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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
* * * * *
Speech on the Founding
of the OAAU
By Malcolm X
June 28, 1964
Salaam Alaikum, Mr.
Moderator, our distinguished guests, brothers and
sisters, our friends and our enemies, everybody who's
here.
As many of you
know, last March when it was announced that I was no
longer in the Black Muslim movement, it was pointed out
that it was my intention to work among the 22 million
non-Muslim Afro-Americans and to try and form some type
of organization, or create a situation where the young
people—our young people, the students and others— could
study the problems of our people for a period of time
and then come up with a new analysis and give us some
new ideas and some new suggestions as to how to approach
a problem that too many other people have been playing
around with for too long. And that we would have some
kind of meeting and determine at a later date whether to
form a black nationalist party or a black nationalist
army.
There have been
many of our people across the country from all walks of
life who have taken it upon themselves to try and pool
their ideas and to come up with some kind of solution to
the problem that confronts all of our people. And
tonight we are here to try and get an understanding of
what it is they've come up with.
Also, recently when
I was blessed to make a religious pilgrimage to the holy
city of Mecca where I met many people from all over the
world, plus spent many weeks in Africa trying to broaden
my own scope and get more of an open mind to look at the
problem as it actually is, one of the things that I
realized, and I realized this even before going over
there, was that our African brothers have gained their
independence faster than you and I here in America have.
They've also gained
recognition and respect as human beings much faster than
you and I.
Just ten years ago
on the African continent, our people were colonized.
They were suffering all forms of colonization,
oppression, exploitation, degradation, humiliation,
discrimination, and every other kind of -ation. And in a
short time, they have gained more independence, more
recognition, more respect as human beings than you and I
have. And you and I live in a country which is supposed
to be the citadel of education, freedom, justice,
democracy, and all of those other pretty-sounding words.
So it was our
intention to try and find out what it was our African
brothers were doing to get results, so that you and I
could study what they had done and perhaps . gain from
that study or benefit from their experiences. And my
traveling over there was designed to help to find out
how. One of the first things that the independent
African nations did was to form an organization called
the Organization of African Unity. This organization
consists of all independent African states who have
reached the agreement to submerge all differences and
combine their efforts toward eliminating from the
continent of Africa colonialism and all vestiges of
oppression and exploitation being suffered by African
people. Those who formed the organization of African
states have differences. They represent probably every
segment, every type of thinking.
You have some
leaders that are considered Uncle Toms, some leaders who
are considered very militant. But even the militant
African leaders were able to sit down at the same table
with African leaders whom they considered to be Toms, or
Tshombes, or that type of character. They forgot their
differences for the so le purpose of bringing benefits
to the whole. And whenever you find people who can't
forget their differences, then they're more interested
in their personal aims and objectives than they are in
the conditions of the whole.
Well, the African
leaders showed their maturity by doing what the American
white man said couldn't be done. Because if you recall
when it was mentioned that these African states were
going to meet in Addis Ababa, all of the Western press
began to spread the propaganda that they didn't have
enough in common to come together and to sit down
together. Why, they had Nkrumah there, one of the most
militant of the African leaders, and they had Adoula
from the Congo. They had Miserere there, they had Ben
Bella there, they had Nasser there, they had Sekou Toure,
they had Obote; they had Kenyatta—I guess Kenyatta was
there, I can't remember whether Kenya was independent at
that time, but I think he was there.
Everyone was there
and despite their differences, they were able to sit
down and form what was known as the Organization of
African Unity, which has formed a coalition and is
working in con- junction with each other to fight a
common enemy.
Once we saw what
they were able to do, we determined to try and do the
same thing here in America among Afro-Americans who have
been divided by our, enemies. So we have formed an
organization known as the Organization of
American-American Unity which has the same aim and
objective-to fight whoever gets in our way, to bring
about the complete independence of people of African
descent here in the Western Hemisphere, and first here
in the United States, and bring about the freedom of
these people by any means necessary.
That's our motto. W
e want freedom by any means, necessary. W e want justice
by any means necessary. We want equality by any means
necessary. We don't feel that in 1964, living in a
country that is supposedly based upon freedom, and
supposedly the leader of the free world, we don't think
that we should have to sit around and wait for some
segregationist congressmen and senators and a President
from Texas in Washington, D. C., to make up their minds
that our people are due now some degree of civil rights.
No, we want it now or we don't think anybody should have
it.
The purpose of our
organization is to start right here in Harlem, which has
the largest concentration of people of African descent
that exists anywhere on this earth. There are more
Africans in Harlem than exist in any city on the African
continent. Because that's what you and I are-Africans.
You catch any white man off guard in here right now, you
catch him off guard and ask him what he is, he doesn't
say he's an American. He either tells you he's Irish, or
he's Italian, or he's Ger- man, if you catch him off
guard and he doesn't know what you're up to. And even
though he was born here, he'll tell you he's Italian.
