NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/misc/activism/progress/10357

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From: [e-mail] (Rich Winkel)
Subject: Malcom X: From An African-American Perspective
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/** headlines: 688.0 **/
** Topic: MALCOLM X: From An African-American **
** Written 10:24 am  Jan 25, 1993 by newsdesk in cdp:headlines **
/* Written  7:20 pm  Jan 24, 1993 by josefina in igc:justice.comm */
/* ---------- "MALCOLM X: From An African-American" ---------- */
From: Josefina Velasquez <josefina>
Subject: MALCOLM X: From An African-American

MALCOLM X:  FROM AN AFRICAN-AMERICAN YOUTH PERSPECTIVE

                Knowing Malcolm
                Knowing Ourselves

by FREE MY PEOPLE
Youth Leadership Movement

"The young generation of whites, Blacks, browns--your're living at a time
of revolution, a time when there's got to be a change.  People in power
have misused it, and now there has to be a change and a better world has
to be built." (1)  Malcolm X

The Historical Malcolm

The accomplishments of leaders belong to the people whom they serve.
George Washington was a leader of propertied White men.  So today rich
White men write history books about him, and use our tax dollars to put
these history books in our schools to teach us about their leader, George
Washington.

Great Leaders do not drop from the sky, nor are they born great.  Leaders
are born of the people's struggle, and if the peopple are waging a great
struggle this struggle must give rise to great leaders.

Malcolm X became a great leader at a time when African-Americans were
rising up, at a time when Black people were taking our future into our own
hands.

The accomplishments of revolutionary leaders like Malcolm are not private
property--no one group, organization or individual can claim the rights to
these accomplishments.  The contributions of Malcolm X belong to the
people, and especially to all of the oppressed who are rising up to create
a bright future for our people.

Revolution and National Liberation

African-Americans were not the only peoples rising up at that time.  In
fact, we took our examples from our Brothers and Sisters in Africa who
were waging wars of national liberation against European colonialism.
Latin American peoples, led by the successful revolution in Cuba, were
also rising up.  The peoples of Asia, the foremost being the 700 million
Chinese people who had successfully kicked U.S., British and Japanese
imperialism off of their national territory, were an example from which
our people were gaining hope.

Malcolm advised us to look very closely at these revolutions, and to see
the similarity between the way we were being treated and the way the U.S.
government was treating other oppressed peoples:  "Just as guerrilla
warfare is prevailing in Asia and in parts of Africa and in parts of Latin
America, you've got to be mighty naive, or you've got to play Black
[people]* cheap, if you don't think some day [we are] going to wake up and
find that it's got to be the ballot or the bullet."(2)  "Any occupied
territory is a police state; their [the troops] presence is like
occupying forces, like and occupying army...  They [the police and the
national guard] are in Harlem to protect the interest of the businessmen
who don't even live there."(3)

WHAT IS A REVOLUTION AND WHAT IS A REVOLUTIONARY?

Malcolm taught us:  "...a revolutionary in the true sense of the word [is
someone who has] carried on a successful revolution against oppression in
his country."(4)  Therefore, his definition of a revolutionary was not
based on what someone said but on what they did.

Although certain leaders of the civil rights movement advocated that we,
as a people, should ask our oppressors to stop oppressing us, some of our
people began to follow the examples of the revolutions in other countries.
Beginning in the early 1960's, the Deacons for Defense and Justice sprang
up in Alabama, and then chapters of this organization spread throughout
the South.  This organization was dedicated to armed self-defense of the
civil rights movement.

Although some of the civil rights leaders did not want this service, the
Deacons successfully prevented many civil rights workers from suffering
physical harm, and saved many lives through this method of armed
self-defense.

Also during the time of Malcolm's political education, the Monroe chapter
of the NAACP, led by the chapter's president, Robert Williams, organized
a rifle club to defend the Black community from the Ku Klux Klan which was
conducting night rides (raids) through the neighborhood.  In September,
1959 the Klan attempted to attack this community and was summarily
defeated in battle by this determined and well trained group.

In 1964, the people launched the great Harlem rebellion.  While Mayor
Wagner placed the national guard in the basements of the tenements
throughout Harlem, the people rose up against this occupation as well as
against:  police brutality, White exploiters, businesses that were sucking
the community dry, and slum landlords.

