Tag: Malcolm X

In the African-American civil rights struggle of the 1960s, Malcolm X’s mission was to assert the equal humanity of Blacks. This principally meant fighting against the lynching of Blacks, the setting of dogs against Blacks to tear off their flesh, the brutalisation of Blacks by the police, the washing of Blacks down the drain using water from high pressure hoses, and other sundry racial indignities in America. It also meant challenging the government for passing civil rights legislations without the ability or willingness to enforce them and the inequitable refusal to offer Blacks reparations for centuries of slavery to propel them to economic respectability.

Within the African-American community itself, Malcolm was committed to inspiring Blacks to have a sense of positive self-esteem or racial pride in and unity amongst themselves, and the promotion of the desire to exert themselves optimally to free themselves from the racial quagmire of America. He also believed that America did not have the capacity to solve the problems of Blacks by itself when considered as civil rights problems, and that the problems needed to be internationalised as human rights problems. The starting point in this regard was to reach out to Africans and African governments to let them know the true condition of Blacks in America.

In carrying out his mission, Malcolm was conscious of the power of the media to misinform and misrepresent, and famously said, “The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses.”  So, he counselled: “Never believe what you read in the newspapers. They’re not going to tell you the truth.”

Relatedly, a 19 December, 2023 report of ThisWeekInLibraries noted about Malcolm X: “Firstly, he urged individuals to question the motivations behind media messages. He encouraged people to consider who owns the media outlets, and what their interests might be. This could help to reveal any potential biases and agendas. Secondly, Malcolm X emphasized the importance of seeking out alternative sources of information. He believed that mainstream media did not always provide a complete or accurate picture, and that it was essential to look to other outlets for a more balanced perspective. Lastly, he advocated for the creation of independent media … to combat the misrepresentation and give a voice to marginalized communities.”

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Malcolm also noted: “The best thing the White man ever did for me was to make me look like a monster all over the world, because I can go any place on the African continent and our African brothers know where I stand.”  And Malcolm X did travel widely in Africa, and he was cordially received by various African heads of government.

In a speech titled “OAAU Homecoming Rally (November 29, 1964)”, he said that, over an 18-week period, he visited Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia, Guinea Conakry, Algeria, and Senegal. According to Malcolm X, “in all the travelling that I did in … Africa, everywhere I went, I found nothing but open minds; I found nothing but open hearts; and I found nothing but open doors. Our people love us. All they want to know is do we love them.”

Malcolm also declared: “My main theme while I was travelling with our brothers abroad on the African continent was to try and impress upon them that 22 million of our people here in America who consider ourselves inseparably linked with them that our origin is the same and our destiny is the same. … [So] what is necessary, we have to go back [to Africa] mentally; we have to go back culturally; we have to go back spiritually, and philosophically and psychologically; and … when we go back in that sense, then this spiritual bond that is created makes us inseparable.”

With this, Malcolm opined, “they can see that our problem is their problem, and their problem is our problem. Our problem is not solved until theirs is solved; theirs is not solved until ours is solved. And when we can develop that kind of relationship, it then means that we will help them solve their problem and we want them to help us solve our problem. And by both of us working together, we’ll get a solution to that problem. We’ll only get that problem solved working together.”

Malcolm reiterated: “This was the essence of any discussion: that the problems are one; that the destiny is still the same; the origin is the same; even the experiences are the same. They catch hell, we catch hell. And no matter how much independence they get on the motherland continent, if we don’t have … respect over here, when they come over here, they’re mistaken for one of us and they’re disrespected too. Well, in order [for them] to be respected, we must be respected.”

Malcolm was most irked by the colonial administration of Congo by Belgium which he described as “one of the worst racist governments that have ever existed on the face of the earth.” In an 18 July, 2023 YouTube record titled “The speech that got Patrice Lumumba killed,” at Congo’s independence ceremony in Leopoldville, King Baudouin of Belgium praised his country’s colonial record and patronisingly counselled the new Congo government not to change the colonial policies. The Belgian colonial legacy being glamourised here is one which was so racistly brutal that it reportedly caused the death of over ten million Congolese.

