a number of counts. Not only Malolm's relationship
with Betty, but that two men--two black men-- could talk about such an
intimate matter. That says something very important and very necessary. So
this situation, this exposure of a domestic argument, is progressive. And even more so when we keep in mind that
Elijah was a father, more important still, a spiritual father and guide.
That kind of trust between two black men is rare and needs to be
applauded. As my brother Kalamu says in his poem "my father is dead.
again," dedicated to Tom Dent, "we do not kill our fathers/to
prove that we have arrived." In this "Letter to Elijah," Malcolm
is not a dead, used- to-be Black Muslim minister, Black Nationalist, Pan-Africanist, Pan-Muslim leader, Malcolm lives! now as a man.
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But more. It exposes a man of deep
thought and honesty about his own inner life. With respect to those who would conceal this
knowledge of this letter,
Malcolm becomes a greater man than that public Malcolm we have now
idolized, frozen in time. The care he took with such an intimate issue is
a lesson for the present.
And so humble. . . . Now you know, most men would have dragged
Betty around the block a couple of times by her hair. And then after that
exercise, many would tell her
he's hungry and she'd better go into the kitchen and get it right. . .
. But Malcolm was right, he understood you don't say everything that comes in your
mind, even if it is the truth. Of course, your truth.
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Malcolm was right again and very
perceptive. Women today are not like yesterday's woman, like my
91-year-old grandmother who worked the fields like a man, who believes
there are women's duties and men's duties and a woman don't
play around with her duties to a man, you don't play with men. Unless you asking for trouble. You don't do it,
tend to a woman's duties, because the man wants
it. You do it because it's the right thing to do. That's part of the bargain
of marriage.
As a child I wondered why Mama and Daddy
slept in different rooms. Was it the snoring, the flatulence? |
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I didn't
understand why Daddy threatened to kill himself, to shoot himself in
the head with the shotgun and why she tried to wrestle the gun from him
and then relented and let him have the shells. And when I cried for
my daddy's life, she said, "Your daddy wants to live just like any man!. And
sure enough he was alive the next day."
Malcolm. Oh, Malcolm. Poor Malcolm. And
poor Betty. The things we do to get joy, and worst, the things we say.
Hell, knows no fury . . . . Old
folks say you got to watch your tongue. Don't get your little red wagon
stepped on. No truer words been spoken.
So the link continues on ChickenBones:
A Journal. I want people to know about the letter and everybody that
might benefit by it I am gonna tell. Maybe somebody like me should write
an editorial about it. You see! You inspire me! I will start on it in a
moment.
So I am now typing Yusef's poems. I have
devised a table so that they can be accessed from the opening page. I am
getting ready to type "Woman, I Got the Blues." But I'll do that
after I write the editorial on Malcolm's Letter to Elijah.
Enjoy the concert. As ever and always,
Rudy
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Malcolm X
artifacts unearthed—Police docs and more found among
belongs of 'Shorty' Jarvis—1 February 2012—Documents
outlining the crime that landed Malcolm X in prison in
the 1940s are among some 1,000 recently unearthed items
purchased jointly by the civil rights leader's
foundation and an independent collector of
African-American artifacts. The documents and other
artifacts belonged to late musician Malcolm "Shorty"
Jarvis, who served in prison with Malcolm X and was one
of his closest friends. Jarvis' 1976 pardon paper also
is part of the collection, which was recently discovered
by accident. The items had been in a Connecticut storage
unit that had gone into default, and were initially
auctioned off to a buyer who had no idea what he was
bidding on. The Omaha, Nebraska-based Malcolm X Memorial
Foundation, which oversees the Malcolm X Center located
at his birthplace, will house and display the
just-arrived archives. It split the cost with Black
History 101 Mobile Museum, based in Detroit—the
birthplace of the Nation of Islam.—Mobile Museum founder
and curator Khalid el-Hakim declined to identify the
original buyer or the price the two organizations paid
for the trove. Still, even after splitting the cost, he
said it's the largest acquisition to date for his mobile
museum, which includes Jim Crow-era artifacts, a Ku Klux
Klan hood and signed documents by Malcolm X and Rosa
Parks. . . . The collection also reveals an enduring
connection between the two Malcolms after their
incarceration, Malcolm X's conversion to Islam and his
rise to prominence. There's a 72-page scrapbook of
Malcolm X's life that was maintained by Jarvis until
after his friend's 1965 assassination. One of the civil
rights era's most controversial and compelling figures,
Malcolm X rose to fame as the chief spokesman of the
Nation of Islam, a movement started in Detroit more than
80 years ago. He proclaimed the black Muslim
organization's message at the time: racial separatism as
a road to self-actualization and urged blacks to claim
civil rights "by any means necessary" and referred to
whites as "devils."—TheGrio
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John
Coltrane, "Alabama" /
Kalamu ya Salaam, "Alabama"
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A Love Supreme
A Blues for the Birmingham Four
/ Eulogy for the Young Victims
/ Six Dead After Church
Bombing
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Audio:
My Story, My Song (Featuring blues guitarist Walter Wolfman Washington)
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Malcolm X:
A Life of Reinvention
By
Manning Marable
Years
in the making-the definitive biography of
the legendary black activist.