The savage response of the New York City police and the army--killing
dozens of African-American men, women, and children, maiming many hundreds
more and jailing thousands--was a great educator of Malcolm.  At this time,
he became even more convinced of the necessity for extensive and thorough
organization along the lines of that exhibited by successful revolutions
in other countries.

With regard to the successful fight for independence against the British
occupation forces in Kenya, which was led by the guerrilla army known as
the Mau Mau, Malcolm urged us to learn this lesson:  "...you and I can
best learn how to get real freedom by studying how Kenyatta brought it to
his people in Kenya, ...and the excellent job that was done by the Mau Mau
freedom fighters.  In fact, that's what we need in Mississippi.  In
Mississippi we need a Mau Mau.  In Alabama we need a Mau Mau.  In Georgia
we need a Mau Mau.  Right here in Harlem, in New York City, we need a Mau
Mau.  I say it with no anger.  I say it with careful forethought.  We need
a Mau Mau."(5)

BLACK POWER AND THE BLACK PANTER PARTY

So what is a Revolution?  According to Malcolm, in a country which
oppresses its people the entire political and economic system must be
taken down by the people through a popular uprising.  "I believe that
there will ultimately be a clash between the oppressed and those that do
the oppressing.  I believe that there will be a clash between those who
want freedom, and those who want to continue the system of exploitation."(6)

What will this American system of exploitation be replaced with?  When we
study our history we look for the interconnection of events and movements
of our people.  To understand what Malcolm's goal for our revolution was,
we have to look at what our people were doing during the time he developed
as a leader and after he died.

Immediately after Malcolm's death, massive uprisings, in which hundreds of
thousands of our people engaged the U.S. military in battle, took place all
across the country:  from Watts (LA) (1965) to Cleveland (1966), Detroit
and Newark (1967) and Chicago (1968).  Between 1967 and 1968 over 300 U.S.
cities crackled in the flames of African-American rebellions.  Just as
Malcolm sought to bring about an organized force that could win our
Peoples Liberation, his followers built revolutionary organizations born
of these rebellions.

In Newark, the Congress of African People was born and they gave us the
slogans, IT'S NATION TIME and WE ARE AN AFRICAN PEOPLE, thereby
designating our struggle as a national liberation movement with the same
dignity as that of the freedom struggles in African nations, in Vietnam
and in Cuba.

The Republic of New Africa was born seeking to develop the Black Nation in
Southern states of the U.S. where African-Americans made up the majority of
the population.

The Detroit Revolutionary Union Movement, comprised of labor unionists in
the Ford, General Motors and Chrysler plants.  (DRUM) rose up to give a
working-class basis to our people's struggle and to make it clear that we
don't need to swap a White capitalist for a Black capitalist--the wealth
produced by the working people should be shared by the working people (the
large majority of the people of this country).

The greatest of the organizations built by our people at that time was the
Black Panther Party.  To understand Malcolm X we have to study the Black
Panther Party.  To understand the goal of Black Power, we have to look at
how the Black Panther Party organized and what they did for our people.

Why look at the Black Panther Party?  Because they were founded one after
Malcolm was assassinated.  Because they were thousands of Brothers and
Sisters committed to acting on the ideas of Malcolm X.  Because the Black
Panter Party was born of the same Black Liberation Movement that gave
birth to the leadership of Malcolm X.

The Panthers gave our children the free breakfast program before the U.S.
government came to understand that our children need to eat before they go
to school.  The Panthers gave us free medical care before Medicaid.  They
gave us free day care and free literacy training.  And they did all these
things by wresting the resources from those who have exploited our
community.  They led boycotts and other campaigns to force businesses and
the government to give up the resources the Panthers needed to run these
programs.

Central to all the programs that the Panthers ran was political education.
They taught the people in the spirit of Malcolm's teachings that the
system under which we are ruled must go:  "The present American 'system'
can never produce freedom for Black [people].  A chicken cannot lay a duck
egg because the chicken's 'system' is not designed or equipped to produce
a duck egg...  The American 'system' (political, economic and social) was
produced from the enslavement of Black [people], and this present 'system'
is capable only of perpetuating that enslavement.  In order for a chicken
to produce a duck egg its system whould have to undergo a drastic and
painful revolutionary change... or REVOLUTION.  So be it with America's
enslaving system."(7)

A revolutionary change is a change made by the people, in their millions.

