Malcolm X

Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little; May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965), also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz,[1] was an American Black Muslim minister and a one-time spokesman for the Nation of Islam. After leaving the Nation of Islam in 1964, he went on a pilgrimage, the Hajj, to Mecca and became a Sunni Muslim; he also founded the Muslim Mosque, Inc. and the Organization of Afro-American Unity. Less than a year later, he was assassinated in Washington Heights on the first day of National Brotherhood Week.
Historian Robin D.G. Kelley wrote, “Malcolm X has been called many things: Pan-Africanist, father of Black Power, religious fanatic, closet conservative, incipient socialist, and a menace to society. The meaning of his public life — his politics and ideology — is contested in part because his entire body of work consists of a few dozen speeches and a collaborative autobiography whose veracity is challenged…. Malcolm has become a sort of tabula rasa, or blank slate, on which people of different positions can write their own interpretations of his politics and legacy. Chuck D of the rap group Public Enemy and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas can both declare Malcolm X their hero.”

Early years

The young Malcolm X

Malcolm Little was born in Omaha, Nebraska, to Earl Little and Louise Helen (née Norton). He lived briefly at 3448 Pinkney Street in the North Omaha neighborhood. His father was an outspoken Baptist lay speaker and supporter of Marcus Garvey, as well as a member of the Universal Negro Improvement Association. According to Malcolm, three of Earl Little’s brothers died violently at the hands of white men, and one of his uncles had been lynched.

Earl Little had three children (Ella, Mary, and Earl, Jr.) by a previous marriage before he married Malcolm’s mother. From his second marriage he had eight children, of whom Malcolm was the fourth. (Earl and Louise Little’s children’s names were, in order, Wilfred, Hilda, Philbert, Malcolm, Reginald, Wesley, Yvonne, and Robert.)

Louise Little was born in Grenada and, according to Malcolm, she looked more like a white woman. Her father was a white man of whom Malcolm knew nothing except what he described as his mother’s shame. Malcolm got his light complexion from him. Initially he felt it was a status symbol to be light-skinned but later he would say that he “hated every drop of that white rapist’s blood that is in me.” As Malcolm was the lightest child in the family, he felt that his father favored him; however, his mother treated him harshly for the same reason. One of his nicknames, “Red,” derived from the reddish tinge of his hair. He was described as having, at birth, “ash-blonde hair … tinged with cinnamon,” and at four, “reddish-blonde hair.” His hair darkened as he aged but resembled the hair of his paternal grandmother whose hair “turned reddish in the summer sun.”

According to The Autobiography of Malcolm X, his mother had been threatened by Ku Klux Klansmen while she was pregnant with him in December 1924; his mother recalled that the family was warned to leave Omaha, because his father’s involvement with UNIA was, according to the Klansmen, “stirring up trouble”.

The family relocated to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1926, and then to Lansing, Michigan, shortly thereafter. In 1931, Malcolm’s father was found dead, having been run over by a streetcar in Lansing. Authorities ruled his death a suicide. Malcolm claimed that this cause of death was disputed by the black community at the time, and he later disputed it himself, saying that his family had frequently found themselves the target of harassment by the Black Legion, a white supremacist group his father accused of burning down their home in 1929. Malcolm wondered how his father could bash himself in the head and then lay down across street tracks to get run over.

Though Malcolm’s father had two life insurance policies, his mother received death benefits solely from the smaller policy. Malcolm claimed that insurance company that had issued the larger policy claimed that Earl Little’s death had been a suicide, and accordingly refused to pay. Louise Little had a nervous breakdown and was declared legally insane in December 1938. Malcolm and his siblings were split up and sent to different foster homes. Louise Little was formally committed to the state mental hospital at Kalamazoo, Michigan, and remained there until Malcolm and his brothers and sisters had her released 26 years later.

The Autobiography of Malcolm X states that, following the death of his father, Malcolm Little lived on Charles Street in downtown East Lansing. However, the 1930 U.S. Census (released in 2002) shows him living on a different Charles Street, in the low income Urbandale neighborhood in Lansing Township, between Lansing and East Lansing. Later, at the time he was in high school, he lived in Mason, an almost all-white small town 12 miles (19 km) to the south.

Malcolm Little graduated from junior high school at the top of his class but dropped out soon after a teacher told him that his aspirations of being a lawyer were “no realistic goal for a nigger”. After enduring a series of foster homes, Malcolm was first sent to a detention center and then later moved to Boston to live with his older half-sister, Ella Little Collins. In Boston he held a variety of jobs and intermittently found employment with the New Haven Railroad. In 1942, Malcolm became “involved with Boston’s underworld fringe.”

Young adult years

Malcolm left Boston to live for a short time in Michigan but soon moved to New York City in 1943. There he worked again for a short time for the New Haven Railroad. Malcolm found work as a shoeshiner at a Lindy Hop nightclub; in The Autobiography of Malcolm X, he says that he once shined the shoes of Duke Ellington and other notable African-American musicians. After some time in Harlem, he became involved in drug dealing, gambling, racketeering, robbery and prostituting himself. During this time, he was known to his friends and acquaintances as “Detroit Red”. Between 1943 and 1946, when he was arrested and jailed in Massachusetts, Malcolm drifted between Boston and New York City three more times.

When Malcolm was examined for the draft, military physicians classified him to be “mentally disqualified for military service.” He explained in his autobiography that he put on a display to avoid the draft by telling the examining officer that he could not wait to organize with other black soldiers so he could “kill some crackers.” His approach worked, and he was given a classification that ensured he would not be drafted.

In early 1946, Malcolm returned to Boston. On January 12, he was arrested for burglary after trying to steal back a stolen watch he had left for repairs at a jewelry shop. Two days later, Malcolm was indicted once again for carrying firearms. On January 16, he was charged with Grand Larceny and Breaking and Entering. Malcolm was sentenced to eight to ten years in Massachusetts State Prison.

On February 27, Malcolm began serving his sentence at the Massachusetts State Prison in Charlestown. While in prison, Malcolm earned the nickname of “Satan” for his vitriolic hatred towards the Bible, God and religion in general. Malcolm began reading books from the prison library. Soon he developed first a voracious appetite for reading, then astigmatism. During this time, he received correspondence from his brother Reginald telling him about the Nation of Islam, to which Malcolm subsequently converted. For the remainder of his incarceration, he maintained regular contact with Elijah Muhammad, the group’s leader. According to the Autobiography, Malcolm started to gain fame among prisoners but also remained under the keen eye of the authorities, who recognized in him a force that could potentially foment trouble and who did not grant him the expected early release after five years. In February 1948, mostly through his sister’s efforts, Malcolm was transferred to an experimental prison in Norfolk, Massachusetts, that had a much larger library. Malcolm later reflected on his time in prison: “Months passed without my even thinking about being imprisoned. In fact, up to then, I had never been so truly free in my life.” On August 7, 1952, Malcolm received parole and was released from prison.