Patrice Lumumba, the new Prime Minister, responded at the event: “Today, we have won our struggle for independence. I salute you in the name of the Congolese government. To you all my friends, who have fought without respite at our sides, I ask you to make of today, this 30th June, 1960, an illustrious day that will be etched on forever on your hearts, a date whose significance you would pass on with pride to your children who in turn will pass on to their sons and grandsons, the glorious story of the struggle for our liberty.”

Lumumba continued, listing the evils of Belgian colonial rule: “We have known ironies, insults. We have had to submit to beatings morning, noon and night, because we were Negroes. A Black was always addressed in the familiar form, certainly not as a friend, but because the respectful form was reserved for the Whites. We whose bodies have suffered under the colonial oppression, we say to you, it is all over now.” After that brave and patriotic public challenge of King Baudouin, Lumumba became a marked man.

Shortly after independence, disagreements began between Lumumba and the President, Joseph Kasavubu. These created an opportunity for a military intervention on 14 September, 1960, led by Congolese Chief of Army Staff, Col. Joseph Mobutu (later known as Mobutu Sese Seko), and it resulted in the arrest of Patrice Lumumba. Lumumba was assassinated on 17 January, 1961 at the age of 35 within the territory of Moïse Tshombe, the President of the secessionist mineral-rich Katanga State (from 1960 to 1963) and later Prime Minister of Congo (from 1964 to 1965).

As Britannica.com reports, “Lumumba and his associates were … executed by a Katangan firing squad, under Belgian supervision, and in the presence of Katangan and Belgian officials and officers. The bodies were then thrown into shallow graves. A Katangan government official later ordered that the bodies disappear. At that point, a Belgian police officer led a group that searched for the graves, dug up the bodies, hacked them to pieces, and dissolved as much of the body parts as they could in sulphuric acid. Anything that remained was set on fire.”

Condemning Tshombe who was believed to have collaborated with Belgium and the United States to murder Lumumba, Malcolm said passionately: “If there’s the worst African that was ever born, it was the man who, in cold blood, cold blood, committed an international crime, murdered Patrice Lumumba, murdered him in cold blood. The world knows that Tshombe murdered Lumumba, and now he’s a big partner of Lyndon B. Johnson [the 36th President of America]. … Johnson is … propping up Tshombe’s government; the murderer.”

Imam Omar Suleiman, in a 21 February, 2021 Al Jazeera article reported: “Malcolm also spoke to the internalised racism of Black people that was essential to overcome for true liberation. As the late James Cone states, ‘Malcolm was a cultural revolutionary. Malcolm changed how Black people thought about themselves. Before Malcolm came along, we were all Negroes. After Malcolm, he helped us become Black.’”

Given that on 5 May, 1962, Malcolm said to Black women, “We teach you to love the hair that God gave you,” how would he have reacted to today’s ‘educated’ African women’s still self-hating humongous investments on different kinds of wigs or ‘hairs’ to make them look like White women? And how would he have reacted to Nigeria’s japa syndrome, considering the fact that he said that he insulted the African-Americans he met in Ghana who cut themselves off the Black struggle back in America and were living in luxury in Africa?

Considering the state of leadership in Africa today, and possibly because he died at the young age of 39 in 1965, Malcolm X’s vision of an Africa which would unite with the African-American world to carry out joint actions for the mutual benefit of both partners seems not to have gained much traction. All the same, Malcolm has set down an invaluable template for current and future African leaders.

On Malcolm’s personal identity, Omar Suleiman noted: “In championing his movement’s philosophy, some seek to secularise him, intentionally erasing his Muslim identity. And in championing his religious identity, others seek to depoliticise him. This was a tension that Malcolm noted in his own life, saying: ‘For the Muslims, I’m too worldly. For other groups, I’m too religious. For militants, I’m too moderate, for moderates I’m too militant. I feel like I’m on a tightrope.’”

On 7 March, 2024, Aaron Bonderson of Nebraska Pubic Media reported: “On Sept. 12, 2022, Malcolm X became the first Black man or woman voted into the Nebraska Hall of Fame. By May, a bust of Malcolm X will be inside the Nebraska State Capitol, along with 26 other Nebraskans.” Moreover, as Jake Anderson reports in a 19 May, 2025 story, in MSN, “Omaha is celebrating its hometown hero and civil rights icon on Monday. It’s Malcolm X Day. The city issued a proclamation in honor of the 100th anniversary of the civil rights leader’s birth. Malcolm X was born in Omaha in 1925.”

