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February 22, 2005
40 years
it has been four decades since the assassination of malcolm x. just finished watching the american experience documentary, "malcolm x: make it plain."
i can hear the saints urging the pastor: "preach, pastor. make it plain."
i've decided not to do my normal posting thing. instead, i'll be sharing some quotes from "our manhood, our shining black prince."
We ended up with twenty-two million Black people here in America who hated everything about us that was African. We hated the African characteristics, the African characteristics. We hated our hair. We hated our nose, the shape of our nose, and the shape of our lips, the color of our skin. Yes we did. And it was you who taught us to hate ourselves simply by shrewdly maneuvering us into hating the land of our forefathers and the people on the continent...When you teach a man to hate his lips, the lips that God gave him, the shape of the nose that God gave him, the texture of the hair that God gave him, the color of the skin that God gave him, you've committed the worst crime that a race of people can commit. And this is the crime that you've committed.
"Not Just an American Problem, but a World Problem" delivered on February 16, 1965 at Corn Hill Methodist Church, Rochester, New York
As a Black American I do feel that my first responsibility is to my twenty-two million fellow Black Americans who suffer the same indignities because of their color as I do. I don't believe my own personal problem is every solved until the problem is solved for all twenty-two million of us.
"We Are Fighting for Respect and Recognition as Human Beings for All Black Americans" interview conducted February 13 thru 20, 1965
And the whole world thinks that America's race problem is being solved, when actually the masses of Black people in America are still living in the ghettos and the slums; they still are the victims of inferior housing; they are still the vicitms of a segregated school system which gives them inferior education. They are still victims, after they get that inferior education, where they can only get the worst form of jobs.
"The Oppressed Masses of the World Cry Out for Action Against the Common Oppressor" delivered at the London School of Economics, February 11, 1965
quotes found in February 1965, The Final Speeches: Malcolm X, Pathfinder Publishing, 1992.
Malcolm X was assassinated on February 21, 1965 in the Audubon Ballroom, New York.
Posted by emnorris at February 22, 2005 04:36 AM