Malcolm X: A Today's Light

[Baba Ahmed]

In the book: [b]The Head Negro in Charge[b]: The Dead End of Black Politics, Norman Kelley writes:

"Malcolm X articulated a line of argument that looked beyond civil rights; he argued for black liberation. Muhammad (Elijah) had resurrected the core identiy of 'blackness' as an ideological and cultural concern from which Malcolm built his argument. Like Marcus Garvey's United Negro Improvement Association of the 1920s, the NOI (Nation of Islam) was organized around a concept of blackness that was more attractive to low-income blacks, the majority of the NOI's members and outside sympathizers, than to middle-class Negroes. If the likes of King and Wilkins were 'race men' of the Negro school, meaning proud of being Negro but still desirous of integration and white acceptance, Muhammad and Malcolm were the more racialistic 'race men' of another old school, namely Black Nationalism. In the eyes[ of some, they were considered racist insofar that they deemed every white a 'devil.' Yet because the civil right leaders had neglected 'race men' ideology, fearful of being seen as 'nationalistic'---as evidenced by their response to 'black power'---they had no relationship with the Negro masses who were instinctively 'race men and women' due to the omnipresent reality of being identifiably black in America. In effect, King and Wilkins had ceded that relationship to the NOI and to Malcolm.

The NOI not only offered an identity based on blackness, heritage, economic self-help, and moral uplift, but, as Brotz 1 observed, it also spoke to the black masses' need for 'subjective fortification' that could be obtained by having 'one's own culrutre, conceived as national identity, religion and language.'2

"It is this desire for 'subjective fortification' that would make certain aspects of Black Power nationalism appealing to numerous blacks regardless of class status....

"Malcolm's blistering critique of the civil rights movement lessened after he left the Nation of Islam in 1964. His main objection to the movement was its concern with civil rights more so than with human rights, which led the movement to be easily absorbed and manipulated by the white power structure, as evidenced by the black vote becoming a dependable adjunct to the Democratic Party. Malcolm as the intellectual architect of the black liberation movement that was born after the cry of Black Power. Prior to his death, some SNCC activists were gravitating toward Malcolm's view of American society as implacably racist.3

"Yet because Malcolm was assassinated before he could fully act upon his evolving ideas and nascent political program, outlined in his Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU), his popular legacy may well be his fire-breathing rhetorical style, more so than a lasting institution or body of work. In effect, Malcolm's life was the main 'text,' meaning his ability to rise from being 'a hoodlum, thief, dope peddler, pimp ... to become the most dynamic leader of the Black Revolution,' as the paperback cover to the Grove Press edition of The Autobiography of Malcolm X proclaimed. However, Malcolm's most significant legacy was his ability to make so-called Negroes re-evaluate themselves; he challenged them to become black people, to seek their destiny not as a subordinate people but as one of many who were seeking iberation like the peoples of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. During Malcolm's sojourns in Africa and the Middle East, he made efforts to 'internationalize' the black freedom struggle by trying to get African and Arab nations to condemn the United States in international forums, which caused the U.S. State Department much consternation.

Malcolm's articulation of a 'black revolution,' as opposed to the mainstream civil rights 'Negro revolution,' was based on the concept of nationalism, a nation of people controlling their destiny by controlling land. In lieu of controlling land or a geographical expanse of territory, Malcolm argued for blacks controlling key institutions and activities within their communities. He articulated an economic, social, and political philosophy that he called Black Nationalism. The political philosophy of Black Nationalism was based on the idea that the blacks 'should control the politics and the politicians in the black community' and that blacks should be 're-educated into the science of politics so [they] will know what politics is supposed to ... bring.' In economics, blacks would control the economy of their community. Like politics, it also meant re-educating the black population into the science of economics that would allow blacks to establish industries and businesses. Socially, Black Nationalism would tackle the problems of 'vices, alcoholism, drug addiction' so that blacks themselves could raise the level of their communities.

These ideas were a counterpoint to the civil rights movement program of integration and pacifism during the late 1950s and 1960s and were specifically aimed at black urban dwellers....

In the 1950s and 1960s the Nation was portrayed as a fringe, black racist group. Yet this perception of marginality was challenged by a charismatic Malcolm who offered some blacks a more robust, masculine rhetorical critique of American society than the civil rights movement did. It was his blistering critique of white racism and the denouement of the civil rights movement, along with a demand for black controlled institutions, which led SNCC and others to reconsider their commitment to integration and nonviolence. In early 1965 Malcolm was assassinated, but his 'style' of telling it to the man' defined the era of Black Power. In short, he left behind a 'Malcolmist ideology' and a style that 'combined the wisdom of book learning with the world of the streets.'[size=-1]4/size]

However, the inability of the nationalists, whether cultural or revolutionary, to build upon and beyond a Malcolmist ideology as 'style' would have a lasting effect on black politics, both nationalist and mainstream. It would usher in a regime of symbolic politics that would place a higher premium on appearance, performance, and rhetoric than on a programmatic approach to solving problems."
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1.W. Sales, Jr. From Civil Rights to Black Liberation: Malcolm X and Organization of Afro-American Unity (Boston: South End Press) p.46.
2. Rod Bush, We Are Not What We Seem: Black Nationalism and Class Struggle in the American Century (New York: New York University Press), p.167; see also Sales, From Civil Rights to Black Liberation, pp.127-131; Branch's Pillar of Fire.
3. Mary L. Dudziak, [i]Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy (Princeton: Princeton University Press,2000),pp. 220-6
4. Thomas L. Blair, Retreat to the Ghetto: The End of a Dream? (New York: Hill and Wang, 1977), p.74