Spike Lee - Muhammad Ali - Becoming Muhammad Ali TV - Jack Newfield - New York Amsterdam News - John Ali - Martin Luther King - Louis Farrakhan - Political Assassination TV - Baba Zak A Kondo - Gene Roberts - Peter Bailey - Malcolm X 1972 - Michael X: Hustler, Revolutionary, Outlaw TV - Malcolm X - Malcolm X 1992 -
If we became students of Malcolm X, we would not have young black men out there killing each other like they’re killing each other now. Young black men would not be impregnating young black women at the rate going on now. We’d not have the drugs we have now, or the alcoholism. Spike Lee
Turning my back on Malcolm X was one of the mistakes that I regret most in life. Muhammad Ali, cited Facing Ali, 2009
After the victory then Cassius goes to New York. He is escorted around Harlem by the notorious Malcolm X. And the media has a field day. Speculation is hurling in Harlem that Malcolm X any day now is going to be out of the Nation of Islam. Malcolm X learns that Elijah Mohammad has impregnated several of his secretaries. And he felt deeply betrayed – he felt betrayed as a man, he felt betrayed religiously and ethically and morally by the man he had given his whole heart and trust to. And so he questioned everything including the whole creed of the Nation of Islam and the hypocrisy of it. There were two men who above all others he wanted to pull out of the Nation of Islam with him. One was Louis X, who was the minister in Boston today known as Louis Farrakhan. But the second person he wanted was Cassius Clay. Becoming Muhammad Ali
Martin Luther King and Malcolm X were about to join forces and form a coalition. Jack Newfield, New York Post
Malcolm X Flees For Life: Muslim Factions At War. New York Amsterdam News
Anyone who opposes the Honorable Elijah Muhammad puts their life in jeopardy. John Ali, cited Karl Evanzz
I met Malcolm X once in Washington, but circumstances didn’t enable me to talk with him for more than a minute. He is very articulate ... but I totally disagree with many of his political and philosophical views – at least insofar as I understand where he now stands. I don’t want to seem to sound self-righteous, or absolutist, or that I think I have the only truth, the only way. Maybe he does have some of the answer. I don’t know how he feels now, but I know that I have often wished that he would talk less of violence, because violence is not going to solve our problem. And in his litany of articulating the despair of the Negro without offering any positive, creative alternative, I feel that Malcolm has done himself and our people a great disservice. Fiery, demagogic oratory in the black ghettos, urging Negroes to arm themselves and prepare to engage in violence, as he has done, can reap nothing but grief. Martin Luther King, interview Playboy January 1965
The die is set, and Malcolm shall not escape, especially after such evil foolish talk about his benefactor, Elijah Muhammad. Such a man as Malcolm is worthy of death. Louis Farrakhan
Malcolm X’s real name was Malcolm Little. He was born in 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska. His childhood was tormented: his father, a Baptist minister, already very involved in the Black Liberation Movement, was murdered. Political Assassination: Malcolm X
By the early 1960s the leadership of Elijah Muhammad’s Lost Foundation had grown fat and comfortable. The minister of Harlem’s Temple #7, the spokesman for the Nation, could not shut his eyes to the ethical contradictions nor the corruption that had woven its way into the core of the movement. ibid.
In 1964 following his break with the Nation, the minister performs a pilgrimage to the sacred Mosque in Mecca. He sees multitudes of men and women of all colours and races from all over the Earth united in spirit and purpose. One humanity. One human family worshipping Allah. ibid.
He realised that the black people in the United States were not the only victims of Americanism ... The fight must leave the field of civil rights for the higher field of human rights. ibid.
