“Each generation must out of relative obscurity discover its mission, fulfill it or betray it.”

Frantz Fanon

History will record that Barack Obama’s team arguably ran the greatest presidential campaign ever- in the sense that it pulled out the rug from underneath the political establishment. The internet played a crucial role in raising money, building support for the candidate between new coalitions of people, and spreading his message.

As the nation prepares for the upcoming mid-term election, the internet technology could again be a game changer, in particular among young voters. The youth vote turned out in record numbers in the 2008 presidential election, a pivotal factor in lifting Barack Obama to victory. Obama’s awesome organizing effort was build on the commitment and innovations of young people. David Plouffe, Obama’s campaign manger state “Countless key supporters signed up for the campaign because of their positive interactions with our organizers… This speaks to both Obama’s appeal to younger people (almost all of our organizers were under twenty-five) as well as the appeal of organizing for a campaign and candidate who actually believed in, well, organizing.”

Yet, it was the Obama’s campaign brilliant use of the internet that helped to mobilize and organized young people and the based of Obama’s support. “Were it not for the Internet, Barack Obama would not be president. Were it not for the Internet, Barack Obama would not have been the nominee,” said Arianna Huffington, editor in chief of The Huffington Post.” But by using interactive Web 2.0 tools, Mr. Obama’s campaign changed the way politicians organize supporters, advertise to voters, defend against attacks and communicate with constituents. Commenting on the Obama campaign’s use of the internet, Peter Daou, Mrs. Clinton’s Internet director said “Their use of social networks will guide the way for future campaigns.”

Once again, the youth vote will be a key factor in determining the outcome of the mid-term election. with less than a month to go, young people need to employ the internet, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and YouTube in getting voters to the polls to vote. What’s at stake: Our future- a more democratic society or a throwback to a close and racially and religiously intolerant society.

“The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line.”

-WEB DuBois

The uptick in racist remarks and attacks on African Americans and Hispanics has caught the attention of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Color People) who of the America’s oldest civil rights organizations. This week the NAACP delegates passed a resolution to condemn extremist elements within the Tea Party, calling on Tea Party leaders to repudiate those in their ranks who use racist language in their signs and speeches.

Racism has reached a dangerous phase in that many “mainstream” public figures are now taking about race in an openly racist manner. Racist attacks on blacks have become normative for Glen Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Fox News, with Sarah Palin endorsing and supporting their racism. A survey of Limbaugh and Becks comments show how brazening they speak:

Limbaugh: “Look, let me put it to you this way: the NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons.

Limbaugh: “The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies.”

Limbaugh: [To an African American female caller]: “Take that bone out of your nose and call me back.”

Beck: African-American is a bogus, PC, made-up term; “That is not a race. Your ancestry is from Africa, and now you live in America.

Beck: [To a seven year old black girl] “You want to go to Africa? I will personally purchase your airfare. You have to sign a contract that you will never return to the United States.”

Bill O’Reilly: Discussing a dinner with Rev. Al Sharpton at the Harlem restaurant Sylvia’s, Bill O’Reilly reported that he “couldn’t get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia’s restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it’s run by blacks, primarily black patronship.” O’Reilly added: “There wasn’t one person in Sylvia’s who was screaming, ‘M-Fer, I want more iced tea.’ ”

To be sure, Beck, Limbaugh, and Fox News are proxies for elected officials on the right and the Republican Party. Hence, the blatant disrespect shown to President Barack Obama during his State of the Union Address by Congressman Joe Wilson (“You lie.”), the spitting on Congressman John Lewis by a member of the Tea Party, and the vicious and venomous naming calling and attacks of President Obama, prompting former President Jimmy Carter to attribute these attacks to race and racism, shows how these attacks have been integrated into the national dialogue.

What is most disturbing and what bears watching and “calling out” is that the body politic and the media have legitimized a space in the public dialogue for racism. At a time of high unemployment which is also fueling white anxiety, public policy is mirroring this racism expressed: Arizona’s immigration law, Utah “list” of 1300 purported illegal immigrants, Arizona legislators passing of bill ending ethnic studies.