Well, if he's Italian, you and I are African - even
though we were born here.
So we start in New
York City first. We start in Harlem - and by Harlem we
mean Bedford-Stuyvesant, any place in this area where
you and I live, that's Harlem- with the intention of
spreading throughout the state, and from the state
throughout the country, and from the country throughout
the Western Hemisphere. Because when we say
Afro-American, we include every- one in the Western
Hemisphere of African descent. South America is America.
Central America is
America. South America has many people in it of African
descent. And everyone in South America of African
descent is an Afro- American. Everyone in the Caribbean,
whether it's the West Indies or Cuba or Mexico, if they
have African blood, they are Afro-Americans. If they're
in Canada and they have African blood, they're
Afro-Americans. If they're in Alaska, though they might
call themselves Eskimos, if they have African blood,
they're Afro-Americans.
So the purpose of
the Organization of Afro-American Unity is to unite
everyone in the Western Hemisphere of African descent
into one united force. And then, once II we are united
among ourselves in the Western Hemisphere, we will unite
with our brothers on the motherland, on the continent of
Africa. So to get right with it, I would like to read
you the "Basic Aims and Objectives if of the
Organization of Afro-American Unity," started if here in
New York, June, 1964.
|
The Organization of
Afro-American Unity, organized and
structured by a cross section of the
Afro-American people living in the United
States of America, has been patterned after
the letter and spirit of the Organization of
African Unity which was established at Addis
Ababa, Ethiopia, in M ay of 1963.
We, the members of the
Organization of Afro-American Unity,
gathered together in Harlem, New York:
Convinced that it is the
inalienable right of all our people to
control our own destiny;
Conscious of the fact
that freedom, equality, justice and dignity
are central objectives for the achievement
of the legitimate aspirations of the people
of African descent here in the Western
Hemisphere, we will endeavor to build a
bridge of understanding and create the basis
for Afro-American unity;
Conscious of our
responsibility to harness the natural and
human resources of our people for their
total advancement in all spheres of human
endeavor;
Inspired by our common
determination to promote understanding among
our people and cooperation in all matters
pertaining to their survival and
advancement, we will support the aspirations
of our people for brotherhood and solidarity
in a larger unity transcending all
organizational differences;
Convinced that, in order
to translate this determination into a
dynamic force in the cause of human progress
conditions of peace and security must be
established and maintained;" - And by
"conditions of peace and security," [we
mean] we have to eliminate the barking of
the police dogs, we have to eliminate the
police clubs, we have to eliminate the water
hoses, we have to eliminate all of these
things that have become so characteristic of
the American so-called dream. These have to
be eliminated. Then we will be living in a
condition of peace and security. |
We can never have
peace and security as long as one black man in this
country is being bitten by a police dog. No one in the
country has peace and security.
|
Dedicated to the
unification of all people of African-descent
in this hemisphere and to the utilization of
that unity to bring into being the
organizational structure that will project
the black people's contributions to the
world;
Persuaded that the
Charter of the United Nations, the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, the
Constitution of the United States and the B
ill of Rights are the principles in which we
believe and that these documents if put into
practice represent the essence of mankind's
hopes and good intentions;
Desirous that all
American-American people and organizations
should henceforth unite so that the welfare
and well-being of our people will be
assured;
We are resolved to
reinforce the common bond of purpose between
our people by submerging all of our
differences and establishing a nonsectarian,
constructive program for human rights;
We hereby present this charter.
I—Establishment
The Organization of American-American
Unity shall include all people of African
descent in the Western Hemisphere, as well
as our brothers and sisters on the African
continent. |
Which means anyone
of African descent, with African blood, can become a
member of the Organization of American-American Unity,
and also anyone of our brothers and sisters from the
African continent. Because not only it is an
organization of American-American unity meaning that we
are trying to unite our people in the West, but it's an
organization of American-American unity in the sense
that we want to unite all of our people who are in North
America, South America, and Central America with our
people on the African continent. We must unite together
in order to go forward together. Africa will not go
forward any faster than we will and we will not go
forward any faster than Africa will. We have one destiny
and we've had one past.
In essence, what it
is saying is instead of you and me running around here
seeking allies in our struggle for freedom in the Irish
neighborhood or the Jewish neighborhood or the Italian
neighborhood, we need to seek some allies among people
who look something like we do. It's time now for you and
me to stop running away from the wolf right into the
arms of the fox, looking for some kind of help. That's a
drag.
| II—Self Defense Since
self-preservation is the first law of
nature, we assert the Afro-American's right
to self-defense.
The Constitution of the
United States of America clearly affirms the
right of every American citizen to bear
arms. And as Americans, we will not give up
a single right guaranteed under the
Constitution. The history of unpunished
violence against our people clearly
indicates that we must be prepared to defend
ourselves or we will continue to be a
defenseless people at the mercy of a
ruthless and violent racist mob.
