Malcolm X in 2008 (LINK)
February 27th 2008 02:54
Young Malcolm X
The idea of a black man running for President in the United States would have been nothing more than a dream to black people in 1965 – the year of Malcolm X’s death. It could soon become a reality.
However, it has taken black people years of fighting to get to this position and the teachings of Malcolm X are a part of the reason why a black American, in the Twenty First century, can run for president.
Malcolm X (1925-1965) is one of the most controversial and revered political figures of the Twentieth Century. As a spokesman and leader during the 1960’s his militant and aggressive teachings of black history, black revolution and the ‘evil of the white man’ were truly revolutionary and inspired many thousands of black people - primarily in New York but across America – to rise up against societal inequality.
King and X
X began all his speeches and addresses with: I want to thank Allah for coming and giving to us our leader and teacher here in America, The Honourable Elijah Muhammad. He was a dedicated student of the Islamic teachings of the Honourable Elijah Muhammad and a devote Muslim whose ideas concerning the oppression of black people in the United States and the need for a black revolution inspired unbridled passion in his followers and tremendous fear in the heart of white America.
Often criticised for his aggressive and militant dialogue, X was a passionate orator who spoke his mind and believed in what he deemed justice. He possessed a unique ability to question the nature of race and white mans privileged whiteness and empowered black people living in the United States to question society’s long standing norms.
Elijah Muhammad and X
His militant ideas and religious ideology separated X from many of the other powerful black power figures - this lead X to be politically very isolated. But it was his enlightening and revolutionary dialogues which absolved X into the heart of history and allowed black people to question their masters.
Exerts from speeches
‘The white man never has separated Christianity from white, nor has he separated the white man from Christianity. When you hear the white man bragging, "I'm a Christian," he's bragging about being a white man. Then you have the Negro. When he is bragging about being a Christian, he's bragging that he's a white man, or he wants to be white, and usually those Negroes who brag like that, I think you have to agree, in their songs and the things they sing in church, they show that they have a greater desire to be white than anything else,’ Malcolm X, 1962.
‘The thing that has made the so-called Negro in America fail, more than any other thing, is your, my, lack of knowledge concerning history. We know less about history than anything else. There are black people in America who have mastered the mathematical sciences, have become professors and experts in physics, are able to toss sputniks out there in the atmosphere, out in space. They are masters in that field. We have black men who have mastered the field of medicine, we have black men who have mastered other fields, but very seldom do we have black men in America who have mastered the knowledge of the history of the black man himself. we have among our people those who are experts in every field, but seldom can you find one among us who is an expert on the history of the black man,’ Malcolm X, 1962.
‘The Honorable Elijah Muhammad teaches us that no people on earth fit the Bible's symbolic picture about the Lost Sheep more so than America's twenty million so-called Negroes and there has never in history been a more vicious and blood-thirsty wolf than the American white man. He teaches us that for four hundred years America has been nothing but a wolves den for twenty million so-called Negroes, twenty million second-class citizens, and this black revolution that is developing against the white wolf today is developing because The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, a godsent shepherd, has opened the eyes of our people. And the black masses can now see that we have all been here in this white doghouse long, too long. The black masses don't want segregation nor do we want integration. What we want is complete separation,’ Malcolm X, 1963.
click the link above to read a letter written by X addressed to Dr. King.
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