Frederick Douglass cautioned that vigilance was the watchword of freedom. We would do well to heed his advice. Racism and violence is a reoccurring tendency in America. What we see now is the effects of racism in a different form.

In order to achieve real action, you must yourself be a living part of Africa and of her thought; you must be an element of that popular energy which is entirely called forth for the freeing, the progress, and the happiness of Africa. There is no place outside that firth for the artist or for the intellectual who is not himself concerned with and completely at one with the people in the great battle of Africa ad of suffering humanity.

-Sekou Toure, President Guinea

In 1971, Marvin Gaye articulated what was on the minds of most people in America with his landmark single and album “What’s Going On.” What’s Going On, the first Marvin Gaye album credited as produced solely by Marvin Gaye, is a unified concept album consisting of nine songs, most of which lead into the next. In worldwide critics/artists and public surveys, it has been voted as one of the landmark recordings in pop music history and is considered to be one of the greatest albums ever made. In 2003, the album was ranked number 6 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

The Album: What’s Going On

The content of What’s Going On was that of a politically charged and deeply personal Motown album, and was notable for including elements of jazz and classical music instrumentation and arrangements. The album is told from the point of view of a Vietnam War veteran returning to the country he had been fighting for, and seeing nothing but injustice, suffering and hatred.

What’s Going On was among the first soul albums to place heavy emphasis on political and social concerns such as environmentalism, political corruption, drug abuse, life in the black ghettos, and the Vietnam War, in which Gaye’s brother, Frankie Gaye, had served for three years for the U.S. Army.

Marvin Gaye in His Own Voice

In an interview for Rolling Stone magazine, Marvin Gaye discussed what had shaped his view on more socially conscious themes in music and the conception of his eleventh full-length, non-duets studio album:

In 1969 or 1970, I began to re-evaluate my whole concept of what I wanted my music to say… I was very much affected by letters my brother was sending me from Vietnam, as well as the social situation here at home. I realized that I had to put my own fantasies behind me if I wanted to write songs that would reach the souls of people. I wanted them to take a look at what was happening in the world.

Revisiting What’s Going On

Now, thirty-nine years, after its release, we revisit this album and its social commentary on America and the world as a lens to measure what America’s and the world looks like now.  To be sure, Marvin Gaye was interested in radically improving the human condition by having people evaluate what was really going on, not what they were being told by the newspaper or the government: “We’ve got to find a way/ To bring some lovin’ here today… war is not the answer.” Put another way, Marvin Gaye was concern with what the world was becoming, and thus wanted to empower ordinary people to take control over their lives and change the world.

The Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

Today as in 1971 war continues unabated and is a central concern to Americans and the world. The title track of the album, What’s Going On, asked the people of America to question the legitimacy of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Gaye reminds us that the Iraq and Afghanistan, like Vietnam, are exacting a heavy toll on mothers, whose sons are dying in Iraq and Afghanistan: Mother, mother/ There’s too many of you crying/ Brother, brother, brother/ There’s far too many of you dying.”

Marvin then turns his attention and advice to fathers: “Father, father/ You see, war is not the answer/ For only love can conquer hate.” His appeal to fathers is recognition of the more aggressive orientation nature of men (their male character), and thus their greater inclination to chose war to arbitrate conflict and disagreement. Echoing Martin Luther King, Gaye asserts, “You see, war is not the answer.” In his last speech, I’ve Been to the Mountaintop King’s advised: “It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence in this world: it’s nonviolence or nonexistence; that is where we are today.” The answer Gaye points out is through the struggle to bring love in the world: “You know we’ve got to find a way/ To bring some lovin’ here today.”

War Marvin implies reflects hate and hate begets hate. Therefore, a language and manner reminiscent of Martin Luther King, he states, “For only love can conquer hate,” therefore, You know we’ve got to find a way/ To bring some lovin’ here today. Hence, the lesson Gaye want us to take away today is that demonizing and promoting hatred of our adversaries, and using the language of war, will continue the escalation of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, making war seemingly the only sensible option.