We assert that in those
areas where the government is either unable
or unwilling to protect the lives and
property of our people, that our people are
within our rights to protect themselves by
whatever means necessary. |
I repeat, because to me this is the
most important thing you need to know. I already know
it.
|
We assert that in those
areas where the government is either unable
or unwilling to protect the lives and
property of our people, that our people are
within our rights to protect themselves by
whatever means necessary. |
This is the thing
you need to spread the word about among our people
wherever you go. Never let them be brainwashed into
thinking that whenever they take steps to see that
they're in a position to defend themselves that they're
being unlawful. The only time you're being unlawful is
when you break the law. It's lawful to have something to
defend yourself. Why, I heard President Johnson either
today or yesterday, I guess it was today, talking about
how quick this country would go to war to defend itself.
Why, what kind of a fool do you look like, living in a
country that will go to war at the drop of a hat to
defend itself, and here you've got to stand up in the
face of vicious police dogs and blue-eyed crackers
waiting for somebody to tell you what to do to defend
yourself!
Those days are
over, they're gone, that's yesterday. The time for you
and me to allow ourselves to be brutalized nonviolently
is passé. Be nonviolent only with those who are
nonviolent to you. And when you can bring me a
nonviolent racist, bring me a nonviolent segregationist,
then I'll get nonviolent. But don't teach me to be
nonviolent until you teach some of those crackers to be
nonviolent. You've never seen a nonviolent cracker. It's
hard for a racist to be nonviolent. It's hard for anyone
intelligent to be nonviolent. Everything in the universe
does something when you start playing with his life,
except the American Negro. He lays down and says, “Beat
me, daddy."
So it says here: "A
man with a rifle or a club can only be stopped by a
person who defends himself with a rifle or a club."
That's equality. If you have a dog, I must have a dog.
If you have a rifle, I must have a rifle. If you have a
club, I must have a club. This is equality. If the
United States government doesn't want you and me to get
rifles, then take the rifles away from those racists. If
they don't want you and me to use clubs, take the clubs
away from the racists. If they don't want you and me to
get violent, then stop the racists from being violent.
Don't teach us nonviolence while those crackers are
violent.
Those days are over.
|
Tactics based solely on
morality can only succeed when you are
dealing with people who are moral or a
system that is moral. A man or system which
oppresses a man because of his color is not
moral. It is the duty of every Afro-American
person and every Afro-American community
throughout this country to protect its
people against mass murderers, against
bombers, against lynchers, against floggers,
against brutalizers and against exploiters. |
I might say right
here that instead of the various black groups declaring
war on each other, showing how militant they can be
cracking each other's heads, let them go down South and
crack some of those crackers' heads. Any group of people
in this country that has a record of having been
attacked by racists—and there's no record where they
have ever given the signal to take the heads of some of
those racists—why, they are insane giving the signal to
take the heads of some of their ex-brothers. Or brother
X's, I don't know how you put that.
|
III—Education
Education is an
important element in the struggle for human
rights. It is the means to help our children
and our people rediscover their identity and
thereby increase their self-respect.
Education is our passport to the future, for
tomorrow belongs only to the people who
prepare for it today. |
And I must point out right there,
when I was in Africa I met no African who wasn't
standing with open arms to embrace any Afro-American who
returned to the African continent. But one of the things
that all of them have said is that everyone of our
people in this country should take advantage of every
type of educational opportunity available before you
even think about talking about the future. If you're
surrounded by schools, go to that school.
| Our children are being criminally
shortchanged in the public school system of
America. The Afro-American schools are the
poorest-run schools in the city of New York.
Principals and teachers fail to understand
the nature of the problems with which they
work and as a result they cannot do the job
of teaching our children. |
They don't understand us, nor do
they understand our problems; they don't.
|
The textbooks tell our
children nothing about the great
contributions of Afro-Americans to the
growth and development of this country. |
And they don't.
When we send our children to school in this country they
learn nothing about us other than that we used to be
cotton pickers. Every little child going to school
thinks his grandfather was a cotton picker. Why, your
grandfather was Nat Turner;
your grandfather was Toussaint
L'Ouverture; your grandfather was
Hannibal.
Your grandfather was some of the greatest black people
who walked on this earth. It was your grandfather's
hands who forged civilization and it was your
grandmother's hands who rocked the cradle of
civilization. But the textbooks tell our children
nothing about the great contributions of Afro-Americans
to the growth and development of this country.
|
The Board of Education's
integration plan is expensive and
unworkable; and the organization of
principals and supervisors in New York
City's school system has refused to support
the Board's plan to integrate the schools,
thus dooming it to failure before it even
starts.
The Board of Education of
this city has said that even with its plan
there are 10 percent of the schools in
Harlem and the Bedford-Stuyvesant community
in Brooklyn that they cannot improve." So
what are we to do?
This means that the
Organization of Afro-American Unity must
make the Afro-American community a more
potent force for educational
self-improvement.