There were many things that Malcolm was doing that were deemed subversive. That were deemed threatening. To the United States Government. To the Johnson administration. To Hoover’s mentality. Baba Zak A Kondo, author Unravelling the Assassination of Malcolm X
The four of us was relieved. We went to the back of the ballroom. We were told to find seats in the audience ... As that meeting was breaking up Malcolm was being introduced. He came on the stage. Two individuals about four or five rows back ... All of a sudden I see three individuals up front pumping shots at Malcolm. And they were moving from Malcolm’s right to the centre aisle. Gene Roberts, Malcolm X bodyguard
The next thing I heard was shots. I mean many shots. It sounded almost like a battlefield. Peter Bailey
The injustice that has been inflicted upon Negroes in this country by Uncle Sam is criminal. Malcolm X, 1972
We declare our right on this Earth to be a man. To be a human being. To be respected as a human being. To be given the rights of a human being. In this society, on this Earth this day which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary. ibid.
You’ve got to be realistic, Malcolm. You are a nigger. ibid. teacher
We are non-violent with people who are non-violent with us. ibid. Michael
They are afraid that I will tell the real reason I am out of the Black Muslim movement. ibid.
My house was burned, it was bombed by the Black Muslim movement. ibid.
In 1965 Malcolm X, the US Civil Rights leader, arrives in the UK on a speaking tour, spreading the message of black liberation. On a visit to the Congress of Black Unity in London, Michael encounters the charismatic revolutionary. Michael X: Hustler, Revolutionary, Outlaw, caption, Sky Showcase 2021
He [Malcolm] never went anywhere without his little black case, with a mobile library of statistics ranging from transportation of slaves hundreds of years ago to the latest figures on black poverty. ibid. Michael
Courtaulds Ltd: 900 workers went on strike after a row with the management … ‘The strike as such here involved coloured people.’ ibid. Malcolm’s BBC interview
RAAS is one of a growing number of black civil rights organisations that emerge in the 1960s. With Michael at the helm, it soon gains a high profile. By 1967 Michael X is the most high profile black activist in Britain and claims to have some 60,000 followers of his RAS Organisation. ibid.
Michael’s high-profile appearances attract the attention of the authorities. Six weeks later, he addresses his next rally under police surveillance. ibid.
We were weaned on the concept of the empire and the mother-country and we firmly believed this. No more loyal subjects of the king and queen had ever had … To come here and discover we weren’t wanted has been a very shattering blow … It’s not a matter of hate that our people are feeling towards the people of this country, but a very simple emotion like that of a rejected love. ibid. Michael’s TV interview
There is a difference between leadership and demagoguery. ibid. professor, re Malcolm X
And I for one will join in with anyone – I don’t care what colour you are – as long as you want to change this miserable condition that exists on this Earth. Malcolm X
Children have a lesson adults should learn, to not be ashamed of failing, but to get up and try again. Most of us adults are so afraid, so cautious, so ‘safe’, and therefore so shrinking and rigid and afraid that it is why so many humans fail. Most middle-aged adults have resigned themselves to failure. Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, 1965
Despite my firm convictions, I have been always a man who tries to face facts, and to accept the reality of life as new experience and new knowledge unfolds it. I have always kept an open mind, which is necessary to the flexibility that must go hand in hand with every form of intelligent search for truth. Malcolm X, letter from Mecca
Education is an important element in the struggle for human rights. It is the means to help our children and our people rediscover their identity and thereby increase their self respect. Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs only to the people who prepare for it today. Malcolm X, speech Founding Rally of the Organization of Afro-American Unity 28 June 1964, cited By Any Means Necessary
Human rights are something you were born with. Human rights are your God-given rights. Human rights are the rights that are recognized by all nations of this earth. And any time any one violates your human rights, you can take them to the world court. Malcolm X, speech Cleveland, Ohio, 3rd April 1964
I am for violence if non-violence means we continue postponing a solution to the American black man’s problem just to avoid violence. Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, 1965
I believe in recognizing every human being as a human being – neither white, black, brown, or red; and when you are dealing with humanity as a family there’s no question of integration or intermarriage. It’s just one human being marrying another human being or one human being living around and with another human being. Malcolm X, attributed, reportedly Pierre Berton Show, Toronto, 19th January 1965