Gaye validates and promotes anti-war protest as a way of speaking another truth. This protest voice of opposition to the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars are important in speaking truth to power and to an understanding outside of the need for war. Protest against the established power structure however can invite brutality: “Picket lines and picket signs/ Don’t punish me with brutality/ Talk to me, so you can see/ what’s going on.”

Recognizing who control the power centers, Marvin addresses the males, raising the question who are they (male powerbrokers) to judge ordinary people, the protesters of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, because they are different: “Father, father, everybody thinks we’re wrong/ but who are they to judge us/ Simply because our hair is long.” Marvin is using long hair both literally and as a metaphor for those who are different. This is a very point to note given the resurgence of the intolerant rightwing in American society. Noting this, Marvin again underscores the necessity of talking to each other, with active listening on the part of those who control the levers of war, in order to come to some understanding and to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

What’s going on? The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have replaced the wars in Vietnam.

Malcolm X and Martin Luther King were the defining figures of the 1960s black freedom struggle. These two towering leaders influence and determine the scope and tone of the civil rights struggle and black power movement. Through their philosophy and leadership, they set the moral and social agenda for much of the second half of the twentieth century, laying the foundation for a more democratic society and the election of Barack Obama as the 44^th President of the United States. Martin achieved his bona fides in the South and Malcolm achieved his in the North. Ironically, the year, 1965, which the civil rights movement reached its zenith with the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, saw the ascendency of Malcolm X and black nationalism as the philosophy and practice informing the black freedom struggle. Conversely, King’s influence and statue started to spiral downward.

Though Malcolm and Martin differed in their approach to attaining freedom for African Americans, their critique of American racism, society, and policy worked synergistically to break the legal and ideological hold of white supremacy on American society, while at the same time transforming blacks and other progressive people into a force for social change. It would surprise most to know that King’s sermon for Sunday April 7, 1968 was entitled Why America May Go To Hell. It would surprise many to know that King questioned if black would be able to celebrate the nation’s bicentennial: “It [Declaration of Independence] has never had any real meaning in terms of implementation in our [black] lives.” And, it would shock almost all to know that King supported strategic black separatism:

When we see integration in political terms, then we recognize that there are times when we must see segregation as a temporary way-station to a truly integrated society. There are many Negroes who feel this; they do not see segregation as the ultimate goal. They do not see separation as the ultimate goal…I must honestly say that there are points at which I share this view. There are points at which I see the necessity for temporary segregation in order to get the integrated society.

King was an integrationist and promoted and practice nonviolence, and advocated civil rights. On the other hand, Malcolm was a black nationalist, espoused use the use of violence in defense of blacks and freedom, and advocated human rights. Yet, understanding and appreciating the achievements of the 1960s and the expansion of democracy as a result of the ‘60s struggle, requires seeing the contributions of Malcolm and Martin as one, and that the two of them are “related not as inferior and superior, not as better and worse, not as weaker and stronger, but as complements-complements in one necessary and symmetric whole.”

Malcolm and King Speak

As reflected below, by the mid-sixties, the worldview Malcolm X and Martin Luther King were very similar, and they were in agreement on many of the major issues of their day. In fact, during the historic Selma March, Malcolm told Coretta Scott King, “I want Dr. King to know that I didn’t come to Selma to make his job difficult. I really did come thinking I could make it easier. If the white people realize what the alternative is, perhaps they will be more willing to hear Dr. King.” Hence, Malcolm and King were actually orbiting towards each other, perhaps toward an operational unity- unity in diversity.

By the mid-1960s both Malcolm and Martin believed that social conditions in the black ghettoes, punctuated by poverty and behavioral ills, had reached a tipping point and that blacks were less hopeful that they would experience the American dream.

The night before he was murdered King warned, in his famous “I See the Promised Land” speech in Memphis, “if something isn’t done, and in a hurry, to bring the colored peoples of the world out of their long years of poverty, their long years of hurt and neglect, the whole world is doomed.”