Nation of Islam

Malcolm with Elijah Muhammad at Savior’s Day

In 1952, after his release from prison, Malcolm went to meet Elijah Muhammad in Chicago. It was soon after this that he changed his surname to “X”. Malcolm explained the name by saying, The “X” is meant to symbolize the rejection of “slave names” and the absence of an inherited African name to take its place. The “X” is also the brand that many slaves received on their upper arm. This rationale led many members of the Nation of Islam to change their surnames to X.

In March 1953, the FBI opened a file on Malcolm, supposedly in response to an allegation that he had described himself as a Communist. Included in the file were two letters wherein Malcolm used the alias “Malachi Shabazz”. In Message to the Blackman in America, Elijah Muhammad explained the name Shabazz as belonging to descendants of an “Asian Black nation”.

In May 1953, the FBI concluded that Malcolm X had an “asocial personality with paranoid trends (pre-psychotic paranoid schizophrenia)”, and had, in fact, sought treatment for his disorder. This was further supported by a letter intercepted by the FBI, dated June 29, 1950. The letter said, in reference to his 4-F classification and rejection by the military, “Everyone has always said … Malcolm is crazy, so it isn’t hard to convince people that I am.”

Later that year, Malcolm left his half-sister Ella in Boston to stay with Elijah Muhammad in Chicago. He soon returned to Boston and became the minister of the Nation of Islam’s Temple Number Eleven. In 1954, Malcolm was selected to lead the Nation of Islam’s Temple #7 on Lenox Avenue in Harlem, and he rapidly expanded its membership. He became known to a wider audience after a local television broadcast in New York City about the Nation of Islam. After that, Malcolm was frequently sought after for quotations by the print media, radio, and television programs from the U.S. and, later, around the world. In the years between his adoption of the Nation of Islam in 1952 and his split with the organization in 1964, he espoused the Nation’s teachings, including referring to whites as “devils” who had been created in a misguided breeding program by a black scientist, and predicting the inevitable (and imminent) return of blacks to their natural place at the top of the social order.

Malcolm was soon seen as the second most influential leader of the movement, after Elijah Muhammad. He opened additional temples, including one in Philadelphia, and was largely credited with increasing membership in the NOI from 500 in 1952 to 30,000 in 1963. He inspired the boxer Cassius Clay to join the Nation of Islam and change his name to Muhammad Ali. (Like Malcolm X, Ali later left the NOI and joined mainstream Islam.)

Marriage

In 1958, Malcolm married Betty X (née Sanders) in Lansing, Michigan. They had six daughters together, all of whom carried the surname of Shabazz. Their names were Attallah (also spelled Attillah), born in 1958; Qubilah, born in 1960; Ilyasah, born in 1962; Gamilah (also spelled Gumilah), born in 1964; and twins, Malaak and Malikah, born after Malcolm’s death in 1965.

Meeting Castro

In September 1960, Malcolm met with Fidel Castro as a prominent member of a welcoming committee that had been set up in Harlem several weeks earlier. The purpose of this group, which included a wide range of black community leaders, was to greet heads of state, particularly from African countries, who would be in New York to address the UN General Assembly.

Tensions and departure from the Nation of Islam

In the spring of 1963, Malcolm started collaborating on The Autobiography of Malcolm X with Alex Haley. Malcolm would later, in the Autobiography, explain his break with Elijah Muhammad by saying that in the early 1960s, he had begun to hear rumors of Elijah Muhammad’s extramarital affairs with young secretaries. Adultery is condemned in the teachings of the Nation of Islam. At first, he claimed, Malcolm brushed these rumors aside. Later, he spoke with Elijah Muhammad’s son and the women making the accusations and believed them. In 1963, according to the Autobiography, Elijah Muhammad confirmed to Malcolm that the rumors were true and claimed that this activity was undertaken to follow a pattern established by Biblical prophets.

Malcolm viewed the March on Washington critically, unable to understand why black people were excited over a demonstration “run by whites in front of a statue of a president who has been dead for a hundred years and who didn’t like us when he was alive.” When asked to comment upon the assassination of John F. Kennedy, he replied that it was a case of “chickens coming home to roost,” and added that “Chickens coming home to roost never made me sad. It only made me glad.” This comment led to widespread public outcry and led to the Nation of Islam’s publicly censuring their former shining star. Although retaining his post and rank as minister, Malcolm was banned from public speaking for 90 days by Elijah Muhammad.

Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, March 26, 1964

Malcolm publicly announced his break from the Nation of Islam on March 8, 1964, and founded the Muslim Mosque, Inc. four days later. Malcolm mostly adhered to the teachings of the Nation of Islam but began modifying them, explicitly advocating political and economic black nationalism as opposed to the NOI’s religious nationalism. In April, he made a speech titled “The Ballot or the Bullet.” Malcolm was in contact with several orthodox Muslims, who encouraged him to learn about orthodox Islam. He soon converted to orthodox Islam, and as a result decided to make his pilgrimage to Mecca.

Pilgrimage to Mecca

On April 13, 1964, Malcolm departed JFK Airport, New York for Cairo by way of Frankfurt. It was the second time Malcolm had been to Africa. On the next leg of his journey, Malcolm left Cairo for Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. His status as an authentic Muslim was questioned by Saudi authorities because of his inability to speak Arabic and his United States passport. Since only confessing Muslims are allowed into Mecca, he was separated from the group with which he arrived and was isolated. He spent about 20 hours wearing the ihram, a two-piece garment comprising two white unhemmed sheets.

According to the Autobiography, it was at this time he remembered the book The Eternal Message of Muhammad by Abdul Rahman Hassan Azzam and which Dr. Mahmoud Yousseff Sharwabi had presented to him with his visa approval. He called Azzam’s son who arranged for his release. At the younger Azzam’s home he met Azzam Pasha who gave Malcolm his suite at the Jeddah Palace Hotel. The next morning, Muhammad Faisal, the son of Prince Faisal, visited and informed him that he was to be a state guest. The deputy chief of protocol accompanied Malcolm to the Hajj Court. He was then allowed to make his pilgrimage.