A first step in the
program to end the existing system of racist
education is to demand that the 10 percent
of the schools the Board of Education will
not include in its plan be turned over to
and run by the Afro-American community
itself. |
Since they say that
they can't improve these schools, why should you and I
who live in the community, let these fools continue to
run and produce this low standard of education? No, let
them turn those schools over to us. Since they say they
can't handle them, nor can they correct them, let us
take a whack at it.
What do we want?
| We want Afro-American principals to head
these schools. We want Afro-American
teachers in these schools. |
Meaning we want black principals
and black teachers with some textbooks about black
people.
| We want textbooks written by
Afro-Americans that are acceptable to our
people before they can be used in these
schools. The Organization
of Afro-American Unity will select and
recommend people to serve on local school
boards where school policy is made and
passed on to the Board of Education. |
And this is very important.
|
Through these steps we
will make the 10 percent of the schools that
we take over educational showplaces that
will attract the attention of people from
all over the nation." Instead of them being
schools turning out pupils whose academic
diet is not complete, we can turn them into
examples of what we can do ourselves once
given an opportunity.
If these proposals are
not met, we will ask American-American
parents to keep their children out of the
present inferior schools they attend. And
when these schools in our neighborhood are
controlled by Americans-Americans, we will
then return our children to them.
The Organization of
American-American Unity recognizes the
tremendous importance of the complete
involvement of American-American parents in
every phase of school life. The
American-American parent must be willing and
able to go into the schools and see that the
job of educating our children is done
properly. |
This whole thing
about putting all of the blame on the teacher is out the
window. The parent at home has just as much
responsibility to see that what's going on in that
school is up to par as the teacher in their schools. So
it is our intention not only to devise an education
program for the children, but one also for the parents
to make them aware of their responsibility where
education is concerned in regard to their children.
|
We call on all Americans-Americans
around the nation to be aware that the
conditions that exist in the New York City
public school system are as deplorable in
their cities as they are here. We must unite
our efforts and spread our program of
self-improvement through education to every
American-American community in America.
We
must establish all over the country schools
of our own to train our own children to
become scientists, to become mathematicians.
W e must realize the need for adult
education and for job retraining programs
that will emphasize a changing society in
which automation plays the key role. We
intend to use the tools of education to help
raise our people to an unprecedented level
of excellence and self-respect through their
own efforts.
IV—Politics and Economics |
And the two are almost inseparable,
because the politician is depending on some money; yes,
that's what he's depending on.
|
Basically, there are two
kind s of power that count in America:
economic power and political power, with
social power being derived from those two.
In order for the Afro-Americans to control
their destiny, they must be able to control
and affect the decisions which control their
destiny: economic, political, and social.
This can only be done through organization.
The Organization of
Afro-American Unity will organize the
Afro-American community block by block to
make the community aware of its power and
its potential; we will start immediately a
voter registration drive to make every
unregistered voter in the Afro-American
community an independent voter. |
We won't organize
any black man to be a Democrat or a Republican because
both of them have sold us out. Both of them have sold us
out; both parties have sold us out. Both parties are
racist, and the Democratic P arty is more racist than
the Republican Party. I can prove it. All you've got to
do is name everybody who's running the government in
Washington, D. C. right now. He's a Democrat and he's
from either Georgia, Alabama, Texas, Mississippi,
Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, from one of
those cracker states. And they've got more power than
any white man in the North has.
In fact, the
President is from a cracker state. What's he talking
about? Texas is a cracker state, in fact, they'll hang
you quicker in Texas than they will in Mississippi.
Don't you ever think that just because a cracker becomes
president he ceases being a cracker. He was a cracker
before he became president and he's a cracker while he's
president. I'm going to tell it like it is. I hope you
can take it like it is.
|
We propose to support and
organize political clubs, to run independent
candidates for office, and to support any
Afro-American already in office who answers
to and is responsible to the Afro-American
community. |
We don't support
any black man who is controlled by the white power
structure. We will start not only a voter registration
drive, but a voter education d rive to let our people
have an understanding of the science of politics so they
will be able to see what part the politician plays in
the scheme of things; so they will be able to understand
when the politician is doing his job and when he is not
doing his job. And any time the politician is not doing
his job, we remove him whether he's white, black, green,
blue, yellow or whatever other color they might invent.
| The economic exploitation in the
American-American community is the most
vicious form practiced on any people in
America. |
In fact, it is the
most vicious practiced on any people on this earth. No
one is exploited economically as thoroughly as you and
I, because in most countries where people are exploited
they know it. You and I are in this country being
exploited and sometimes we don't know it.
| Twice as much rent is paid for rat
infested, roach-crawling, rotting tenements. |
This is true. It
costs us more to live in Harlem than it costs them to
live on Park Avenue. Do you know that the rent is higher
on Park Avenue in Harlem than it is on Park Avenue
downtown? And in Harlem you have everything else in that
apartment with you- roaches, rats, cats, dogs, and some
other outsiders-disguised as landlords.