And Malcolm warned, “1964 threatens to be the most explosive year America has ever witnessed. Why? It’s also a political year. It’s the year when all of the white politicians will be back in the so-called Negro community jiving you and me for some votes. The year when all of the white political crooks will be right back in your and my community with their false promises, building up our hopes for a letdown… As they nourish these dissatisfactions, it can only lead to one thing, an explosion.”

A Dream Deferred

In 1963, King inspired the nation and elevated the hopes of black people with his I Have A Dream speech, considered speech of the twentieth century. By 1965, black people were weary of King’s dream.  Poet Langston Hughes articulated the sentiment of most black people in his poem, A Dream Deferred.

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

Like a raisin in the sun

Or does it explode [like a Watts Rebellion]

In August 1965, the most fearsome urban violence in U.S. history broke our in the predominantly black area of black people in Watts in Los Angeles. According to the author of Freedom is Not Enough, James T. Patterson, the Watts rebellion was a “disaster for the morally powerful, interracial, nonviolent civil rights movement King and other had succeeded in shaping into a luminous force for racial justice…Many white Americans began to reconsider their views of black people-not as cruelly segregated, long-suffering southerners, but as violent out-of-control ghetto dwellers.”

In “A Christmas Sermon on Peace,” broadcast on Christmas Eve 1967 on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as part of the Massey Lectures, King acknowledged, just as Malcolm had long concluded “that not long after talking about” the dream in Washington, “I started seeing it turn into a nightmare.” He spoke of the nightmarish conditions of Birmingham, where four girls were murdered in a church bombing a few weeks after his speech. He spoke of the punishing poverty that he observed in the nation’s ghettoes as the antithesis of his dream as were the race riots and the Vietnam War.

Juxtapose to King’s Dream was Malcolm Nightmare. Malcolm saw the underbelly of King’s Dream, the lived experience of everyday black people struggling to find meaning in America as the “unwanted:”

I’m not an American. I’m one of the 22 million black people who are the victims of Americanism. One of the 22 million black people who are the victims of democracy, nothing but disguised hypocrisy. So, I’m not standing here speaking to you as an American, or a patriot, or a flag-saluter, or a flag-waver — no, not I. I’m speaking as a victim of this American system. And I see America through the eyes of the victim. I don’t see any American dream; I see an American nightmare.

Race and Racism

As mentioned above, 1965 was a turning point for liberalism and race relations between blacks and whites. Both Malcolm and King began to rethink their position on race and race relations, bring them closer together on race. Malcolm said, I say again that I’m not a racist, I don’t believe in any form of segregation or anything like that. I’m for the brotherhood of everybody, but I don’t believe in forcing brotherhood upon people who don’t want it. Long as we practice brotherhood among ourselves, and then others who want to practice brotherhood with us, we practice it with them also, we’re for that. But I don’t think that we should run around trying to love somebody who doesn’t love us.” However, politically and strategically, Malcolm opined, “Whites can help us, but they can’t join us. There can be no black/white unity, until there is first some black unity.”

King on the other hand began to have a more pessimistic view of whites and race relations, lamenting, “the fact is that there has never been any single solid determine commitment on the part of the vast majority of white America…to genuine equality for Negroes…most Americans are unconscious racist.”

On Violence and War

Both Malcolm and King believed that America was the greatest threat to peace in the world. In his speech Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence, King admonished America, stating, God didn’t call American to do what she’s doing in the world today. God didn’t call America to engage in a senseless, unjust war [such] as the war in Vietnam.” In this same speech he went on to say that America was “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.”

Similarly, Malcolm believed that America was a war criminal.  Uncle Sam’s hands are dripping with blood, dripping with the blood of the black man in this country. He’s the earth’s number-one hypocrite. He has the audacity — yes, he has — imagine him posing as the leader of the free world… Let the world know how bloody his hands are. Let the world know the hypocrisy that’s practiced over here.”