On April 19, Malcolm completed the Umrah, making the seven circuits around the Kaaba, drinking from the Zamzam Well and running between the hills of Safah and Marwah seven times. According to the Autobiography, on this trip Malcolm viewed Muslims of different races interacting as equals and came to believe that Islam conceivably could erase all racial problems.

International travel

Malcolm X visited Africa on three separate occasions, once in 1959 and twice in 1964. During his visits, he met officials, as well as spoke on television and radio in: Cairo, Egypt; Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Dar Es Salaam, Tanganyika (now Tanzania); Lagos and Ibadan, Nigeria; Accra, Winneba, and Legon, Ghana; Conakry, Guinea; Algiers, Algeria; and Casablanca, Morocco.

Malcolm first went to Africa in summer of 1959. He traveled to Egypt (United Arab Republic), Sudan, Nigeria and Ghana to arrange a tour for Elijah Muhammad, which occurred in December 1959. The first of Malcolm’s two trips to Africa in 1964 lasted from April 13 until May 21. On May 8, following his speech at Trenchard Hall on the campus of the University of Ibadan in Nigeria, he attended a reception in the Students’ Union Hall held for him by the Muslim Students’ Society. During this reception the students bestowed upon him the name “Omowale”, meaning “the son returns home” in the Yoruba language.

Malcolm returned to New York from Africa via Paris on May 21, 1964. On July 9, he again left the U.S. for Africa, spending a total of 18 weeks abroad. On July 17, 1964, Malcolm addressed the Organization of African Unity’s first ordinary assembly of heads of state and governments in Cairo as a representative of the OAAU. On August 21, 1964, he made a press statement on behalf of the OAAU regarding the second African summit conference of the OAU. In it, he explained how a strong and independent “United States of Africa” is a victory for the awakening of African Americans. By the time he returned to the United States on November 24, 1964, Malcolm had established an international connection between Africans on the continent and those in the diaspora.

Malcolm held to the view that African-Americans were right in defending themselves from aggressors. On June 28, 1964, at the founding rally of the OAAU he said,”The time for you and me to allow ourselves to be brutalized nonviolently has passed. 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.”[18]

In an interview with Gordon Parks in 1965, Malcolm revealed:

“I realized racism isn’t just a black and white problem. It’s brought bloodbaths to about every nation on earth at one time or another. Brother, remember the time that white college girl came into the restaurant — the one who wanted to help the Muslims and the whites get together — and I told her there wasn’t a ghost of a chance and she went away crying? Well, I’ve lived to regret that incident. In many parts of the African continent I saw white students helping black people. Something like this kills a lot of argument. I did many things as a [black] Muslim that I’m sorry for now. I was a zombie then — like all [black] Muslims — I was hypnotized, pointed in a certain direction and told to march. Well, I guess a man’s entitled to make a fool of himself if he’s ready to pay the cost. It cost me 12 years. That was a bad scene, brother. The sickness and madness of those days — I’m glad to be free of them.”

France and the UK

In late 1964, Malcolm visited France together with Jamaican officials and spoke in Paris at Salle Pleyel where there were discussions and debates on the subject of the Rastafarian ideas espoused by both the Jamaicans present and Malcolm X at that time. He also visited the UK and participated in a debate at the Oxford Union on December 3, 1964.

On February 12, 1965, Malcolm visited Smethwick, near Birmingham, which had become a byword for racial division after the 1964 general election when the Conservative Party won the parliamentary seat using the slogan, among others, “If you want a nigger for your neighbour, vote Labour”. He visited a pub with a “non-coloured” policy and visited a street where the local council would buy houses and sell them to white families, to avoid black families moving in.

Death and afterwards

Assassination

Malcolm X holding an M1 Carbine and peering out of a window in 1964. The photo illustrated his intention to defend himself against the frequent death threats he was receiving.

Tensions increased between Malcolm and the Nation of Islam. It was alleged that orders were given by leaders of the Nation of Islam to “destroy” Malcolm; in The Autobiography of Malcolm X, he says that as early as 1963, a member of the Seventh Temple confessed to him having received orders from the Nation of Islam to kill him.

On March 20, 1964, Life published a photograph of Malcolm holding an M1 Carbine and pulling back the curtains to peer out of the window of his family’s home. The photo was taken in connection with Malcolm’s declaration that he would defend himself from the daily death threats which he and his family were receiving. Undercover FBI informants warned officials that he had been marked for assassination.

In June 1964, the NOI sued to reclaim Malcolm’s home in Queens, which they claimed belonged to the organization. The suit was successful, and Malcolm and his family were ordered to vacate the house. On February 14, 1965, the night before a scheduled hearing to postpone the eviction date, the house burned to the ground. Malcolm and his family survived, and no one was charged with any crime.

On February 21, 1965 in Manhattan’s Audubon Ballroom, Malcolm had just begun delivering a speech when a disturbance broke out in the crowd of 400. A man yelled, “Get your hand outta my pocket! Don’t be messin’ with my pockets!” As Malcolm and his bodyguards moved to quiet the disturbance,[21] a man rushed forward and shot Malcolm in the chest with a sawed-off shotgun. Two other men charged the stage and fired handguns at Malcolm, who was shot 16 times. Angry onlookers in the crowd caught and beat the assassins as they attempted to flee the ballroom. Malcolm was pronounced dead on arrival at New York’s Columbia Presbyterian Hospital.

Two suspects were named by witnesses — Norman 3X Butler and Thomas 15X Johnson, both members of the Nation of Islam.
Three men were eventually charged in the case. Talmadge Hayer, also a Black Muslim, confessed to having fired shots into Malcolm’s body, but he testified that Butler and Johnson were not present and were not involved in the shooting. All three were convicted.

Funeral

Malcolm’s funeral was held in Harlem on February 27, 1965, at the Faith Temple Church of God in Christ, with 1,500 people attending. Ossie Davis delivered a eulogy, describing Malcolm as “our shining black prince.”

There are those who will consider it their duty, as friends of the Negro people, to tell us to revile him, to flee, even from the presence of his memory, to save ourselves by writing him out of the history of our turbulent times. Many will ask what Harlem finds to honor in this stormy, controversial and bold young captain — and we will smile. Many will say turn away — away from this man, for he is not a man but a demon, a monster, a subverter and an enemy of the black man — and we will smile. They will say that he is of hate — a fanatic, a racist — who can only bring evil to the cause for which you struggle! And we will answer and say to them: Did you ever talk to Brother Malcolm? Did you ever touch him, or have him smile at you? Did you ever really listen to him? Did he ever do a mean thing? Was he ever himself associated with violence or any public disturbance? For if you did you would know him. And if you knew him you would know why we must honor him.