Of the great figure in twentieth-century
American history perhaps none is more
complex and controversial than Malcolm X.
Constantly rewriting his own story, he
became a criminal, a minister, a leader, and
an icon, all before being felled by
assassins' bullets at age thirty-nine.
Through his tireless work and countless
speeches he empowered hundreds of thousands
of black Americans to create better lives
and stronger communities while establishing
the template for the self-actualized,
independent African American man. In death
he became a broad symbol of both resistance
and reconciliation for millions around the
world.
Manning Marable's new biography of Malcolm
is a stunning achievement.
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Filled with new information and shocking revelations
that go beyond the Autobiography, Malcolm X unfolds a
sweeping story of race and class in America, from the
rise of Marcus Garvey and the Ku Klux Klan to the
struggles of the civil rights movement in the fifties
and sixties.
Reaching into
Malcolm's troubled youth, it traces a path from his
parents' activism through his own engagement with the
Nation of Islam, charting his astronomical rise in the
world of Black Nationalism and culminating in the
never-before-told true story of his assassination.
Malcolm X will stand as the definitive work on one of
the most singular forces for social change, capturing
with revelatory clarity a man who constantly strove, in
the great American tradition, to remake himself anew.
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Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in
America
By Melissa V.
Harris-Perry
According to the
author, this society has historically exerted
considerable pressure on black females to fit into one
of a handful of stereotypes, primarily, the Mammy, the
Matriarch or the Jezebel. The selfless
Mammy’s behavior is marked by a slavish devotion to
white folks’ domestic concerns, often at the expense of
those of her own family’s needs. By contrast, the
relatively-hedonistic Jezebel is a sexually-insatiable
temptress. And the Matriarch is generally thought of as
an emasculating figure who denigrates black men, ala the
characters Sapphire and Aunt Esther on the television
shows Amos and Andy and Sanford and Son, respectively.
Professor Perry
points out how the propagation of these harmful myths
have served the mainstream culture well. For instance,
the Mammy suggests that it is almost second nature for
black females to feel a maternal instinct towards
Caucasian babies.
As for the source
of the Jezebel, black women had no control over their
own bodies during slavery given that they were being
auctioned off and bred to maximize profits. Nonetheless,
it was in the interest of plantation owners to propagate
the lie that sisters were sluts inclined to mate
indiscriminately.
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The Last Holiday: A Memoir
By Gil Scott Heron
Shortly after we republished The Vulture and The Nigger Factory, Gil started to tell me about The Last Holiday, an account he was writing of a multi-city tour that he ended up doing with Stevie Wonder in late 1980 and early 1981. Originally Bob Marley was meant to be playing the tour that Stevie Wonder had conceived as a way of trying to force legislation to make Martin Luther King's birthday a national holiday. At the time, Marley was dying of cancer, so Gil was asked to do the first six dates. He ended up doing all 41. And Dr King's birthday ended up becoming a national holiday ("The Last Holiday because America can't afford to have another national holiday"), but Gil always felt that Stevie never got the recognition he deserved and that his story needed to be told. The first chapters of this book were given to me in New York when Gil was living in the Chelsea Hotel. Among the pages was a chapter called Deadline that recounts the night they played Oakland, California, 8 December; it was also the night that John Lennon was murdered. Gil uses Lennon's violent end as a brilliant parallel to Dr King's assassination and as a biting commentary on the constraints that sometimes lead to newspapers getting things wrong. —Jamie Byng, Guardian / Gil_reads_"Deadline" (audio) / Gil Scott-Heron
& His Music Gil Scott
Heron Blue Collar
Remember Gil Scott- Heron |
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
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Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
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The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
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Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
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January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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update
5 February 2012
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