| The American-American pays more for
food, pays more for clothing, pays more for
insurance than anybody else. |
And we do. It costs
you and me more for insurance than it does the white man
in the Bronx or somewhere else. It costs you and me more
for food than it does them. It costs you and me more to
live in America than it does anybody else, and yet we
make the greatest contribution. You tell me what kind of
country this is. Why should we do the dirtiest jobs for
the lowest pay? Why should we do the hardest work for
the lowest pay? Why should we pay the most money for the
worst kind of food and the most money for the worst kind
of place to live in? I'm telling you we do it because we
live in one of the rottenest countries that has ever
existed on this earth. It's the system that is rotten;
we have a rotten system.
It's a system of
exploitation, a political and economic system of
exploitation, of outright humiliation, degradation,
discrimination—all of the negative things that you can
run into, you have run into under this system that
disguises itself as a democracy, disguises itself as a
democracy. And the things that they practice against you
and me are worse than some of the things that they
practiced in Germany against the Jews. Worse than some
of the things that the Jews ran into. And you run around
here getting ready to get drafted and go someplace and
defend it. Someone needs to crack you up 'side your
head.
|
The Organization of
Afro-American Unity will wage an unrelenting
struggle against these evils in our
community. There shall be organizers to work
with our people to solve these problems, and
start a housing self improvement program. |
Instead of waiting for the white
man to come and straighten out our neighborhood, we'll
straighten it out ourselves. This is where you make your
mistake. An outsider can't clean up your house as well
as you can. An outsider can't take care of your children
as well as you can. An outsider can't look after your
needs as well as you can. And an outsider can't
understand your problems as well as you can. Yet you're
looking for an outsider to do it. W e will do it or it
will never get done.
| We propose to support rent strikes. |
Yes, not little,
small rent strikes in one block. We'll make Harlem a
rent strike. We'll get every black man in this city; the
Organization of Afro-American Unity won't stop until
there's not a black man in the city not on strike.
Nobody will pay any rent. The whole city will come to a
halt. And they can't put all of us in jail because
they've already got the jails full of us.
Concerning our
social needs—I hope I'm not frightening anyone. I should
stop right here and tell you if you're the type of
person who frights, who gets scared, you should never
come around us. Because we'll scare you to death. And
you don't have far to go because you're half dead
already. Economically you're dead- dead broke. Just got
paid yesterday and dead broke right now.
| V—Social This organization is
responsible only to the Afro-American people
and the Afro-American community. |
This organization
is not responsible to anybody but us. We don't have to
ask the man downtown can we demonstrate. We don't have
to ask the man downtown what tactics we can use to
demonstrate our resentment against his criminal abuse.
We don't have to ask his consent; we don't have to ask
his endorsement; we don't have to ask his permission.
Anytime we know
that an unjust condition exists and it is illegal and
unjust, we will strike at it by any means necessary. And
strike also at whatever and whoever gets in the way.
| This organization is responsible only to
the Afro- American people and community and
will function only with their support, both
financially and numerically. We believe that
our communities must be the sources of their
own strength politically, economically,
intellectually, and culturally in the
struggle for human rights and human dignity.
The community must reinforce its moral
responsibility to rid itself of the effects
of years of exploitation, neglect, and
apathy, and wage an unrelenting struggle
against police brutality. |
Yes. There are some
good policemen and some bad policemen. Usually we get
the bad ones. With all the police in Harlem, there is
too much crime, too much drug addiction, too much
alcoholism, too much prostitution, too much gambling. So
it makes us suspicious about the motives of Commissioner
Murphy when he sends all these policemen up here. We
begin to think that they are just his errand boys, whose
job it is to pick up the graft and take it back downtown
to Murphy. Anytime there's a police commissioner who
finds it necessary to increase the strength numerically
of the policemen in Harlem and, at the same time, we
don't see any sign of a decrease in crime, why, I think
we're justified in suspecting his motives. He can't be
sending them up here to fight crime, because crime is on
the increase. The more cops we have, the more crime we
have. We begin to think that they bring some of the
crime with them.
So our purpose is
to organize the community so that we ourselves—since the
police can't eliminate the drug traffic, we have to
eliminate it. Since the police can't eliminate organized
gambling, we have to eliminate it. Since the police
can't eliminate organized prostitution and all of these
evils that are destroying the moral fiber of our
community, it is up to you and me to eliminate these
evils ourselves. But in many instances, when you unite
in this country or in this city to fight organized
crime, you'll find yourselves fighting the police
department itself because they are involved in the
organized crime.
Wherever you have
organized crime, that type of crime cannot exist other
than with the consent of the police, the knowledge of
the police and the cooperation of the police.
You'll agree that
you can't run a number in your neighborhood without the
police knowing it. A prostitute can't turn a trick on
the block without the police knowing it. A man can't
push drugs anywhere along the avenue without the police
knowing it. And they pay the police off so that they
will not get arrested.