Malcolm X was buried at the Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York. At the gravesite after the ceremony, friends took the shovels away from the waiting gravediggers and buried Malcolm themselves. Later that month, actors Ruby Dee and Sidney Poitier became co-chairs of the New York affiliate of the Educational Fund for the Children of Malcolm X Shabazz.

Response to Malcolm’s death

After Malcolm’s death, Martin Luther King, Jr., sent a telegram to Betty Shabazz, expressing his sadness over “the shocking and tragic assassination of your husband.”

While we did not always see eye to eye on methods to solve the race problem, I always had a deep affection for Malcolm and felt that he had a great ability to put his finger on the existence and the root of the problem. He was an eloquent spokesman for his point of view and no one can honestly doubt that Malcolm had a great concern for the problems we face as a race.

Elijah Muhammad reacted differently; as he told the annual Savior’s Day convention on February 26, “Malcolm X got just what he preached.”

The international press, particularly that of Africa, was sympathetic. The Daily Times of Nigeria wrote, “Like all mortals, Malcolm X was not without his faults … but that he was a dedicated and consistent disciple of the movement for the emancipation of his brethren no one can doubt.

Malcolm X has fought and died for what he believed to be right. He will have a place in the palace of martyrs.”

Kwangming, published in Beijing, bluntly stated that “Malcolm was murdered because he fought for freedom and equal rights.”

Conspiracy theories

Within days of Malcolm’s assassination, questions were raised about who was responsible for his death. On February 23, James Farmer, the leader of the Congress of Racial Equality, announced at a news conference that local drug dealers, and not the Black Muslims, were to blame. Others blamed the police, the FBI, or the CIA, citing the lack of police protection and the ease with which the assassins had entered the Audubon Ballroom.

In the 1970s, the public learned about COINTELPRO and other secret government programs to infiltrate and disrupt civil rights organizations during the 1950s and 1960s. John Ali, national secretary of the Nation of Islam, has been identified as an FBI agent. Malcolm had confided in a reporter that Ali had exacerbated tensions between him and Elijah Muhammad, and he considered Ali his “archenemy” within the Nation of Islam leadership. On February 20, the night before the assassination, Ali met with Hayer, one of the men convicted of killing Malcolm.

Extract of His Speech

“The Ballot or the Bullet”

Mr. Moderator, Reverend Cleage, Brother Lomax, brothers and sisters, and friends and I see some enemies. In fact, I think we’d be fooling ourselves if we had an audience this large and didn’t realize that there were some enemies present.

This afternoon we want to talk about the ballot or the bullet. The ballot or the bullet explains itself. But before we get into it, since this is the year of the ballot or the bullet, I would like to clarify some things that refer to me personally — concerning my own personal position.

I’m still a Muslim. That is, my religion is still Islam. My religion is still Islam. I still credit Mr. Mohammed for what I know and what I am. He’s the one who opened my eyes. At present, I’m the Minister of the newly founded Muslim Mosque, Incorporated which has its offices in the Teresa Hotel, right in the heart of Harlem — that’s the black belt in New York city. And when we realize that Adam Clayton Powell is a Christian minister, he’s the — he heads Abyssinian Baptist Church, but at the same time, he’s more famous for his political struggling.

And Dr. King is a Christian Minister, in Atlanta – or from Atlanta Georgia — or in Atlanta, Georgia, but he’s become more famous for being involved in the civil rights struggle. There’s another in New York, Reverend Galamison — I don’t know if you’ve heard of him out here – he’s a Christian Minister from Brooklyn, but has become famous for his fight against a segregated school system in Brooklyn. Reverend Clee, right here, is a Christian Minister, here in Detroit. He’s the head of the “Freedom Now Party.”

All of these are Christian Ministers — All of these are Christian Ministers, but they don’t come to us as Christian Ministers. They come to us as fighters in some other category.

I’m a Muslim minister — the same as they are Christian Ministers — I’m a Muslim minister. And I don’t believe in fighting today in any one front, but on all fronts.

In fact, I’m a black Nationalist Freedom Fighter.

Islam is my religion, but I believe my religion is my personal business. It governs my personal life, my personal morals. And my religious philosophy is personal between me and the God in whom I believe; just as the religious philosophy of these others is between them and the God in whom they believe.

And this is best this way. Were we to come out here discussing religion, we’d have too many differences from the outstart and we could never get together. So today, though Islam is my religious philosophy, my political, economic, and social philosophy is Black Nationalism. You and I — As I say, if we bring up religion we’ll have differences; we’ll have arguments; and we’ll never be able to get together. But if we keep our religion at home, keep our religion in the closet, keep our religion between ourselves and our God, but when we come out here, we have a fight that’s common to all of us against a [sic] enemy who is common to all of us.

The political philosophy of Black Nationalism only means that the black man should control the politics and the politicians in his own community. The — The time — The time when white people can come in our community and get us to vote for them so that they can be our political leaders and tell us what to do and what not to do is long gone.

By the same token, the time when that same white man, knowing that your eyes are too far open, can send another negro into the community and get you and me to support him so he can use him to lead us astray — those days are long gone too.

The political philosophy of Black Nationalism only means that if you and I are going to live in a Black community — and that’s where we’re going to live, cause as soon as you move into one of their — soon as you move out of the Black community into their community, it’s mixed for a period of time, but they’re gone and you’re right there all by yourself again.

We must — We must understand the politics of our community and we must know what politics is supposed to produce. We must know what part politics play in our lives. And until we become politically mature we will always be mislead, lead astray, or deceived or maneuvered into supporting someone politically who doesn’t have the good of our community at heart.

So the political philosophy of Black Nationalism only means that we will have to carry on a program, a political program, of re-education to open our peoples eyes, make us become more politically conscious, politically mature, and then we will — whenever we get ready to cast our ballot that ballot, will be cast for a man of the community who has the good of the community of heart.

The economic philosophy of Black Nationalism only means that we should own and operate and control the economy of our community. You would never found — you can’t open up a black store in a white community. White men won’t even patronize you. And he’s not wrong. He’s got sense enough to look out for himself. You the one who don’t have sense enough to look out for yourself.

The white man — The white man is too intelligent to let someone else come and gain control of the economy of his community. But you will let anyone come in and take control of the economy of your community, control the housing, control the education, control the jobs, control the businesses, under the pre-text that you want to integrate. No, you outta your mind.