Malcolm X’s birth was a boon to humanity. He was not just an American phenomenon, but also a pan-African star, and, above all, an exemplary human being.

Monday, 19 May, 2025, marks a hundred years since Malcolm X was born as Malcolm Little on 19 May, 1925. His father was Earl Little and a follower of the black Jamaican Marcus Garvey, and so was his mother. Marcus Garvey had devoted himself to the promotion of the universal unity of black people, founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in 1914, and even established a shipping line – The Black Star Line – to move blacks in the diaspora back to Africa.

This grand establishment-challenging agenda had its risks, including to his life, but Garvey declared: “In life I shall come back, or in death even to serve you as I served before. In life I shall be the same; in death I shall be a TERROR to foes of African liberty. … If I may come in an earthquake or a plague or a pestilence, or if God would help me, then be assured that I shall NEVER desert you and make your enemies triumph over you!” On his impending imprisonment, he said: “If I should die in Atlanta, my work will only just then begin. For I shall live in the physical or the spiritual to see the day of Africa’s Glory.” So, he exhorted, “Look for me in a whirlwind or a storm! Look for me all around you!”

Due to Malcolm’s father’s Garvey-inspired activities, the father was a prime target of hatred by the white extremist group Ku Klux Klan (KKK). And when his father died in what looked every bit like very cruel circumstances, his family believed that it was the handiwork of the KKK, though the authorities ruled the death as suicide. This official position denied the family any death benefits, and it complicated the family’s trauma, leading to the eventual emotional breakdown of Malcolm’s mother.

From then on, Malcolm who was six years old was denied direct parental upbringing. Living in a foster home and with his aunt did not adequately compensate for this deprivation. That his teacher racistly dissuaded Malcolm from the aspiration of becoming a lawyer in future, while rather advising him to aspire to become a carpenter, aggravated his social destabilisation; and Malcolm took to a life of petty crimes which eventually led him to jail at the age of 21.

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Malcolm spent the time in jail reading voraciously, educating himself and developing his oratorical skills. By the time he left prison, Malcolm who, when he entered prison, could barely sustain a logical argument, had become a quintessential debater. Even TIME magazine which was evidently hostile to Malcolm could not help but describe him as “a spellbinding speaker.”

On unity, Malcolm said to black people: “When black people wake up and become intellectually independent enough to think for themselves as other humans are intellectually independent enough to think for themselves, then the black man will think like a black man, and he will feel for other black people. And this new thinking and feeling will cause black people to stick together. And then at that point, you’ll have a situation where when you attack one black man, you’re attacking all black men.”

Malcolm then noted: “And this type of black thinking will cause all black people to stick together. And this type of thinking also will bring an end to the brutality inflicted upon black people by white people. And it is the only thing that will bring an end to it. No federal court, state court, or city court will bring an end to it. It’s something that the black man has to bring an end to himself.”

Moreover, in a 1963 speech titled, “Blacks Do for Yourself,” Malcolm said: “20 million black people in this country have been like boys in the white man’s house. He even calls us boy. … [No matter] how big you get, he calls you boy. You can be a professor; to him, you’re just another boy. … If you can’t do for yourself what the white man is doing for himself, don’t say you’re equal with the white man. If you can’t set up a factory like he sets up a factory, don’t talk that old equality talk.”

Malcolm then admonishes: “Get off the welfare. Get out of that compensation line. Be a man. Earn what you need for your own family. Then your family respects you. They are proud to say this’s my father; she’s proud to say that’s my husband. Father means you’re taking care of those children. Just because you made them … don’t mean that you’re a father. Anybody can make a baby. But anybody can’t take care of them. Anybody can go and get a woman, but anybody can’t take care of a woman.”

     Malcolm was a black women’s rights advocate who declared: “The most disrespected person in America is the black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the black woman. The most neglected person in America is the black woman.  And as Muslims, the Honorable Elijah Mohammad teaches us to respect our women and to protect our women. Then the only time the Muslim gets really violent is when someone goes to molest his woman. We will kill you for our women. I’m making it plain.”

