Image Credits: Portrait of Malcom X, via Carling Jackson
(1963) - Message to the Grassroots - Malcolm X
In his 1963 speech, Malcolm X delivers a sharp critique of the mainstream civil rights movement, accusing it of being too moderate, too dependent on white allies, and too committed to nonviolence and legal reform. Drawing comparisons to anti-colonial liberation movements in Algeria, Kenya, and the Congo, many of them rooted in socialist and nationalist politics, he argues that real revolutions are driven by struggles for land, power, and self-determination, not by appeals for inclusion. He urges Black Americans to recognize that they share a common condition of exploitation and racial violence, regardless of religion or class, and calls for unity under a politics of Black nationalism. For Malcolm, freedom will not come through integration into a system built on oppression, but through organized resistance, self-defence, and control over Black communities.
... What we need to do in the community, and in the city, and in the state. We need to stop airing our differences in front of the white man. Put the white man out of our meetings, number one, and then sit down and talk shop with each other.