The political, the economic philosophy of Black Nationalism only means that we have to become involved in a program of reeducation to educate our people into the importance of knowing that when you spend your dollar out of the community in which you live, the community in which you spend your money becomes richer and richer; the community out which you take your money becomes poorer and poorer.

And because these Negroes, who have been mislead, misguided, are breaking their necks to take their money and spend it with The Man, The Man is becoming richer and richer, and you’re becoming poorer and poorer. And then what happens? The community in which you live becomes a slum. It becomes a ghetto. The conditions become run down. And then you have the audacity to complain about poor housing in a run-down community. Why you run it down yourself when you take your dollar out.

And you and I are in the double-track, because not only do we lose by taking our money someplace else and spending it, when we try and spend it in our own community we’re trapped because we haven’t had sense enough to set up stores and control the businesses of our own community. The man who’s controlling the stores in our community is a man who doesn’t look like we do. He’s a man who doesn’t even live in the community. So you and I, even when we try to spend our money in the block where we live or the area where we live, we’re spending it with a man who, when the sun goes down, takes that basket full of money in another part of the town.

So we’re trapped, trapped, double-trapped, triple -rapped. Anywhere we go we find that we’re trapped. And every kind of solution that someone comes up with is just another trap. But the political and economic philosophy of Black Nationalism — the economic philosophy of Black Nationalism shows our people the importance of setting up these little stores and developing them and expanding them into larger operations. Woolworth didn’t start out big like they are today. They started out with a dime store and expanded and expanded and then expanded until today, they’re are all over the country and all over the world, and they get to some of everybody’s money.

Now this is what you and I — General Motors is same way. They didn’t start out like they it is. It started out just a little rat race type operation. And it expanded and it expanded until today where it is right now. And you and I have to make a start and the best place to start is right in the community where we live.

So our people not only have to be reeducated to the importance of supporting black business, but the black man himself has to be made aware of the importance of going into business. And once you and I go into business, we own and operate at least the businesses in our community. What we will be doing is developing a situation wherein we will actually be able to create employment for the people in the community. And once you can create some employment in the community where you live it will eliminate the necessity of you and me having to act ignorantly and disgracefully, boycotting and picketing some practice some place else trying to beg him for a job.

Anytime you have to rely upon your enemy for a job — you’re in bad shape. When you have — he is your enemy. Let me tell you, you wouldn’t be in this country if some enemy hadn’t kidnapped you and brought you here.

On the other hand, some of you think you came here on the Mayflower.

So as you can see brothers and sisters, today — this afternoon, it is not our intention to discuss religion. We’re going to forget religion. If we bring up religion, we’ll be in an argument, and the best way to keep away from arguments and differences — as I said earlier — put your religion at home — in the closet.

Keep it between you and your God.

Because if it hasn’t done anything more for you than it has, you need to forget it anyway.

Whether you are — Whether you are a Christian, or a Muslim, or a Nationalist, we all have the same problem. They don’t hang you because you’re a Baptist; they hang you ’cause you’re black. They don’t attack me because I’m a Muslim; they attack me ’cause I’m black. They attack all of us for the same reason; all of us catch hell from the same enemy. We’re all in the same bag, in the same boat. We suffer political oppression, economic exploitation, and social degradation — all of them from the same enemy. The government has failed us; you can’t deny that. Anytime you live in the twentieth century, 1964, and you walkin’ around here singing “We Shall Overcome,” the government has failed us.

This is part of what’s wrong with you — you do too much singing. Today it’s time to stop singing and start swinging. You can’t sing up on freedom, but you can swing up on some freedom. Cassius Clay can sing, but singing didn’t help him to become the heavy-weight champion of the world — swinging helped him become the heavy-weight champion. This government has failed us; the government itself has failed us, and the white liberals who have been posing as our friends have failed us.

And once we see that all these other sources to which we’ve turned have failed, we stop turning to them and turn to ourselves. We need a self help program, a do-it-yourself philosophy, a do-it-right-now philosophy, a it’s-already-too- late philosophy. This is what you and I need to get with, and the only time — the only way we are going to solve our problem is with a self-help program. Before we can get a self-help program started we have to have a self-help philosophy.

Black nationalism is a self-help philosophy. What’s is so good about it? You can stay right in the church where you are and still take black nationalism as your philosophy. You can stay in any kind of civic organization that you belong to and still take black nationalism as your philosophy. You can be an atheist and still take black nationalism as your philosophy. This is a philosophy that eliminates the necessity for division and argument. ‘Cause if you are black you should be thinking black, and if you are black and you not thinking black at this late date, well I’m sorry for you.

Once you change your philosophy, you change your thought pattern. Once you change your thought pattern, you change your — your attitude. Once you change your attitude, it changes your behavior pattern and then you go on into some action. As long as you gotta sit-down philosophy, you’ll have a sit-down thought pattern, and as long as you think that old sit-down thought you’ll be in some kind of sit-down action. They’ll have you sitting in everywhere. It’s not so good to refer to what you’re going to do as a sit-in. That right there castrates you. Right there it brings you down. What — What goes with it? What — Think of the image of someone sitting. An old woman can sit. An old man can sit. A chump can sit. A coward can sit. Anything can sit. Well you and I been sitting long enough, and it’s time today for us to start doing some standing, and some fighting to back that up.

When we look like — at other parts of this earth upon which we live, we find that black, brown, red, and yellow people in Africa and Asia are getting their independence. They’re not getting it by singing “We Shall Overcome.” No, they’re getting it through nationalism. It is nationalism that brought about the independence of the people in Asia. Every nation in Asia gained its independence through the philosophy of nationalism. Every nation on the African continent that has gotten its independence brought it about through the philosophy of nationalism. And it will take black nationalism — that to bring about the freedom of 22 million Afro-Americans here in this country where we have suffered colonialism for the past 400 years.

America is just as much a colonial power as England ever was. America is just as much a colonial power as France ever was. In fact, America is more so a colonial power than they because she’s a hypocritical colonial power behind it.

What is 20th — What — What do you call second class citizenship? Why, that’s colonization. Second class citizenship is nothing but 20th century slavery. How you gonna tell me you’re a second class citizen. They don’t have second class citizenship in any other government on this earth. They just have slaves and people who are free. Well, this country is a hypocrite. They try and make you think they set you free by calling you a second class citizen. No, you’re nothing but a 20th century slave.

Just as it took nationalism to move — to remove colonialism from Asia and Africa, it’ll take black nationalism today to remove colonialism from the backs and the minds of 22 million Afro-Americans here in this country.

