El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X) was assassinated
40 years ago, on February 21, 1965, because of his attempt to internationalize
the AfricanAmerican liberation struggle.
Malcolm was born 80 years ago on May 19, 1925. While it is unlikely
that U.S. President George W. Bush will acknowledge these facts, people
from Cape Town to Nova Scotia and Brazil to Brixton definitely will.
African Americans in New York City have made a pilgrimage to Malcolm's gravesite every
year since February 21, 1966.
Contrary to popular belief, it was Malcolm, not Martin Luther King,
who first opposed the war in Vietnam. Malcolm was the first African
American leader of national prominence in the 1960s to condemn the
war. He was joined by organizations like the Revolutionary Action Movement
and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. This was in the
tradition of David Walker, Henry Highland Garnet, Martin R. Delaney,
Bishop Henry McNeil Turner, W.E.B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey, Ella Baker
and Paul Robeson. Malcolm continued to link the struggles of African
people worldwide. King came out against the Vietnam War after his famous
April 4, 1967 speech at Riverside Church in New York City. Malcolm
spoke against this war from the get-go.
Musicians did their part to keep Malcolm's name alive. Long before
Spike Lee's 1992 bio-pic, “X,” hip-hop, house, reggae and R'n'B artists
created music for Malcolm, high-life and great Black music (so-called
jazz) artists first wrote and sang about Malcolm. The dance of Malcolm's
time was the "lindy-hop" and he was a master of it. The Autobiography
of Malcolm X, which Malcolm wrote with the assistance of Alex Haley,
gives a vivid description of his love of dancing.
Years later, on a visit to the West African nation of Ghana, Malcolm
spoke of seeing Ghanaians dancing the high-life. He wrote: "The
Ghanaians performed the high-life as if possessed. One pretty African
girl sang ‘Blue Moon’ like Sarah Vaughan. Sometimes the band sounded
like Charlie Parker."
Malcolm's impact on Ghana was so great that one folk singer created
a song in his honor called "Malcolm Man."
Malcolm Man, Malcolm Man
You speak your tale of woe
The red in your face like our
Blood on the land
You speak your tale of woe
Malcolm Man, Malcolm Man
The anger that you feel
Will one day unite our people
And make us all so real
Malcolm Man, Malcolm Man.
After Malcolm's death, many jazz artists recorded music in his
memory. Among them, Leon Thomas recorded the song, "Malcolm's
Gone" on his Spirits Known and Unknown album; saxophonist-poet-playwright
Archie Shepp recorded the poem, "Malcolm, Malcolm Semper Malcolm"
on his Fire Music album. Shepp drew parallels between Malcolm's
spoken words and John Coltrane's music. Said Shepp: "I equate
Coltrane's music very strongly with Malcolm's language, because
they were just about contemporaries, to tell you the truth. And
I believe essentially what Malcolm said is what John played. If
Trane had been a speaker, he might have spoken somewhat like Malcolm.
If Malcolm had been a saxophone player, he might have playeds somewhat
like Trane."
Shortly before Malcolm's death, he visited Toronto and appeared
on CBC television with Pierre Breton. During the visit, Malcolm
spent time with award-winning author Austin Clarke talking about
politics and music. Time was too short to organize a community meeting,
but a few lucky people gathered at Clarke's home on Asquith Street.
Clarke had interviewed Malcolm previously, in 1963 in Harlem, when
he was working for the CBC. Clarke recalled they "talked shop,"
but also discussed the lighter things in life, like the fact that
both their wives were named Betty.
It is not surprising that Malcolm made his way to Canada. His mother
and father, Earl Little, met and married in Montréal at a
Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) convention. Both
were followers of Marcus Garvey. His mother, Louise Langdon Norton,
was born in Grenada but immigrated first to Halifax, Nova Scotia
and later to Montreal in 1917.
Jan Carew's book, Ghosts in Our Blood: With Malcolm X in Africa,
England, and the Caribbean, documents this aspect of the life
of the Pan-Africanist. I suggest that Carew's volume be read to
commemorate the 40th anniversary of Malcolm's assassination.
