Today Malcolm X would have been 89 years old had he not been cut down. What made it most tragic was Malcolm died just when he had finally found his message…hit his stride. After all those years as a mouthpiece for Elijah Muhammad. Learning how to handle a crowd, learning how to use the press and most of all learning the organizational skills from setting up all those Temples of Islam. many of us were dazzled and still today can recite word for word those fiery phrases like by “any means necessary”…But what Malcolm’s mission had become at the time of his death was something very different . Malcolm had traveled to Egypt, Ethiopia Tanganyika, Nigeria, Ghana, Guinea, Sudan, Senegal, Liberia, Algeria, and Morocco..meeting with all the leaders of the anti-colonial movements as well as the leaders of the budding anti-imperialism movements Gamal Abdul Nasser among other leaders even invited him to become part of their governments. But it was the Organization of African Unity that most impressed Malcolm. All these nations and colonies trying to become free nations, sitting down and sharing ways to benefit them all. He saw future armed revolutionaries mapping out strategies to aid each other as one movement…Why Not bring Afro-Americans into the equation ??..On January 30th 1965 I was in New York City traveling on my own for the very first time. I was still in high school and in NYC to be a part of the National Science Fair . one of many that leading industries like Westinghouse use to have in the old days. Of course I had known for quite some time that If I EVER got to NYC the first thing I wanted to see was Harlem, The Apollo Theater and find Malcolm X… Malcolm was easy to find, I asked a shoeshine boy. He said walk down to the next subway station ..he’s probably in that shop drinking coffee. Well off I went …he was not in any shop but standing outside talking to a group of boys about my age and older. He gave us all a hand full of leaflets and told us to pass them out in front of the subway stations..I told him I had seen him speak in Atlanta when he was still with the nation..and could he talk with me for a minute or two. “Pass these out, come back in about two hours if I’m still here we can talk a minute” actually he may have said it differently but that’s the way I remember it..this was almost 5o years ago. When I got back Malcolm was talking to a small group of men and women .. Basically what he said was Nationalism is the infancy of a movement ..a way to wake yourself up from the sleep of slavery and oppression. But for a movement to succeed you had to become international and our time as Afro-Americans ( a word he used a lot..Afro- Americans not African Americans) to join the international movements was now. To be honest I forget a lot of the exact words..but toward the end Malcolm mentioned he was building an organization that would take the case to the United Nations…I will never forget how he said he had to go… walked over, shook my hand and said.”.Muhammed’s Temple of Islam number 15″..(that’s the Temple in Atlanta) ..I said “yeah”…” don’t stay a Nationalist for too long..it will hold you back”.The picture below is of one of the very same leaflets I passed out that day..Malcolm was shot down just about a month later..I was in my Moms car ..coming home from church when I heard over the radio the he was dead…that last phrase of Malcom’s is still what I live by today it’s what got me involved with SNCC and was at the Core of the politics of the Black Panther Party. I kept a few of those flyers Malcolm gave me ( see pic below ) We all remember the Spike Lee movie and all the catchy militant words that Denzel said so well.. but today that seems to be all that many of us remember..But to me Malcolm real message was much more than that. As these little essays on this web site progress I will get back to this subject ..but please I welcome your comments
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