Elsewhere, he asserted “If violence is wrong in America, violence is wrong abroad. If it’s wrong to be violent defending black women and black children and black babies and black men, then it’s wrong for America to draft us and make us violent abroad in defense of her. And if it is right for America to draft us, and teach us how to be violent in defense of her, then it is right for you and me to do whatever is necessary to defend our own people right here in this country.”

Malcolm and Martin: In Unity and Struggle

In short, examining the worldview of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King at there most developed and mature stages, makes clear that these two leaders and thinkers were positioned to unite the two tendencies in the black freedom struggle-moderate civil rights and radical black nationalist movements. What is instructive is not to see Malcolm and Martin as antagonist or polar opposites, but as two leaders who disagreed on method, but were in agreement on the outcome. “Our people have made the mistake of confusing the methods with the objectives. As long as we agree on objectives, we should never fall out with each other just because we believe in different methods, or tactics, or strategy.”

Message to the Grassroots

Message to the Grassroots, one of the last speeches Malcolm gave as a member of the Nation of Islam, is one of Malcolm’s classic speeches. This speech along with The Ballot or the Bullet ranks with Frederick Douglass’s speech, the Meaning of July Forth for the Negro. The speech was delivered in November 1963, approximately three months after the historic March on Washington, at the Grassroots Conference called by Rev. Albert Cleage and members of the Group On Advance Leadership. The conference was called as a response the exclusion of the black nationalists and Freedom Now Party from the Northern Negro Leadership conference called by the Detroit Council for Human Rights.

Overview

Message to the Grassroots takes as its overarching theme unity among African Americans. Malcolm outlines the sources and causal factors which undermine and operate against unity. Here, he identifies slavery as the historical origins of class conflict among African Americans, a contributing factor to the division among blacks. Using the concept of the House Negro and the Field Negro, he brilliantly shows how historically, the black middle class leadership has compromise the interest of black people as whole to advance their own class interest which was inextricably tied to the white establishment. Malcolm cites the Bandung Conference as a model of unity which African Americans can emulate and an example of the unity of “Third World” people or people of color. And finally, in this speech, Malcolm begins to broach the subject of violence as an alternative to nonviolence and revolution as the correct and most effective mode of struggle for black to achieve their aim of freedom. 

Historical Problem of Race

 Malcolm from the start frames his address around the historical issue of race in America. “We all agree tonight,” Malcolm declares, “all of the speakers have agreed that America has a very serious problem. Not only does America have a very serious problem, but our people have a very serious problem.” America’s problem, as he states, is problem which the nation has been avoiding since the end of slavery- full citizenship rights. The refusal of white America to come to terms with the full citizenship of African Americans one hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation was a problem still haunting America.

The Imperative of Unity

Malcolm then addresses what he sees as the imperative of unity-the key determinant of black freedom. Malcolm asserts, “What you and I need to do is lean to forget our differences. When we come together, we don’t come together as Baptists or Methodists. You don’t catch hell because you’re a Baptist, and you don’t catch hell because you’re a Methodists… you don’t catch hell because you are a Democrat or Republican…and you sure don’t catch hell because you are an American, because if you were an American you wouldn’t catch hell. You catch hell because you’re a black man. You catch hell, all of us catch hell, for the same reason.”

Lessons of Bandung

What black people needed to do, Malcolm, said was to “stop airing our differences in front of the white man, put the white man out of our meetings, and then sit down and talk shop with each other.” He cites the historic Bandung Conference as a model blacks needed to emulate.  unity in diversity, unity without uniformity.

I Bandung back in, I think, 1954, was the first unity meeting in centuries of black people. And once you study what happened at the Bandung conference, and the results of the Bandung conference, it actually serves as a model for the same procedure you and I can use to get our problems solved.

Lesson: Unity in diversity, unity without uniformity. “At Bandung all the nations came together, the dark nations from Africa and Asia…Despite their religious differences, they came together. Some were communist, some were socialists, and some were capitalist-despite their economic and political differences, they came together. All of them were black, brown, red or yellow.”

