Malcolm X Predicted the Progression of Racism in the United States
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Malcolm X is closely bonded in history with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Historians have rightfully hailed the myriad ways in which this law brought on racial progress. But this excerpt reveals the reasons why this law did not halt the progression of racism.
In celebration of Malcolm X's birthday, we present this exclusive excerpt from Ibram X. Kendi's new book,Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America. As racism endures, this excerpt revisits the landmark law that was supposed to end racism and the outspoken activist who predicted it would not. Malcolm X is closely bonded in history with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Historians have rightfully hailed the myriad of ways in which this law brought on racial progress. But this excerpt reveals the reasons why this law did not stop (or even affected) the progression of racism -- a progression that Black Lives Matter activists are currently fighting. No wonder Black Lives Matter activists look to Malcolm X for inspiration as much as any leader in US history. No wonder his speeches and insights remain relevant to progressives today on his birthday.
On November 27, 1963, two days after JFK's burial, the thirty-sixth president of the United States buried any lingering global fears that civil rights legislation had died with Kennedy. "No memorial oration or eulogy could more eloquently honor President Kennedy's memory than the earliest possible passage of the civil rights bill for which he fought so long," declared Lyndon Baines Johnson to Congress. Civil rights had hardly topped Kennedy's agenda, but activists and diplomats felt relieved.
On March 26, 1964, Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X came to watch the debate over the civil rights bill, meeting for the first and only known time at the US Capitol. Malcolm had recently been pushed out of the corrupted Nation of Islam. When he left Washington, he started warning American racists of the "ballot or the bullet." At a church in Detroit on April 12, 1964, Malcolm offered his plan for the ballot instead of the bullet: going before the United Nations to charge the United States with violating the human rights of African Americans. "Now you tell me how can the plight of everybody on this Earth reach the halls of the United Nations," Malcolm said, his voice rising, "and you have twenty-two million Afro-Americans whose churches are being bombed, whose little girls are being murdered, whose leaders are being shot down in broad daylight!" And America still had "the audacity or the nerve to stand up and represent himself as the leader of the free world . . . with the blood of your and mine mothers and fathers on his hands -- with the blood dripping down his jaws like a bloody-jawed wolf."
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