I know what I'm
talking about—I used to be out there. And I know you
can't hustle out there without police setting you up.
You have to pay them off.
The police are all
right. I say there's some good ones and some bad ones.
But they usually send the bad ones to Harlem. Since
these bad police have come to Harlem and have not
decreased the high rate of crime, I tell you brothers
and sisters it is time for you and me to organize and
eliminate these evils ourselves, or we'll be out of the
world backwards before we even know where the world was.
Drug addiction
turns your little sister into a prostitute before she
gets into her teens; makes a criminal out of your little
brother before he gets in his teens - drug addiction and
alcoholism. And if you and I aren't men enough to get at
the root of these things, then we don't even have the
right to walk around here complaining about it in any
form whatsoever. The police will not eliminate it.
|
Our community must
reinforce its moral responsibility to rid
itself of the effects of years of
exploitation, neglect, and apathy, and wage
an unrelenting struggle against police
brutality. |
Where this police
brutality also comes in - the new law that they just
passed, the no-knock law, the stop-and-frisk law, that's
an anti-Negro law. That's a law that was passed and
signed by Rockefeller. Rockefeller with his old smile,
always he has a greasy smile on his face and he's
shaking hands with Negroes, like he's the Negro's pappy
or granddaddy or great-uncle. Yet when it comes to
passing a law that is worse than any law that they had
in Nazi Germany, why, Rockefeller couldn't wait till he
got his signature on it. And the only thing this law is
designed to do is make legal what they've been doing all
the time. They've passed a law that gives them the right
to knock down your door without even knocking on it.
Knock it down and
come on in and bust your head and frame you up under the
disguise that they suspect you of something. Why,
brothers, they didn't have laws that bad in Nazi
Germany. And it was passed for you and me, it's an
anti-Negro law, because you've got an anti- Negro
governor sitting up there in Albany—I started to say
Albany, Georgia—in Albany, New York. Not too much
difference. Not too much difference between Albany, New
York, and Albany, Georgia. And there's not too much
difference between the government that's in Albany, New
York, and the government in Albany, Georgia.
|
The Afro-American
community must accept the responsibility for
regaining our people who have lost their
place in society. We must declare an all-out
war on organized crime in our community; a
vice that is controlled by policemen who
accept bribes and graft must be exposed. We
must establish a clinic, whereby one can get
aid and cure for drug addiction. |
This is absolutely
necessary. When a person is a drug addict, he's not the
criminal; he's a victim of the criminal. The criminal is
the man downtown who brings this drug into the country.
Negroes can't bring drugs into this country. You don't
have any boats. You don't have any airplanes. You don't
have any diplomatic immunity. It is not you who is
responsible for bringing in drugs. You're just a little
tool that is used by the man downtown. The man that
controls the drug traffic sits in city hall or he sits
in the state house. Big shots who are respected, who
function in high circles—those are the ones who control
these things. And you and I will never strike at the
root of it until we strike at the man downtown.
| We must create meaningful, creative,
useful activities for those who were led
astray down the avenues of vice.
The people of the Afro-American community
must be prepared to help each other in all
ways possible; we must establish a place
where unwed mothers can get help and advice. |
This is a problem, this is one of
the worst problems in our. . . [A short passage is lost
here as the tape is turned.]
| We must set up a guardian system that
will help our youth who get into trouble. |
Too many of our
children get into trouble accidentally. And once they
get into trouble, because they have no one to look out
for them, they're put in some of these homes where
others who are experienced at getting in trouble are.
And immediately it's a bad
influence on them
and they never have a chance to straighten out their
lives. Too many of our children have their entire lives
destroyed in this manner. It is up to you and me right
now to form the type of organizations wherein we can
look out for the needs of all of these young people who
get into trouble, especially those who get into trouble
for the first time, so that we can do something to steer
them back on the right path before they go too far
astray.
|
And we must provide
constructive activities for our own
children. We must set a good example for our
children and must teach them to always be
ready to accept the responsibilities that
are necessary for building good communities
and nations. We must teach them that their
greatest responsibilities are to themselves,
to their families and to their communities.
The Organization of
Afro-American Unity believes that the
Afro-American community must endeavor to do
the major part of all charity work from
within the community. Charity, however, does
not mean that to which we are legally
entitled in the form of government benefits.
The Afro-American veteran must be made aware
of all the benefits due to him and the
procedure for obtaining them. |
Many of our people
have sacrificed their lives on the battlefront for this
country. There are many government benefits that our
people don't even know about. Many of them are qualified
to receive aid in all forms, but they don't even know
it. But we know this, so it is our duty, those of us who
know it, to set up a system where-in our people who are
not informed of what is coming to them, we inform them,
we let them know how they can lay claim to everything
that they've got coming to them from this government.