And 1964 looks like it might be the year of the ballot or the bullet.

Why does it look like it might be the year of the ballot or the bullet? Because Negroes have listened to the trickery, and the lies, and the false promises of the white man now for too long. And they’re fed up. They’ve become disenchanted. They’ve become disillusioned. They’ve become dissatisfied, and all of this has built up frustrations in the black community that makes the black community throughout America today more explosive than all of the atomic bombs the Russians can ever invent.

Whenever you got a racial powder keg sitting in your lap, you’re in more trouble than if you had an atomic powder keg sitting in your lap. When a racial powder keg goes off, it doesn’t care who it knocks out the way. Understand this, it’s dangerous.

And in 1964 this seems to be the year, because what can the white man use now to fool us after he put down that march on Washington? And you see all through that now. He tricked you, had you marching down to Washington. Yes, had you marching back and forth between the feet of a dead man named Lincoln and another dead man named George Washington singing “We Shall Overcome.” He made a chump out of you. He made a fool out of you. He made you think you were going somewhere and you end up going nowhere but between Lincoln and Washington.

So today, our people are disillusioned. They’ve become disenchanted. They’ve become dissatisfied, and in their frustrations they want action.

And in 1964 you’ll see this young black man, this new generation asking for the ballot or the bullet. That old Uncle Tom action is outdated. The young generation don’t want to hear anything about the odds are against us. What do we care about odds?

When this country here was first being founded there were 13 colonies. The — The whites were colonized. They were fed up with this taxation without representation, so some of them stood up and said “liberty or death.” Though I went to a white school over here in Mason, Michigan, the white man made the mistake of letting me read his history books. He made the mistake of teaching me that Patrick Henry was a patriot, and George Washington, wasn’t nothing non-violent about old Pat or George Washington.

Liberty or death was what brought about the freedom of whites in this country from the English. They didn’t care about the odds. Why they faced the wrath of the entire British Empire. And in those days they used to say that the British Empire was so vast and so powerful when the sun — the sun would never set on them. This is how big it was, yet these 13 little, scrawny states, tired of taxation without representation, tired of being exploited and oppressed and degraded, told that big British Empire “liberty or death.”

And here you have 22 million Afro-American black people today catching more hell than Patrick Henry ever saw. And I’m — I’m here to tell you in case you don’t know it — that you got a new — you got a new generation of black people in this country who don’t care anything whatsoever about odds. They don’t want to hear you old Uncle Tom handkerchief heads talking about the odds. No. This is a new generation. If they’re gonna draft these young black men and send them over to Korea or South Vietnam to face 800 million Chinese — if you’re not afraid of those odds, you shouldn’t be afraid of these odds.

Why is America — Why does this loom to be such an explosive political year? Because this is the year of politics. This is the year when all of the white politicians are going to come into the Negro community. You never see them until election time. You can’t find them until election time. They’re going to come in with false promises, and as they make these false promises they’re gonna feed our frustrations and this will only serve to make matters worse.

I’m no politician. I’m not even a student of politics. I’m not a Republican, nor a Democrat, nor an American, and got sense enough to know it. I’m one of the 22 million black victims of the Democrats, one of the 22 million black victims of the Republicans, and one of the 22 million black victims of Americanism. And when I speak, I don’t speak as a Democrat, or a Republican, *nor an American.* I speak as a victim of America’s so-called democracy. You and I have never seen democracy; all we’ve seen is hypocrisy. When we open our eyes today and look around America, we see America not through the eyes of someone who have — who has enjoyed the fruits of Americanism, we see America through the eyes of someone who has been the victim of Americanism. We don’t see any American dream; we’ve experienced only the American nightmare. We haven’t benefited from America’s democracy; we’ve only suffered from America’s hypocrisy. And the generation that’s coming up now can see it and are not afraid to say it.

If you — If you go to jail, so what? If you black, you were born in jail. If you black, you were born in jail, in the North as well as the South. Stop talking about the South. Long as you south of the — Long as you south of the Canadian border, you’re south.

Don’t call Governor Wallace a Dixie governor; Romney is a Dixie governor. Twenty-two million black victims of Americanism are waking up and they’re gaining a new political consciousness, becoming politically mature. And as they become — develop this political maturity, they’re able to see the recent trends in these political elections.

They see that the whites are so evenly divided that every time they vote the race is so close they have to go back and count the votes all over again. And that — which means that any block, any minority that has a block of votes that stick together is in a strategic position. Either way you go, that’s who gets it. You’re in a position to determine who will go to the White House, and who will stay in the dog house. You’re the one who has that power. You can keep Johnson in Washington D.C., or you can send him back to his Texas cotton patch. You’re the one who sent Kennedy to Washington. You’re the one who put the present Democratic Administration in Washington D.C. The whites were evenly divided. It was the fact that you threw 80 percent of your votes behind the Democrats that put the Democrats in the White House.

When you see this, you can see that the Negro vote is the key factor. And despite the fact that you are in a position to be the determining factor, what do you get out of it? The Democrats have been in Washington D.C. only because of the Negro vote. They’ve been down there four years, and there all other legislations they wanted to bring up they brought it up and gotten it out of the way, and now they bring up you. And now, they bring up you. You put them first, and they put you last ’cause you’re a chump, a political chump.

In Washington D.C., in the House of Representatives there are 257 who are Democrats; only 177 are Republican. In the Senate there are 67 Democrats; only 33 are Republicans. The Party that you backed controls two-thirds of the House of Representatives and the Senate, and still they can’t keep their promise to you, ’cause you’re a chump. Anytime you throw your weight behind the political party that controls two-thirds of the government, and that Party can’t keep the promise that it made to you during election time, and you’re dumb enough to walk around continuing to identify yourself with that Party, you’re not only a chump, but you’re a traitor to your race.

And what kind of alibi do they come up with? They try and pass the buck to the Dixiecrats. Now back during the days when you were blind, deaf, and dumb, ignorant, politically immature, naturally you went along with that. But today as your eyes come open, and you develop political maturity, you’re able to see and think for yourself, and you can see that a Dixiecrat is nothing but a Democrat in disguise.

You look at the structure of the government that controls this country; it’s controlled by 16 senatorial committees and 20 congressional committees. Of the 16 senatorial committees that run the government, 10 of them are in the hands of Southern segregationists. Of the 20 congressional committees that run the government, 12 of them in the — are in the hands of Southern segregationists. And they’re going to tell you and me that the South lost the war.