Lesson: Common oppressor. “The same man that was colonizing our people in Kenya was colonizing our people in the Congo. The same one in the Congo was colonizing our people in South Africa, and in Southern Rhodesia, and in Burma, and in India, and in Afghanistan, and in Pakistan. They realized all over the world where the dark man was being oppressed, he was being oppressed by the white man; where the dark man was being exploited, he was being exploited by the white man. So they got together under this basis—that they had a common enemy.”

Lesson: What all Africans, including those in America, have in common is their oppression and oppressor. “We have a common enemy. We have this in common: We have a common oppressor, a common exploiter, and a common discriminator. But once we all realize that we have this common enemy, then we unite on the basis of what we have in common. And what we have foremost in common is that enemy—the white man. He’s an enemy to all of us…whether he’s in Georgia or Michigan, whether he’s in California or New York

Class Conflict: House Negro and Field Negro

Perhaps the most memorable and often quoted part of Message to the Grassroots is Malcolm’s introduction of the concept of the House Negro and the Field Negro. Malcolm’s metaphoric use of the terms House and Field Negro resonated with black in the audience and beyond as they were all familiar with the role and function these two categories of blacks played in assimilating the role and psychology of slavery and in rejecting white dominance and slavery. Though the issue of class and class conflict and struggle is often view and associated with Marxism, Malcolm introduces and grounds the notion of class conflict and struggle in the historical framework of slavery.

Class conflict rooted in slavery

Malcolm references slavery as the staring point for understanding the problematic of class leadership for African Americans, stating, “To understand this, you have to go back to what [the] young brother here referred to as the house Negro and the field Negro- back during slavery. There was two kinds of slaves. There was the house Negro and the field Negro.” 

Cultivation of black leaders as a compromise class

 Malcolm X skillfully and insightfully shows how whites slave owners cultivated some blacks to align their interest with theirs with. Malcolm asserts, “The house Negroes — they lived in the house with master…; and they loved their master more than the master loved himself. They would give their life to save the master’s house quicker than the master would. The house Negro, if the master said, “We got a good house here,” the house Negro would say, “Yeah, we got a good house here.” Whenever the master said “we,” he said “we.” That’s how you can tell a house Negro.”

The identification of blacks who worked in the house with their slave owners comprised their interest with the majority of other blacks, and led to a black leadership class tied to white interest.

If the master’s house caught on fire, the house Negro would fight harder to put the blaze out than the master would. If the master got sick, the house Negro would say, “What’s the matter, boss, we sick?” We sick! He identified himself with his master more than his master identified with himself… That was that house Negro. In those days he was called a “house nigger.” And that’s what we call him today, because we’ve still got some house niggers running around here.

Liberation potential of the black masses

Malcolm then contrasts the house Negro with the field Negro. He sees the field Negro as the class with revolutionary potential. “On that same plantation,” Malcolm states, “there was the field Negro. The field Negro- those were the masses. There were always more Negroes in the field than there was Negroes in the house. The Negro in the field caught hell. He ate leftovers. In the house they ate high up on the hog… The field Negro was beaten from morning to night. He lived in a shack, in a hut; He wore old, castoff clothes. He hated his master. I say he hated his master. He was intelligent. That house Negro loved his master. But that field Negro- remember, they were in the majority, and they hated the master.”

Malcolm concludes that the condition of those blacks who worked in the field help to determine and shape their class interest which was diametrically opposed to whites and blacks that worked in the house among whites. The blacks in the field represented the majority, like contemporary blacks were clear about their oppression and oppressor. Malcolm underscores this point, arguing: “When the house caught on fire, he didn’t try and put it out; that field Negro prayed for a wind, for a breeze… You’ve got field Negroes in America today. I’m a field Negro. The masses are the field Negroes. When they see this man’s house on fire, you don’t hear these little Negroes talking about “our government is in trouble.” They say, “The government is in trouble.

