Barry Sheppard: Recovering the revolutionary legacy of Malcolm X

By Barry Sheppard

March 5, 2015 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal – February 21 marked the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X, one of the greatest leaders of the 1960s Black liberation movement in the United States.

While Lenin was talking about how many of the “socialists” of his day were attempting to turn Karl Marx into a harmless icon, Lenin’s observation can also be applied to how the ruling class has attempted to turn figures like Martin Luther King and Malcolm X into harmless icons after their deaths.

The ruling class certainly heaped on Malcolm “the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander” while he was alive, and even at the moment of his death.

This can be seen in how the New York Times editorialised about Malcolm X the day after the assassination: “He was a case history, as well as an extraordinary and twisted man, turning many true gifts to evil purpose ...”

“Twisted” was their way of saying he was mentally unbalanced, insane and evil to boot. The Times editors went on the say “his ruthless and fanatical belief in violence … marked him for fame, and for a violent end”, that is he was responsible for his own death.

That the reputable New York Times could spout such vile slander was indicative. The gutter press was even worse.

But in the decades since, the New York Times and other ruling-class voices have sought to “canonise” Malcolm. Roads and schools and other institutions have been named after him. The government even issued a postage stamp in his honour. All the while seeking to blunt and vulgarise his revolutionary message. Liberals, both black and white, have sought to portray him as a mere pro-capitalist liberal like themselves.

Since Ferguson a new generation of young Black leaders has emerged. They are seeking to recapture the real legacy of figures like Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. This was seen in this year’s celebrations of King’s birthday, where this new generation transformed them into militant actions, a far cry from the staid pro-establishment events of recent years.

Malcolm X

Malcolm first rose to prominence as a leader of the Nation of Islam, which was popularly known as the Black Muslims. This was originally a relatively small religious cult, which Malcolm helped transform into a powerful organisation. But it was more than a religious cult. It was a movement that inspired a new generation in the 1950s and 1960s with its message of militant Black nationalism, which struck a chord, especially in the ghettos of the US North, while the civil rights movement was centred in the apartheid (legal segregation) US South.

While Malcolm would break with the Nation of Islam at the end of 1963 and early 1964, and chart a new course going way beyond his earlier teachings, key aspects of what he espoused while a leader of the Black Muslims he continued to hold until his death. These can be briefly partially summarised:

It was this last position that led the New York Times and liberals to make the slander that Malcolm was an advocate of violence. He stood for the exact opposite, to defeat the violence of the racists with self-defence.

In 1963, the centre of the Black struggle began to shift to the northern ghettos, where the message of Black nationalism found a ready audience, and where Blacks were taking to the streets. Shortly before the historic 1963 March on Washington for Freedom and Jobs, one of the high points of the southern struggle, there was a march as big or bigger in Detroit, a centre of Black nationalism.

Tensions in Nation of Islam

It was in this context that tensions arose in the Nation of Islam. By their militant stance, the Black Muslims helped push other black organisations to the left. This was their positive contribution. But they were on the sidelines of the struggle, not participants.

Among the younger members of the Nation of Islam, there were signs of a desire to get into the battle, to pass from propaganda to action. This is what led to Malcolm’s split with the Black Muslims. The basic factor behind the split was the growth of militancy and mass action in the Black community, and the different ways in which the two main tendencies in the Black Muslims wanted to respond to the masses knocking on the doors of their mosques.

Malcolm X broke with the Nation of Islam’s spiritual leader, Elijah Muhammad, and turned his attention to the broad Black struggle. Malcolm would later say:

New movement

So began a new stage in Malcolm’s life, his all-too-brief last year, that saw him grow mentally by leaps and bounds. He travelled widely internationally this last year, and met revolutionists from many countries and all races. He also discovered that true Islam views all races alike. As a consequence, he threw overboard the whole Black Muslim mythology about superior and inferior races and its doctrine about inherent evil and degeneracy in a white skin. Repudiating racism in all its forms, he resolved to judge people and movements on the basis of their deeds, not skin colour. Deeds, not words.

Malcolm set about to build a new movement of Blacks, on an entirely different basis than religion, while he himself remained a Muslim. It would welcome all Blacks who wanted to struggle, regardless of religion, philosophy or other differences. This new organisation, which he was working to build when he was cut down, was called the Organization of African American Unity (OAAU). The name was taken from the Organization of African Unity, reflecting his identification with the colonial revolution then in full swing not only in Africa, but in Asia and Latin America, too.