Malcolm continued: “We believe that if the white man will do whatever is necessary to see that his woman gets respect and protection, then you and I will never be recognized as men until we stand up like men and place the same penalty over the head of anyone who puts his filthy hands out … in the direction of our women.”

In the words of his wife, Dr. Betty Shabazz, “Malcolm was a good man. … Whatever discipline I have came from Malcolm. Whatever strength I have came from Malcolm. Whatever tolerance and love of my people came from Malcolm. … [For] that, I have Malcolm to thank.” She also said that she had “a husband who served in the streets of America. But I was never fearful. … Malcolm took the fear out of my heart, out of my mind and out of my existence.”  

On what young people should know about Malcolm X, his friend, the famous female African-American literary icon, Maya Angelou, said: “They should know he had an incredible sense of humor. … Malcolm was a faithful man, great loving person who really loved black people, and then one of the most courageous persons I’ve ever known. Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can’t practice any other virtue consistently; you can’t be consistently kind, consistently fair, merciful, just, loving; you cannot.”

In a 4 June 1964 interview, Malcolm remarked: “I found that anywhere I went, if someone tried to attack me for being blunt and frank and vocal about our problem, there was always someone in the audience ready to put them down. … When I was in Nigeria [in 1964], I spoke at the University of Ibadan which is a beautiful African school … and I did the same thing. I indicted America really by just describing the real plight of the black people of this country. And after I had given this lecture, a Negro stood up, from the Caribbean area here, and tried again to attack me. The students came up on the speakers stand, took the microphone away from him, ran him not only off the stand, ran him off out of the hall and off the campus.” 

Regarding this kind of examples, Malcolm said: “I cite them very bluntly so that our people in this country will realize that we shouldn’t be fighting our struggle for independence and for the liberation of our people as if we were underdogs. Everybody on this earth is on our side who has a true understanding and knowledge of the nature of the plight or the struggle that we’re facing.”

In a 20 February, 1983 interview with Gil Noble, Robert Haggins, Malcolm’s personal photographer, said in response to the question on what it was about Malcolm that struck him: “For one thing, the discipline. The fact that everybody was organized. The respect for each other and the way Malcolm addressed me: ‘Sir.’ ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘No, sir.’ Immaculate cleanliness. … The whole demeanor of Malcolm as an individual.”

He also noted: “Malcolm had an uncanny sense of the value of the media and the value of pictures. He knew that the media was creating him in terms of being a monster … fist clenched, blazing eyes, teeth clenched, all these sorts of things. He wanted me to make photographs of him as a human being.” Haggins further declared: “Malcolm was the only leader out there that taught black people to be proud of being black.”

In the Gil Noble interview, another of Malcolm’s aides, Earl Grant, who had skills in photography, electronics, research, and some training in the services, and recorded Malcolm’s speeches in addition to serving as his body guard, noted: “The whole existence of black people in this country has been a struggle from Day 1. And what little progress we have made was because somebody made it happen. … And that was what Malcolm was trying to do. He was trying to make it happen.”

Grant noted further: “This country doesn’t allow black males to mature. It allows them to grow up physically, but not to mature mentally, intellectually, spiritually. And Malcolm gave black men that chance in this country.” According to Grant, “Malcolm was the best thing that ever happened to us. … For one thing, he was honest.” Grant also remarked: “[Malcolm] was a historic figure. He was a holy man. That’s one of the reasons he’s not alive today. … He was too clean to be kept alive in this country.”

Malcolm was constantly transforming: from being a street boy and prisoner to being a morally-upright, intellectually-inquisitive and inspirational international figure; from being a Christian to being a Muslim Minister; from regarding whites as “blue-eyed devils” to appreciating, from his experience from performing the pilgrimage to Mecca in 1964, that it was possible to find good whites; and from bearing the “slave-master’s name” Malcolm Little at birth to becoming “Detroit Red” in his street days to becoming Malcolm X when he left prison (and joined the Nation of Islam) to becoming El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz when he performed the pilgrimage.