 White Control of Black Leadership

Malcolm X uses the class issues to demonstrate how the civil rights leadership which aligned itself with the liberal white establishment, i.e., white power brokers, policy-makers, and therefore muted the voice of the black masses and restricted their actions and strategies. Using again slavery as a framework to explain modern day black leadership, Malcolm states, “Just as the slavemaster of that day used Tom, the house Negro, to keep the field Negroes in check, the same old slavemaster today has Negroes who are nothing but modern Uncle Toms, 20th century Uncle Toms, to keep you and me in check, keep us under control, keep us passive and peaceful and nonviolent.”

Black Revolution versus Negro Revolution

Malcolm discussion of the Black revolution and the Negro revolutions features one of his classic quotes: “Of all our studies, history is best qualified to reward our research.” He uses history to trace the method which was used to gain freedom stating, “And when you see that you’ve got problems, all you have to do is examine the historic method used all over the world by others who have problems similar to yours. And once you see how they got theirs straight, then you know how you can get yours straight. There’s been a revolution, a black revolution, going on in Africa.”

Malcolm argues that the method of struggle which other people have used to gain their freedom is instructive and informative for African Americans.

So I cite these various revolutions, brothers and sisters, to show you- you don’t have a peaceful revolution. You don’t have a turn-the-other-cheek revolution. There’s no such thing as a nonviolent revolution. [The] only kind of revolution that’s nonviolent is the Negro revolution. The only revolution based on loving your enemy is the Negro revolution. The only revolution in which the goal is a desegregated lunch counter, a desegregated theater, a desegregated park, and a desegregated public toilet; you can sit down next to white folks on the toilet. That’s no revolution. Revolution is based on land. Land is the basis of all independence. Land is the basis of freedom, justice, and equality.

Malcolm expressed and articulated his concept of black power through philosophy and practice of black nationalism:

Political philosophy: black people should control the politic and politicians in their community. Malcolm believed that the “black man in the black community has to be re-educated into the science of politics so he will know what politics is suppose to bring him in return.

Economic philosophy: black people should control the economics of their community. As Malcolm asserted, the “philosophy of black nationalism involves a re-education program in the black community in regards to economics. Our people have to be made to see that any time you take your dollar out of your community and spend it in a community where you don’t live, the community where you live will get poorer and poorer and the community where you spend your money will get richer and richer. Then you wonder why where you live is always a ghetto or slum area”

Social philosophy: black people should unite to eradiate social ills in their communities’ such as drugs and crime and build vibrant and model communities. Malcolm argued that this philosophy instructed African Americans to work together and “remove the evils, the vices, alcoholism, drug addiction and other evils that are destroying the moral fiber of our community. We ourselves have to lift the level of our community, the standard of our community to a higher level, make our society beautiful so that we will be satisfied in our own social circles and won’t be running around here trying to knock our way into a circle where we are not wanted.

Thus, it was this philosophy of black nationalism which became the foundation concept and practice of black power after Malcolm death. Embedded in his philosophy was commitment to the practice of the three goals of black power: self-respect, self-determination, and self-defense.

Malcolm X strongly believed that African Americans could only achieve self-respect through grounding their identity in Africa. He asserted, “if we migrated back to Africa culturally, philosophically and psychologically, while remaining here physically, the spiritual bond that would develop between us and Africa through this cultural, philosophical and psychological migration, so-called migration, would enhance our position here, because we would have our contacts with them acting as roots or foundations behind us.” Further, he added, “when the African continent in its independence is able to create the unity that’s necessary to increase its strength and its position on earth, so that Africa too becomes respected as other huge continents are respected, then wherever people of African origins, African heritage or African blood go, they will be respected.”

Closely related, Malcolm argued that self-respect demanded that black people be willing to defend themselves. He especially castigated black men for not being more assertive in defending the rights of black people, declaring, “in areas where the government has proven unwilling or unable to defend the lives and the property of Negroes, it’s time for Negroes to defend themselves.” Underscoring the contradiction of black men fighting for American abroad, but being nonviolent in the face of violence at home, he stated: “if violence is wrong in America, violence is wrong abroad. If it is wrong to be violent defending black women and black children and black babies and black men, then it is wrong for America to draft us and make us violent abroad. And if it is right for America to draft us ,and teach us how to be violent in defense of her, then it is right for you and me to do whatever is necessary to defend our own people right here in this country.”