You, today, have — are in the hands of a government of segregationists, racists, white supremacists who belong to the Democratic party, but disguise themselves as Dixiecrats. A Dixiecrat is nothing but a Democrat. Whoever runs the Democrats is also the father of the Dixiecrats, and the father of all of them is sitting in the White House. I say and I say it again: You got a President who’s nothing but a Southern segregationist from the state of Texas. They’ll lynch you in Texas as quick as they’ll lynch you in Mississippi. Only in — in Texas they lynch you with a Texas accent; in Mississippi they lynch you with a Mississippi accent.

And the first thing the cracker does when he comes in power, he takes all the Negro leaders and invites them for coffee to show that he’s alright. And those Uncle Toms can’t pass up the coffee. They come away from the coffee table telling you and me that this man is alright ’cause he’s from the South, and since he’s from the South he can deal with the South. Look at the logic that they’re using. What about Eastland? He’s from the South. Make him the President. He can — If Johnson is a good man from the ’cause he’s from Texas, and being from Texas will enable him to deal with the South, Eastland can deal with the South better than Johnson. Oh, I say you’ve been mislead. You been had. You been took.

I was in Washington a couple weeks ago while the Senators were filibustering, and I noticed in the back of the Senate a huge map, and on this map it showed the distribution of Negroes in America, and surprisingly the same Senators that were involved in the filibuster were from the states where there were the most Negroes. Why were they filibustering the civil rights legislation? Because the civil rights legislation is supposed to guarantee voting rights to Negroes in those states, and those senators from those states know that if the Negroes in those states can vote, those senators are down the drain. The Representatives of those states go down the drain. And in the Constitution of this country it has a stipulation wherein, whenever the rights, the voting rights, of people in a certain district are violated, then the Representative who’s from that particular district, according to the Constitution, is supposed to be expelled from the Congress. Now, if this particular aspect of the Constitution was enforced, why you wouldn’t have a cracker in Washington D.C. But what would happen when you expel the Dixiecrat, you’re expelling the Democrat. When you destroy the power of the Dixiecrat, you’re destroying the power — power of the Democratic Party. So how in the world can the Democratic Party in the South actually side with you in sincerity, when all of its power is based in the — in the South?

These Northern Democrats are in cahoots with the Southern Democrats. They’re playing a giant con game, a political con game. You know how it goes. One of them — one of them comes to you and makes believe he’s for you, and he’s in cahoots with the other one that’s not for you. Why? Because neither one of them is for you, but they got to make you go with one of them or the other. So this is a con game. And this is what they’ve been doing with you and me all these years.

First thing Johnson got off the plane when he become President, he asked “Where’s Dicky?” You know who “Dicky” is? Dicky is old Southern cracker Richard — Richard Russell. Look here, yes. Lyndon B. Johnson’s best friend is the one who is the head, who’s heading the forces that are filibustering civil rights legislation. You tell me how in the hell is he going to be Johnson’s best friend? How can Johnson be his friend, and your friend too? No, that man is too tricky. Especially if his friend is still old Dicky.

Whenever the Negroes keep the Democrats in power, they’re keeping the Dixiecrats in power. Is this true? A vote for a Democrat is nothing but a vote for a Dixiecrat. I know you don’t like me saying that, but I, I’m not the kind of person who come here to say what you like. I’m going to tell you the truth, whether you like it or not.

Up here, in the North you have the same thing. The Democratic party don’t — don’t do it. They don’t do it that way. They got a think that they call gerrymandering. They — They maneuver you out of power. Even though you vote, they fix it so you’re voting for nobody; they’ve got you going and coming. In the South, they’re outright political wolves. In the North, they’re political foxes. A fox and a wolf are both canine, both belong to the dog family. Now you take your choice. You going to choose a Northern dog or a Southern dog? Because either dog you choose I guarantee you you’ll still be in the dog house.

This is why I say it’s the ballot or the bullet. It’s liberty or it’s death. It’s freedom for everybody or freedom for nobody. America today finds herself in a unique situation. Historically, revolutions are bloody. Oh, yes, they are. They haven’t never had a blood-less revolution, or a non-violent revolution. That don’t happen even in Hollywood. You don’t have a revolution in which you love your enemy, and you don’t have a revolution in which you are begging the system of exploitation to integrate you into it. Revolutions overturn systems. Revolutions destroy systems.

A revolution is bloody, but America is in a unique position. She’s the only country in history in a position actually to become involved in a blood-less revolution. The Russian revolution was bloody, Chinese revolution was bloody, French revolution was bloody, Cuban revolution was bloody, and there was nothing more bloody then the American Revolution. But today this country can become involved in a revolution that won’t take bloodshed. All she’s got to do is give the black man in this country everything that’s due him, everything.

I hope that the white man can see this, ’cause if he don’t see it you’re finished. If you don’t see it you’re going to be coming — you’re going to become involved in some action in which you don’t have a chance. And we don’t care anything about your atomic bomb; it’s — it’s useless because other countries have atomic bombs. When two or three different countries have atomic bombs, nobody can use them, so it means that the white man today is without a weapon. If you’re gonna — If you want some action, you gotta come on down to Earth. And there’s more black people on Earth than there are white people on Earth.

I only got a couple more minutes. The white man can never win another war on the ground. His days of war, victory, his reign — his days of ground victory are over. Can I prove it? Yes. Take all the action that’s going on this earth right now that he’s involved in — tell me where he’s winning. Nowhere.

Why some rice farmers — some rice farmers — some rice eaters ran him out of Korea. Yes, they ran him out of Korea. Rice eaters with nothing but gym shoes, and a rifle, and a bowl of rice took him and his tanks and his napalm, and all that other action he’s supposed to have and ran him across the Yalu. Why? ‘Cause the day that he can win on the ground has passed.

Up in French Indo-China those little peasants, rice growers took on the might of the French army and ran all the Frenchmen — you remember Dien Bien Phu. No.

The same thing happened in Algeria, in Africa — they didn’t have anything but a rifle. The French had all these highly mechanized instruments of warfare, but they put some guerilla action on, and a — and a — and a white man can’t fight a guerilla warfare. Guerilla action takes heart, takes nerve, and he doesn’t have that. He’s brave when he’s got tanks. He’s brave when he’s got planes. He’s brave when he’s got bombs. He’s brave when he’s got a whole lot of company along with him, but you take that little man from Africa and Asia, turn him loose in the woods with a blade, with a blade — that’s all he needs, all he needs is a blade – and when the sun comes down — goes down, goes down and it’s dark, it’s even-steven.