The moral of Malcolm X’s birth and life is that nobody should give up on themselves or be written off by society. You can always rise above your personal limitations or the encumbrances of your birth. Being a Muslim Minister himself, Malcolm’s life personified Chapter 39, Verse 53 of the Qur’an which says, “Do not lose hope in the mercy of Allah.”

Malcolm X, the famous African-American civil rights defender, abhorred hypocrisy in whatever form and from whatever source. He believed that White America was systematically prosecuting psychological warfare against Blacks in the country by portraying everything black negatively and demonising efforts at resisting the oppression. Malcolm also believed that some Blacks were, advertently or inadvertently, collaborating or conniving with their oppressors by displaying lack of self-pride and race-pride and facilitating the divide-and-conquer tactic. He cited the example of White America setting up Black comedians, dancers, baseball players and similar stooges, puppets and clowns, making them celebrities and calling them Black leaders, who then said exactly what the White people wanted to hear.

A dilemma Malcolm faced was thus that those whom he and his mentor Elijah Muhammad, among others, were struggling to protect against oppression were themselves fascinated with the nature of the White oppressors. In his 27 April, 1962 speech titled “Malcolm X’s Fiery Speech Addressing Police Brutality,” he exhorted his audience to Black pride, by asking rhetorically: “Who taught you, please, to hate the texture of your hair? Who taught you to hate the color of your skin to such extent that you bleach to get like the White man? Who taught you to hate the shape of your nose and the shape of your lip?  Who taught you to hate yourself from the top of your head to the soles of your feet? Who taught you to hate your own kind? Who taught you to hate the race that you belong to so much so that you don’t want to be around each other?   No, before you come asking Mr. Muhammad does he teach hate, you should ask who yourself who taught you to hate being what God gave you?”

In further defence of Elijah Muhammad, in an interview on YouTube titled “Malcolm X first interview for British TV (1963),” when a British journalist asked him whether “the Black Muslim Prophet,” was preaching race hatred, Malcolm replied: “He’s not teaching hate; he’s teaching history. And since the American White man has used his control over the press and over the textbooks and over all forms of media to make it appear that he has done us a favor by bringing us here and enslaving us, then the Honorable Elijah Muhammad has to rewrite history or retell history. And since the White man can’t dispute this truth, he tries to defend himself by saying that Mr. Muhammad is teaching hate. It’s not hate to say that we were kidnapped and brought here. It’s truth, not hate, to say that the Supreme Court which is the highest court in this country came up with a hypocritical desegregation decision nine years ago which they haven’t enforced yet. That’s not hate, that’s true.”

Malcolm underscored the hypocrisy in passing a desegregation legislation in 1954 and refusing to enforce it even as at 1963 and of passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, with Blacks murdered shortly after, without consequence.  Malcolm then said at a 3 December, 1964 Oxford University debate: “America … is … as racist as South Africa … The only difference between it and South Africa, South Africa preaches separation and practices separation, America preaches integration and practices segregation. … I have more respect for a man who lets me know where he stands, even if he’s wrong than one who comes up like an angel and is nothing but a devil.”

In an unsympathetic 5 March, 1965 TIME magazine article titled “Malcolm X assassination report: Death and transfiguration,” he was described as follows: “Malcolm had been a pimp, a cocaine addict and a thief. He was an unashamed demagogue. His gospel was hatred: ‘Your little babies will have polio!’ he cried to the ‘white devils.’ His creed was violence: ‘If ballots won’t work, bullets will.’” As a 9 May, 1999 entry by Lawrence A. Mamiya entitled “Malcolm X” in Encyclopedia Britannica put it, “Malcolm quit smoking and gambling and refused to eat pork in keeping with the Nation’s dietary restrictions. … Following Nation tradition, he replaced his surname ‘Little,’ with an ‘X,’ a custom among Nation of Islam followers who considered their family names to have originated with white slaveholders.”

Malcolm could therefore be said to have undergone moral moulting and psychological reconditioning. And he credited Elijah Muhammad with cleaning him up through the message of Islam. Malcolm therefore established the newspaper “Muhammad Speaks” to spread the message and teachings of Elijah Muhammad. Moreover, in a 6 August, 1964 interview with Mike Wallace of CBS, Malcolm said: “Everything that I said always was designed to protect Mr. Muhammad himself primarily because the image that he had created was the image that enabled his followers to remain strong in faith and things of that sort and I didn’t want to see adverse effect or negative result develop in the faith of all of his followers.”