Third, a theme that runs constantly through Malcolm’s black nationalism and is core to the concept and practice of black power is self-determination.  Malcolm asserted “one of the first things I think young people, especially nowadays, should learn is how to see for yourself and listen for yourself and think for yourself. If you form the habit of going by what you hear others say about someone, or going by what others think about someone, instead of searching that thing out for yourself and seeing for yourself, you will be walking west when you think you think you are going east, and you will be walking east when you’re going west…the most important thing we can learn to do today is think for ourselves.”

To be sure, the 1960s black power movement and its advocates were heir to Malcolm X and his black nationalism philosophy. The call and infusion of black power into the Student Nonviolent Coordination Committee, the Congress of Racial Equality and other community and regional based organizations was the fruits of Malcolm’s effort to imbue a spirit and practice of black nationalism into the freedom movement. Proponents of black power drew inspiration and instruction from Malcolm’s philosophy and courageous representation and advocacy of black power.

Malcolm X formal arrival on the national political scene was through the Nation of Islam (NOI), a religious organization founded by Elijah Muhammad which advocated an ethos that promoted self-determination in the form of entrepreneurship, diligence, and community control.  After joining the NOI, Malcolm quickly distinguished himself as a critical thinker and an organizer, becoming the Nation’s chief strategist, main recruiter, and organizational architect. Besides being the national spokesperson for the NOI, Malcolm created Muhammad Speaks, one of the Nation’s most profitable and important enterprises.

Perhaps it is Malcolm X’s severe critique of America and its racism and its impact on black people and his advocacy of a black nationalist approach to the 1960s Freedom Struggle and black life in general which places him among the pantheon of historical leaders. Both and during the modern day civil rights movement, Malcolm was delivering a hard and critical message of American democracy and racism and the promoting a black nationalist alternative:

On American democracy: I am not an American. I’m one of the 22 million black people who are the victims of Americanism. One of the 22 million black people who are victims of democracy, nothing but disguised hypocrisy… And I see America through the eyes of a victim. I don’t see any American dream; I see an America nightmare.

On citizenship: Well, I am one who doesn’t believe in deluding myself. I’m not going to sit at your table and watch you eat with nothing on my plate, and call myself a diner. Sitting at the table doesn’t make you a diner, unless you eat some of what’s on the plate. Being here in America doesn’t make you an American.

On the Civil Rights Movement: The entire civil rights struggle needs a new interpretation, a broader interpretation. We need to look at the civil rights thing from another from another angle…So we’re giving a new interpretation to the civil rights struggle…And these handkerchief-heads who have been dillydallying and pussyfooting and compromising-we don’t intend to let them pussyfoot and dillydally and compromise any longer.

On Black Nationalism: So I say in spreading a gospel of black nationalism, it is not designed to make the black man re-evaluate the white man-you know him already-but to make the black man re-evaluate himself.

On Self-Respect: I’m the man you think you are. And if it doesn’t take legislation to make you a man and get your rights recognized, don’t even talk that legislative talk to me. 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 will do the same-only more of it.

On the method for achieving freedom: If we don’t do something real soon, I think you’ll have to agree that we’re going to be forced either to use the ballot or the bullet. It’s one or the other.

The philosophy and teaching or Malcolm X influenced a generation and gave a much broader and bolder vision to the Black Freedom Struggle. His insightful critique of America is still relevant today as is his approach to solving the crisis in the ghettos, especially black youth who are caught-up in a web of gangs, drugs and violence. Whether we are talking about the corruptness of elected officials, the betrayal of middle class blacks, or the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, Malcolm X is required reading and studying. The words of Ossie Davis who s eulogizes Malcolm X is still inspiring and instructive.

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.