Revolution Begins with the Self, In the Self

When we study Malcolm, we are studying ourselves.  We must listen for
Malcolm's voice in the heartbeat of our people.  When he spoke of
revolution, he did not mean merely a fight against an external enemy.  We
listen to hear of the harmony we must find inside ourselves, with each other.

As FREE MY PEOPLE has stated in the past, "Revolution is very simple:
It's about taking care of myself and my people.  In a society which is
fundamentally destructive and self-destructive, taking care of my needs
and the needs of my people is by definition revolutionary."  Malcolm left
the Nation of Islam principally because this moral and spiritual
commitment was absent.  Elijah Muhammed was engaging in sexual relations
with many teenage Sisters who were employed in his office, and he had made
six of them pregnant.  This is the opposite of loving and caring for
ourselves and our people.

Revolution means we connect our inner voice--that which ties us to the
struggle of all our people--with our day-to-day efforts to organize our
liberation movement.

In 1970, Toni Cade Bambara, an outstanding leader of the Black Liberation
Movement, pointed out:  "Revolution begins with the self, in the self...
If you're house aint in order, you aint in order.  It's easier to be out
there than home.  But the revoution aint out there.  Yet.  But it is in
here now."

            Knowing Malcolm,
            Knowing Ourselves

As one of the pressing tasks facing us as a people, understanding Malcolm X
is, in the final analysis, an inward looking meditation.  Malcolm cannot
be understood by watching a movie.  We come to know Malcom as we come to
know ourselves.  Malcom's spirit flows in the River Niger of our people's
love and care for us.  This River has had no dam since the first European
ship landed on African soil, since the first slave uprising.  This same
River carries Malcolm to us today.

As we look to know Malcolm X we are are looking to know ourselves.
Self-Knowledge is an inward looking exercise, and it must be practiced
daily like eating and sleeping.  We must do it together.

We cannot find Malcolm in a movie, just as we cannot find ourselves in a
movie.  We might be able to get a piece of Malcolm by listening to this
religious group's claim to him, or by hearing that White radical group's
attempt to appropriate him.  MALCOLM CANNOT BE APPROPRIATED EXCEPT IN SO
FAR AS WE, THE PEOPLE, CLAIM OURSELVES.

As we seek to claim all that is positive and forward-looking about
ourselves, including Malcolm, let us look inward, inside our circle,
inside our community, inside our people.  This is where Malcolm can be
found.  This is where Harriet Tubman can be found.  This is where the
Deacons for Defense and Justice can be found.  This is where Fanny Lou
Hamer can be found.  This is where the Black Panthers can be found.  This
is where all of our accomplishments as a people can be found:  in our
circle, in the community-building that we do with each other.  Malcolm
lives inside all of us to the extent that we are willing and able to
accept our own power, to the extent that we allow our community inside of
ourselves, to the extent that we build community from the inside out.


NOTES

*In accordance with principles with which this article begins, we are
speaking of Malcolm as an historical presence, not as a personality.  We
believe his contributions belong to the people.  In this spirit we have
changed Malcolm's use of the term "the Black man," to "Black [people]" to
coincide with revolutionary direction in which he was moving.  Our people
have moved to fight for equality between men and women and for women's
liberation.  Therefore, where the word "people" appears in brackets it has
replaced the term "the Black man."

(1) Malcolm X Talks to the People, Steve Clark, ed. (p.25)

(2) Malcolm X, the Man and His Times, John Henrik Clarke, ed. (p.242)

(3) The Last Year of Malcolm X, George Breitman (p.66)

(4) Malcolm X, the Last Speeches, Bruce Perry, ed. (p.88)

(5) The Man and His Times, Clarke (p.262)

(6) Malcolm X Speaks, Breitman, ed. (p.252)

(7) The Man and His Times, Clarke (p.253)


** End of text from cdp:headlines **