And I mean you've got much coming to you.
|
The veterans must be
encouraged to go into business together,
using GI loans." and all other items that we
have access to or have available to us.
Afro-Americans must unite
and work together. We must take pride in the
Afro-American community, for it is our home
and it is our power," the base of our power.
What we do here in
regaining our self-respect, our manhood, our
dignity and freedom helps all people
everywhere who are also fighting against
oppression. |
Lastly, concerning culture and the
cultural aspect of the Organization of Afro-American
Unity.
|
"A race of people is like
an individual man; until it uses its own
talent, takes pride in its own history,
expresses its own culture, affirms its own
selfhood, it can never fulfill itself."
Our history and our
culture were completely destroyed when we
were forcibly brought to America in chains.
And now it is important for us to know that
our history did no t begin with slavery. We
came from Africa, a great continent, wherein
live a proud and varied people, a land which
is the new world and was the cradle of
civilization. Our culture and our history
are as old as man himself and yet we know
almost nothing about it |
This is no
accident. It is no accident that such a high state of
culture existed in Africa and you and I know nothing
about it. Why, the man knew that as long as you and I
thought we were somebody, he could never treat us like
we were nobody. So he had to invent a system that would
strip us of everything about us that we could use to
prove we were somebody. And once he had stripped us of
all human characteristics—stripped us of our language,
stripped us of our history, stripped us of all cultural
knowledge, and brought us down to the level of an
animal—he then began to treat us like an animal, selling
us from one plantation to another, selling us from one
owner to another, breeding us like you breed cattle.
Why, brothers and
sisters, when you wake up and find out what this man
here has done to you and me, you won't even wait for
somebody to give the word. I'm not saying all of them
are bad. There might be some good ones. But we don't
have time to look for them. Not nowadays.
|
We must recapture our
heritage and our identity if we are ever to
liberate ourselves from the bonds of white
supremacy. We must launch a cultural
revolution to un-brainwash an entire people. |
A cultural
revolution. Why, brothers, that's a crazy revolution.
When you tell this black man in America who he is, where
he came from, what he had when he was there, he'll look
around and ask himself, "Well, what happened to it, who
took it away from us and how did they do it?" Why,
brothers, you'll have some action just like that when
you let the black man in America know where he once was
and what he once had, why, he only needs to look at
himself now to realize something criminal was do ne to
him to bring him down to the low condition that he's in
today.
Once he realizes
what was done, how it was done, where it was done, when
it was done, and who did it, that knowledge in itself
will usher in your action program. And it will be by any
means necessary. A man doesn't know how to act until he
realizes what he's acting against. And you don't realize
what you're acting against until you realize what they
did to you. Too many of you don't know what they did to
you, and this is what makes you so quick to want to
forget and forgive. No, brothers, when you see what has
happened to you, you will never forget and you'll never
forgive. And, as I say, all of them might not be guilty.
But most of them are. Most of them are.
|
Our cultural revolution
must be the means of bringing us closer to
our African brothers and sisters. It must
begin in the community and be based on
community participation. Afro-Americans will
be free to create only when they can depend
on the Afro-American community for support,
and Afro-American artists must realize that
they depend on the Afro-American community
for inspiration. |
Our artists—we have
artists who are geniuses; they don't have to act the
Stepin Fetchit role. But as long as they're looking for
white support instead of black support, they've got to
act like the old white supporter wants them to. When you
and I begin to support the black artists, then the black
artists can play that black role. As long as the black
artist has to sing and dance to please the white man,
he'll be a clown, he'll be clowning, just another clown.
But when he can sing and dance to please black men, he
sings a different song and he dances a different step;
When we get together, we've got a step all our own. We
have a step that nobody can do but us, because we have a
reason for doing it that nobody can understand but us.
|
We must work toward the
establishment of a cultural center in
Harlem, which will include people of all
ages and will conduct workshops in all of
the arts, such as film, creative writing,
painting, theater, music, and the entire
spectrum of Afro-American history.
This cultural revolution
will be the journey to our rediscovery of
ourselves. History is a people's memory, and
without a memory man is demoted to the level
of the lower animals. |
When you have no
knowledge of your history, you're just another animal;
in fact, you're a Negro; something that's nothing. The
only black man on earth who is called a Negro is one who
has no knowledge of his history. The only black man on
earth who is called a
Negro is one who doesn't know where
he came from. That's the one in America. They don't call
Africans Negroes.
Why, I had a white
man tell me the other day, "He's not a Negro." Here the
man was black as night, and the white man told me, "He's
not a Negro, he's an African." I said,
"Well, listen to
him." I knew he wasn't, but I wanted to pull old whitey
out, you know. But it shows you that they know this. You
are Negro because you don't know who you are, you don't
know what you are, you don't know where you are, and you
don't know how you got here. But as soon as you wake up
and find out the positive answer to all these things,
you cease being a Negro. You become somebody.
| Armed with the knowledge of our past, we
can with confidence charter a course for our
future. Culture is an indispensable weapon
in the freedom struggle. We must take hold
of it and forge the future with the past. |
And to quote a
passage from
And Then
We Heard the Thunder by
John Killens, it says:
"He was a dedicated patriot: Dignity was his country,
Manhood was his government, and Freedom was his land."