So it’s the — it’s the ballot or the bullet. Today our people can see that we’re faced with a government conspiracy. This government has failed us. The senators who are filibustering concerning your and my rights, that’s the government. Don’t say it’s Southern senators. This is the government; this is a government filibuster. It’s not a segregationist filibuster. It’s a government filibuster. Any kind of activity that takes place on the floor of the Congress or the Senate, it’s the government. Any kind of dilly-dallying, that’s the government. Any kind of pussy-footing, that’s the government. Any kind of act that’s designed to delay or deprive you and me right now of getting full rights, that’s the government that’s responsible.

And any time you find the government involved in a conspiracy to violate the citizenship or the civil rights of a people, then you are wasting your time going to that government expecting redress. Instead, you have to take that government to the World Court and accuse it of genocide and all of the other crimes that it is guilty of today.

So those of us whose political, and economic, and social philosophy is black nationalism have become involved in the civil rights struggle. We have injected ourselves into the civil rights struggle, and we intend to expand it from the level of civil rights to the level of human rights. As long as you’re — As long as you’re fighting on the level of civil rights, you’re under Uncle Sam’s jurisdiction. You’re going to his court expecting him to correct the problem. He created the problem. He’s the criminal. You don’t take your case to the criminal; you take your criminal to court. When the government of South Africa began to trample upon the human rights of the people of South Africa, they were taken to the U.N. When the government of Portugal began to trample upon the — the rights of our brothers and sisters in Angola, it was taken before the U.N. Why even the white man took the Hungarian question to the U.N. And just this week Chief Justice Goldberg was crying over 3 million Jews in Russia about their human rights, charging Russia with violating the U.N. charter because of its mistreatment of the human rights of Jews in Russia.

Now you tell me how can the plight of everybody on this earth reach the halls of the United Nations, and you have 22 million Afro-Americans whose choices are being bound, whose little girls are being murdered, whose leaders are being shot down in broad daylight. Now you tell me why the leaders of this struggle have never taken it before the United Nations. So our next move is to take the entire civil rights struggle problems into the United Nations, and let the world see that Uncle Sam is guilty of violating the human rights of 22 million Afro-Americans….

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[Uncle Sam...] and still has the audacity or the nerve to stand up and represent himself as the leader of the free world. Not only is he a crook, he’s a hypocrite. Here he is standing up in front of other people, Uncle Sam, with the blood of your and mine mothers and fathers on his hands, with the blood dripping down his jaws like a bloody-jawed wolf, and still got the nerve to point his finger at other countries. You can’t even get civil rights legislation. And this man has got the nerve to stand up and talk about South Africa, or talk about Nazi Germany, or talk about Deutschland. Why? No more days like those.

So, I say in my conclusion the only way we’re going to solve it – we’ve got to unite in unity and harmony, and black nationalism is the key. How we gonna overcome the tendency to be at each others throats that always exists in our neighborhoods? And the reason this tendency exists, the strategy of the white man has always been divide and conquer. He keeps us divided in order to conquer us. He tells you I’m for separation and you for integration to keep us fighting with each other. No, I’m not for separation and you’re not for integration. What you and I is for is freedom. Only you think that integration would get you freedom, I think separation would get me freedom. We both got the same objective, we just got different ways of getting at it.

So I studied this man, Billy Graham, who preaches white nationalism, that’s what he preaches. I say that’s what he preaches. The whole church structure in this country is white nationalism. You go inside a white church that’s what they preaching is white nationalism. They got Jesus white, Mary white, God white, everybody white — that’s white nationalism. So what he does — the way he — the way he — the way he circumvents the — the jealousy and envy that he ordinarily would incur among the heads of the church, wherever he go into an area where the church already is you going into trouble, ’cause they got that thing what you call it — syndicated, they got a syndicate — just like the rest of the Racketeers have. I’m going to say what’s on my mind ’cause the churches are, the preachers already proved to you that they got a syndicate.

And when you’re out in the rackets, whenever you’re getting in another man’s territory, you know, they gang up on you. And that’s the same way with you — you ran into the same thing. So how Billy Graham gets around that, instead of going into somebody else’s territory, like he going to start up a new church, he don’t — he doesn’t try to start a church. He just goes in preaching Christ. And he says everybody who believe in Him, you go wherever — you go wherever you find him. So this helps all the churches and since it helps all the churches they don’t mind fight him.

Well, we gonna do the same thing, only our gospel s black nationalism; his gospel is white nationalism; our gospel is black nationalism. And the gospel of black nationalism, as I told you, means you should control you own, the politics of your community, the economy of your community, and all of the society in which you live should be under your control. And once you feel that this philosophy will solve your problem, go join any church where that’s preached. Don’t join a church where white nationalism is preached. Now you can go to a Negro church and be exposed to white nationalism ’cause you are when you walk in a Negro church and a white Mary and some white angels — that Negro church is preaching white nationalism. But when you go to a church and you see the pastor of that church with a philosophy and a program that’s designed to bring black people together and elevate black people — join that church. Join that church. If you see where the NAACP is preaching and practicing that which is designed to make black nationalism materialize, join the NAACP. Join any kind of organization, civic, religious, fraternal, political, or otherwise that’s based on lifting the black man up and making him master of his own community.

It’ll be — It’ll be the — the ballot or it’ll be the bullet. It’ll be liberty or it’ll be death. And if you’re not ready to pay that price don’t use the word freedom in your vocabulary.

One more thing: I was on a program in Illinois recently with Senator Paul Douglas, a so-called liberal, so-called Democrat, so-called white man, at which time he told me that our African brothers were not interested in us in Africa. He said the Africans are not interested in the American Negro. I knew he was lying, but during the next two or three weeks it’s my intention and plan to make a tour of our African homeland. And I hope that when I come back, I’ll be able to come back and let you know how our African brothers and sisters feel toward us. And I know before I go there that they love us. We’re one; we’re the same; the same man who has colonized them all these years, colonized you and me too all these years. And all we have to do now is wake up and work in unity and harmony and the battle will be over.

I want to thank the Freedom Now Party and the goal. I want to thank Milton and Richard Henley for inviting me here this afternoon, and also Reverend Cleage. And I want them to know that anything that I can ever do, at any time, to work with anybody in any kind of program that is sincerely designed to eliminate the political, the economic, and the social evils that confront all of our people, in Detroit and elsewhere, all they got to do is give me a telephone call and I’ll be on the next jet right on into the city.