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Malcolm also said: “If you notice the stake that I always use in presenting, representing and defending the Muslim movement was the fact that it had the ability to reform the morals of the so-called Negro community. It eliminated drug addiction, alcoholism, fornication, adultery, loose sexual behavior; which meant that it eliminated bastard babies, illegitimate children … We had a law which was that whenever any Muslim became involved in any kind of sexual relationship with someone to whom they weren’t married, that person would be brought before the Muslim community, humiliated and then isolated for one to five years. … In 1954, a teenage sister left Detroit and became one of Mr. Muhammad’s personal secretaries. And there in the Chicago office, she became pregnant after being there for a year. She was brought before the Muslim community and humiliated and isolated.”

Malcolm noted that because the man involved was not brought forward during the court session, it was assumed that he was not a Muslim. The same thing happened in respect of five other girls. In total, the six girls had eight babies out of wedlock. He was morally shocked to discover that Elijah Muhammad was the man who impregnated all of the six sisters. Malcolm was now between the devil and the deep blue sea. Should he stand with the man he had spent a greater part of his reformed life seeing in cosmic terms, leave him morally unencumbered and thereby rubbish his own hard-earned credentials as an uncompromising fighter against oppression? Or should he stand with the young sisters who were inequitably carrying the burden of shame and thereby face the moral charge of biting the Elijah Muhammad finger that fed him, metaphorically-speaking? Malcolm chose to stand up in defence of the dignity of the helpless young women.

His revelation of the unfair treatment of the young sisters and the impunity of the charismatic Elijah Muhammed earned Malcolm enmity from even his erstwhile mentees, friends and admirers, like Louis Farrakhan and Muhammed Ali, and they didn’t mind if he died. They believed that Malcolm was a rebel, a hypocrite and an ingrate, considering the fact that it was Elijah Muhammad who “cleaned him up” and gave him the platform that made him widely known. Asked in a media interview whether he was worried about the intense hostility against him, Malcolm replied: “No, I don’t worry … I tell you, I’m a man who believes that I died 20 years ago and I live like a man who is dead already. I have no fear whatsoever of anybody or anything.” On 21 February, 1965, Malcolm was assassinated by at least one member of the Nation of Islam.

Malcolm was a victim of the White establishment in America who thought his Black consciousness-raising campaigns were dangerous. In fact, it was alleged that once they noticed a rift between Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm, the White authorities were impersonating each of the feuding sides and sending the other side incendiary fake messages to aggravate the crisis. Malcolm was also a victim of the Christian Afro-American elite who thought his style was abrasive and could jeopardise their tokenistic privileges. Malcolm was concurrently the victim of the envy of his fellow members of the Nation of Islam who thought his rising profile was supplanting theirs, and so worked against reconciliation.

There was an ironical convergence between TIME magazine and Malcolm’s erstwhile mentor, the embittered Elijah Muhammad. Asked, in an Associated Press interview on 22 February, 1965, a day after Malcolm’s assassination, what the point of disagreement between him and Malcom was, Elijah Muhammad said, in a repudiation of Malcolm who had regularly stoutly defended him against the same charge of violence: “Malcolm wanted to use arms, and I disagreed with him. … Malcolm is the victim of his own preaching. He preached violence and so he became the victim of it.” But if the logic were that simple, then Martin Luther King Jr should not have been assassinated, because he preached peace so much that he earned the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. Yet, he was murdered in 1964 by a White man.

Ossie Davis, in his eulogy on Malcolm on 27 February, 1965, said: “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.”

“Gold is tried in fire,” and Malcolm had gone through fiery refinement, and had become morally gold-pure. Malcolm died young because he probably had become too pure to live long. He couldn’t afford the compromises that make longevity easier to attain. Yes, America is a nation of laws; but Malcolm was probably too naïve to accept the reality that some personages outgrow mundane laws. To him, equity was immutable. In another milieu and in another circumstance, Malcolm would likely have been canonised.