Old John Killens.
This is our aim.
It's rough, we have to smooth it up some. But we're not
trying to put something together that's smooth. We don't
care how rough it is. We don't care how tough it is. We
don't care how backward it may sound. In essence it only
means we want one thing. We declare our right on this
earth to be a man, to be a human being, to be respected
as a human being, to be given the rights of a human
being in this society, on this earth, in this day, which
we intend to bring into existence by any means
necessary.
I'm sorry I took so long.
Source:
ThinkingTogether
Malcolm X on Front Page Challenge,
1965
1965—After leaving
the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X appears on CBC-TV's "Front Page
Challenge" weeks before his assassination. He proclaims, "I'm against
any form of segregation and racism."
*
* * * *
 |
The Organization of Afro-American Unity
(OAAU) was founded by Malcolm X,
John
Henrik Clarke, and other black
nationalist leaders on June 24, 1964 in
Harlem, New York. Formed shortly after
his break with the Nation of Islam, the
OAAU was a secular institution that
sought to unify 22 million non-Muslim
African Americans with the people of the
African Continent.
The OAAU was modeled
after the Organization of African Unity
(OAU), a coalition of 53 African nations
working to provide a unified political
voice for the continent. In the
coalition spirit of the OAU, Malcolm X
sought to reconnect Africans Americans
with their African heritage, establish
economic independence, and promote
African American self-determination. He
also sought OAAU representation on the
OAU. . . .
After Malcolm X was assassinated in the
Audubon Ballroom on February 19, 1965,
the fledgling movement died. Malcolm's
half-sister Ella Collins took over the
OAAU, but without his charismatic
leadership, most members deserted the
organization. Nonetheless the OAAU
became the inspiration for hundreds of
"black power" groups that emerged during
the next decade.—PanAfricanPerspective
|
*
* * * *
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
*
* * * *
|
Capitol Hill in Black and White
By Robert Parker with Richard Rashke
Parker, the son of
a black sharecropper, grew up in East Texas during the
1930s. In the early 1940s, following a brief stint in
the army, he came to Washington, D.C., where he worked
as chauffeur and messenger for Lyndon Johnson and then,
for 13 years, as headwaiter in the Senate dining room.
This account of the behind-the-scenes Washington world
he observed for over 30 years provides fascinating
insights into such topics as the complex person ality of
Johnson (who struggled hard for the civil rights
legislation of the late 1950s and early 1960s at the
same time that he often referred to Parker privately as
"boy" or "nigger")—Library Journal
/
Lyndon Johnson
and Robert Parker |
 |
* *
* * *
*
* * * *
Rift
in Arizona as Latino Class Is Found Illegal /
We need to
defend ethnic studies
*
* * * *
 |
Malcolm
The
Life of the Man Who Changed Black America
By Bruce Perry
Exhaustively
researched, this compelling biography corrects Malcolm X's
Autobiography at innumerable points as it peels away the
black revolutionary's tough-as-steel persona to reveal the
vulnerable man underneath.—Publishers
Weekly
After 18 years of
meticulous research and gathering oral and written
observations of over 400 people who knew Malcolm X, Perry
has produced a sensitive biography that chronicles the
entire life of this heroic figure from his birth in
Nebraska, his adolescent troubles with deprivation and drug
addiction, his terror-filled prison ordeal, his conversion
to Islam, through his rise as a Muslim leader, and, finally,
his assassination. This compelling biography corrects and
fills in the details of Malcom's autobiography (American
Reprints) as told to Alex Haley. This book will change how
readers see Malcolm and, because of that, it will be
controversial.—School
Library Journal |
* * *
* *
*
* * * *
|
Malcolm X Talks to Young People
Speeches in the United States, Britain, and Africa
Edited by Steve Clark
This expanded edition
includes four talks and an interview given to young people
in Ghana, the United Kingdom, and the United States in the
last months of his life. Among the new material in this
edition is the entire December 1964 debate presentation by
Malcolm X at the Oxford Union in the United Kingdom, in
print for the first time anywhere. The collection concludes
with two memorial tributes by a young socialist leader to
this great revolutionary, whose example and words continue
to speak the truth for generation after generation of youth.
With a new preface and an expanded photo display of 17
pages.
"The young generation of whites, Blacks, browns, whatever
else there is—you're living at . . . a time of revolution, a
time when there's got to be a change. . . . And I for one
will join in with anyone, I don't care what color you are,
as long as you want to change this miserable condition that
exists on this earth." |
 |
* *
* * *
 |
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.
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.
* *
* * *
ChickenBones Store
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posted 13 January 2011
|