While retaining his Black nationalism, he moved beyond it to an internationalist stance.

This identification with the struggle of all the oppressed was in his speeches while he was in the Nation of Islam, but became sharper in his last year, influenced by his international travels. The US government was alarmed by his campaign to win support internationally to bring the US to trial in the United Nations for its racist oppression. At the same time, his denunciation of US imperialism, which also began while he was a Black Muslim, became stronger. He was especially eloquent in his denunciation of the US record in the murder of Patrice Lumumba in Congo, the war in Vietnam, the attacks against the Cuban and Chinese revolutions, and so forth. He sought to position the struggle of US Blacks in the worldwide upsurge of the peoples of colour.

Socialism

Finally, there was Malcolm’s development throughout his last year towards anti-capitalism and socialism. One thread of his thought was a result of his international travels. He began to emphasise that in the countries he visited which were recently freed from colonialism, it seemed they were turning against capitalism and toward socialism. Another was his deepening relationship with the Socialist Workers Party and Young Socialist Alliance.

The SWP, under the influence of the positions taken by the Communist International in Lenin’s time, recognised that Blacks in the US suffered under a form of national oppression. This was reinforced in discussions with the Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky during his final exile in Mexico. The result was that the SWP, at its founding convention in 1938, adopted a resolution largely drafted by the West Indian Marxist C.L.R. James, that recognised this national oppression and the progressive nature of Black nationalism as a reaction to it.

When there was the new upsurge of Black nationalism in the early 1960s, the SWP embraced it. In its 1963 convention, the SWP noted that Black nationalism and socialism “are not only compatible but complimentary forces, that should be welded closely in thought and action”.

We took note of the militant speeches by Malcolm X when he was still in the Nation of Islam. The SWP newspaper, The Militant, covered these speeches, often reprinting Malcolm’s own words, in a positive manner. This was in sharp contrast to the Communist and Socialist parties, which denounced Malcolm X and Black nationalism. Malcolm took note of this and of the fact that The Militant defended the democratic rights of the Black Muslims when they were under government attack. He would buy the paper when it was sold outside his meetings.

We saw the importance of Malcolm’s break with the Nation of Islam and his new course. Shortly after, in April 1964, Malcolm agreed to speak at a large meeting organised by the Militant Labor Forum, associated with the SWP, on the topic, “The Black Revolution”. One aspect of this speech was his strong opposition to Blacks supporting the Democratic Party, a theme he developed throughout his last year. He repeatedly cautioned against falling for the ploy of supporting the “fox” – the Democrats – out of revulsion for the “wolf” – the Republicans.

He spoke again at the forum in May, 1964, at a meeting we organsed to counter a scare about a “Harlem Hate Gang” – a thinly veiled attack on the OAAU organised by the capitalist press. In this meeting he said of US capitalism:

In January 1965 Malcolm again spoke at the Militant Labor Forum. He said it was "always an honor” to speak at the forum, and that

After that meeting, I asked Malcolm if he would be interviewed for the Young Socialist newspaper, of which I was the editor. He agreed, and Jack Barnes, who was a leader of the YSA, and I did so, shortly before his assassination.

One quote from that interview in answer to the question, What is your view of the worldwide struggle between capitalism and socialism?:

A Marxist might object that capitalism will not collapse by itself, but must be overthrown, but this is certainly not a pro-capitalist statement.

A few years later, Martin Luther King began to come to the same anti-capitalist conclusions. From different starting points, these two giants began to converge.

For more information about Malcolm X’s views, including the road to working-class unity, mainly in his own words, see the books published by Pathfinder Press: Malcolm X Speaks; By Any Means Necessary; Malcolm X Talks to Young People; Malcolm X on Afro-American History; Malcolm X: The Last Speeches; and The Last Year Of Malcolm X, The Evolution of a Revolutionary, by George Breitman; and The Assassination of Malcolm X, by George Breitman, Herman Porter and Baxter Smith.

[Barry Sheppard was a central leader of the US Young Socialist Alliance and Socialist Workers Party during the years 1960-1988.]