While on a visit to Nigeria Malcolm was given the name Omowale,
which means in the Yoruba language, “the son who has come home”.
It was this period of his life that he visited Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia,
Senegal, Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Guinea and Tanzania.
It was during that period that he met with Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah,
Julius K Nyerere, and Nnamoi Azikiwe, Sekou Toure, Jomo Kenyatta,
Dr. Milton Obote and others. During this visit he also met Ras Makonnen,
a legendary Pan-Africanist from Guyana, Richard Wright’s daughter
Julie Wright, Maya Angelou, Shirley Graham Du Bois, the wife of
W.E.B. Du Bois, and the Chinese Ambassador Huang Ha.
Malcolm was the chief organizer of the Nation of Islam and the founder
of the group’s newspaper Muhammad Speaks. He split with the nation
and its leader Elijah Muhammad in 1963. At the time of his death he
headed two organizations. The secular group the Organization of Afro-American
Unity (OAAU) was his political arm. He also organized the religious
group, Muslim Mosque Inc (MMI), which practiced Sunni Islam. Today
Islam is the second largest religion in the United States and Canada.
Many credit Malcolm with helping spread Sunni Islam as well as revolutionary
African American Nationalism and Pan-Africanism among African people
in the Western Hemisphere.
Like Augusto Cesar Sandino of Nicaragua or Sun Yat-Tsen of China,
Malcolm was embraced by all sectors of the African American Nationalist
and Pan Africanist movements. All Nationalists and Pan-Africanists
claimed to follow his example. Revolutionary Nationalist groups
like the Black Panther Party, and the League of Revolutionary Black
Workers emerged in the late 1960’s, after Malcolm’s death. Even
after the BPP and the League embraced Marxism, Malcolm was still
their man. The cultural Nationalists who maintained that the Cultural
Revolution must precede the political one also embraced Malcolm.
He was a controversial figure. Actor Ossie Davis eulogized him
as our “Black Shining Prince” while the director of the U.S. information
agency Carl T. Rowan referred to him as “an ex-convict, ex-dope
peddler who became a racial fanatic.” He was loved by the oppressed
and hated by the oppressors. Malcolm spoke about the MMI and the
OAAU in these terms: “Its aim is to create an atmosphere and facilities
in which people who are interested in Islam can get a better understanding
of Islam. The aim of the OAAU is to use whatever means necessary
to bring about a society in which the twenty-two million Afro-Americans
are recognized and respected as human beings”.
At the time of his death Malcolm was not nearly as well known as he
is today. Each year his stature grew. By 1992 Malcolm was the subject
of a major motion picture, “X” by Spike Lee. Lee’s film was as controversial
as Malcolm’s life. Lee was attacked from the left, right and center
for his portrayal of Malcolm. And he marketed the hell out of the movie.
His campaign began with the marketing of “X” caps. He gave the first
cap to basketball icon Michael Jordan. And as they say, “the rest is
history.” Many who up hold the Black radical tradition fought Lee over
the film. They accused him of “pimping and sampling” Malcolm. Lee responded
with a book, By Any Means Necessary: The Trials and Tribulations
of the Making of Malcolm X …(While Ten Million Motherfuckers are Fucking
With You!).
The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Alex Haley and other
books by and about Malcolm continue to sell worldwide. Some of his
books have recently been published in Cuba. Malcolm was one of the
few African American Nationalist leaders that welcomed Cuban leader
Fidel Castro to Harlem in 1960. Many Nationalists didn’t want to
be identified with communism. But African people in the West could
easily identified with the slogan, “When Africa called Cuba Answered.”
Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael) was fond of reminding us that the
only place in the United States that Fidel felt safe was in Harlem.
Toronto-based journalist and radio producer Norman (Otis) Richmond
can be heard on Diasporic Music, Thursdays, 8-10 p.m., Saturday Morning
Live, Saturdays, 10 a.m.-1 p.m. and From a Different Perspective,
Sundays, 6-6:30 p. m. on CKLN-FM 88.1 and on the Internet at www.ckln.fm.
He can be reached by e-mail at [email protected]. |