“What do you think you will do after 400 years of slavery and gym Crow and lynching? Do you think you will answer non -violently?” They were some of the major questions that Malcolm X gave to the American Society.
Although slavery in the US was abolished in the US in 1865, the so -called gym cro laws continued to strengthen everyday discrimination against black people until 1964. Some states had artificial obstacles for their right to vote, and many people were not allowed next to white people in buses or restaurants.
“Malcolm X addressed issues properly burning on the minds of African Americans,” the author of the biography “Malcolm X: The Black Revolutionary,” the Brita Waldschmidt-Nelson.
His message was clear for African Americans: Be confident! Fight for your rights “either way essential” – even with violence.
The Pulitzer Award winning journalist Les Payne (1941-2018) recalled in his Malcolm X biography of how the 1963 speech by the worker freed him, such as a “flashing sword jerk”, “the air-conditioned feeling of inferiority as a black person is inherent in his psychiatry.
It is okay what is the goal of Malcom X.
Childhood married by racism
Born on May 19, 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska, Malcolm Little’s childhood near Detroit was marked by poverty and violence. What was the six years old when his father was found dead; According to various accounts, he was murdered by white dominations. With seven children and small money, Malcom’s mother became completely overwell and became mentally ill. Malcolm was placed in various foster families and institutions; He later spoke in his autobiography of “Terror of very white social workers”.
Despite his difficult start, he was a good student, the only black person in his class. A major experience had a profound impact on him: his favorite teacher asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. Malcolm replied that he would like to study the law. But the teacher, using an aggressive racist solution to describe him, told him that there was no realistic goal for a boy like him.
The young Malcolm was completely disillusioned. His grade fell dramatically, and at the age of 15, he moved to Boston to live with his step -sister Ella Collins, and later moved to New York. He supported the odd working Himalo before becoming a petty criminal. In the early 20s, he was imprisoned for various theft.
“Here a black man is locked behind bars, perhaps for years, kept there by a white man,” he later wrote in his autobiography. “You start realizing this captive man, as I did, how the first landing of this slave ship, millions of black men in the US have bee sheep in a den on wolves. That is why black prisoners become Muslims when Eliza Muhammad’s teachings.
The mentor refers to Malcolm X, Eliza Muhammad, a black separatist and a leader of Islam, a religious-political organization in the country of Islam.
Fight against ‘White Devils’
Nation of Islam (Noi) “claims that all black people are naturally God and good children, and all white people are naturally evil and Satan’s children,” Valdschidt-Nelson explains. “It is very attractive for Malcolm and many other jail prisoners, of course, it will come together and say,” You are not guilty of your grief; it is blue -eyed who has deviated you. “
After joining NOI, he began calling him Malcolm X, as the surnames of African Americans were historically assigned by his slave owners. Therefore, members of NOI rejected their slave names and called Thaum only “X”.
He spent his seven years in prison to educate him and was a member of NOI for 14 years. Leader Eliza Muhammad praised the youth’s intellectual skills and oratory skills and made him a spokesperson for the organization.
In his speeches, Malcolm X repeatedly condemned “White Devils”. Although he lived in the northern states of America – “promised land” for black people from more restrictive southern states – he no longer hoped in white “liberals”. After all, he personally experiences how black people were considered as second -class citizens.
The Malcolm X Martin Luther was a long time decent on King Jr.’s civil rights movement. He criticized King’s famous speech about an independent and united America in Washington in 1963 March, united about all racial obstacles, “No, no, I am not an American. I am one of 22 million black people who are victims of Americanism. […] And I see America through the eyes of the victim. I do not dream of any American; I see American nightmare. ,
Pilgrimage for maize – and a change of heart
After disillusioned with the leader of the organization, Malcolm X broke the rank of Islam with the nation of Islam in March 1964.
The same year, he made a pilgrimage for Mecca – and began to wear his image of “White Devils”. “Hey, which became deepened in depth and warmly, with whom he was welcomed, even by white Muslims in Saudi Arabia,” Brita Waldschidt-Nelson has written in his biography. “And then, in the final year of his life, he got away from this racist theory,” he told DW.
He said he did a new job: “Malcolm X wanted to aligned all the oppressed people of color against the white colonial harassment,” a biography says.
On a visit to Africa, governments praised his intentions, but did not rely on his support: “Of course, they were all exempted on American development aid, and African governments should not work openly against time.”
Instead, the Malcolm X became the focus of the CIA. What is the nation of Islam on its heels. “Hey knew that he was going to kill him, and it is a conscious decision on his behalf to cope with him,” called Waldschidt-Nelson. “He probably said to himself: I can no longer give up. After his experience in Mecca, Malcolm worked on a new path, which was open to collaborate with the king’s civil rights movement and, if necessary, also with white popalas.”
But this never happened. On 21 February 1965, he was shot during a lecture by members of the nation of Islam. Hey what is only 39 years old.
Inheritance from a renewed
In the 1980s, hip-hop artists celebrated the legacy of Malcolm X by sampling their speeches in their music: “It all became very resonant,” Michael E, Professor of African American Literature and Culture at the University of Pittsburgh. Sawyer says. “This was a method for such a black identity manufacturer as a political identity.” The songs served as the political declarations of war on white racism, barbarity of the police and the weakness of black undercase.
In 1992, Spike Lee adapted the Autobiography of Malcolm X in a film starring Denzel Washington, which contributed to the revolutionary man to turn into an icon for the cultural identity of black people in an icon.
Today, the role played in shaping the current American administration is white to understand racism, and with the Maga movement against the glory of any Critica’s alleged past, the words of Malcolm X remain a more relevant person:
“You are not so blind with patriotism that you cannot face reality.
This article was original in German.
