Malcolm X: 'The only way you end oppression-with power!'

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'6 SOCIALIST ACTION FEBRUARY 1991 Feb. 22 marks the 26th anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965. He was shot down at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem, N.Y., while giving a speech about the political program of his organization, the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU).

Undoubtedly, were he alive today, Malcolm X would be in uncompromising opposition to the U.S. war against Iraq. He would be in the forefront of organizing a broad-based antiwar movement. He would tell Black people that their enemy was the racist system in the United States, not their brothers and sisters in the Middle East.

Himself a Muslim, Malcolm X was a Black nationalist and a revolutionary of action. His absence from the political scene today is a void that can only be filled when a new fighting, militant leadership emerges from the oppressed Black community.

In commemoration, we are publishing excerpts from a speech Malcolm X gave at the Militant Labor Forum in New York City on Jan. 7, 1965. Entitled, "Prospects for Freedom in 1965," this speech gives a vivid picture of what Malcolm X would say today-the editors In 1964, oppressed people all over the world, in Africa, in Asia and Latin America, in the Caribbean, made some progress. Northern Rhodesia threw off the yoke of colonialism and became Zambia and was accepted into the United Nations, the society of independent governments. Nyasaland became Malawi and was also accepted into the UN, into the family of independent governments. Zanzibar had a revolution, threw out the colonialists and their lackeys, and then united with Tanganyika into what is now known as the Republic of Tanzania—which is progress, indeed....

Also in 1964 the oppressed people of South Vietnam, and in the entire Southeast Asia area, were successful in fighting off the legions of imperialism.... And with all the highly mechanized weapons of warfare-jets, napalm, battleships, everthing else-and they can't put those rice farmers back where they want them....

In 1964 this government, subsidizing Tshombe, the murderer of Lumumba, and Tshombe's mercenaries, hired killers from South Africa, along with the former colonial power, Belgium; dropped paratroopers on the people of the Congo; used Cubans that they had trained to drop bombs on the people of the Congo with American-made planes—to no avail. The struggle is still going on, and America's man, Tshombe, is still losing.

Anti-American?

All of this in 1964. Now, in speaking like this, it doesn't mean that i am anti-American. I am not. I'm not anti-American, or un-American. And I'm not saying that to defend myself. Because if I was that I'd have MALCOLM X Fiahi Iberation a right to be that—after what America has done to us. This government should feel lucky that our people aren't anti-American.... And the whole world would side with us, if we became anti-American. You know, that's something to think about.

But we are not anti-American. We are anti or against what America is doing wrong in other parts of the world as well as here, and what she did in the Congo in 1964 is wrong. It's criminal, criminal.

And what she did to the American public, to get the American public to go along with it, is criminal. What she's doing in South Vietnam is criminal. She's causing American soldiers to be murdered every day, killed every day, die every day, for no reason at all. That's wrong. Now, you're not supposed to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or who says it....

Also in 1964, China exploded her [atomic] bomb, which was a scientific breakthrough for the oppressed people of China who suffered for a long time. I, for one, was very happy to hear that the great people of China were able to display their scientific advancement, their advanced knowledge of science, to the point where a country which is as by Kwame M.A. Somburu, Joe Ryan, and Nat Weinstein $1.25 (include $0.75 for postage). Make checks payable to Walnut Publishing Co., 3435 Army St., Rm. 308, San Francisco, CA 9411( backward as this country keeps saying China is, and so behind everybody, and so poor, could come up with an atomic bomb. Why, I had to marvel at that. It made me realize that poor people can do it as well as rich people.

So all these little advances were made by oppressed people in other parts of the world during 1964. These were tangible gains, and the reason that they were able to make these gains-they realized that power was the magic word—power against power. Power in defense of freedom is greater than power in behalf of tyranny and oppression, because power, real power, comes from conviction which produces action, uncompromising action. It also produces insurrection against oppression. This is the only way you end oppression—with power.

Power never takes a back step—only in the face of more power. Power doesn't back up in the face of a smile, or in the face of a threat, or in the face of some kind of nonviolent loving action. It's not the nature of power to back up in the face of anything but some more power. And this is what the people have realized in Southeast Asia, in the Congo, in Cuba, in other parts of the world. Power recognizes only power, and all of them who realize this have made gains.

Few gains in America Now here in America it's different. When you compare our strides in 1964 with strides that have been made forward by people elsewhere all over the world, only then can you appreciate the great doublecross experienced by Black people here in America.

....By the end of 1964 we had to agree that instead of the year of promise, instead of these promises materializing, they substituted devices to create the illusion of progress and 1964 was the Year of Illusion and Delusion. We received nothing but a promise.... In 1963 they had used the trick— one of their devices to let off steam across the nation was the March on Washington. They used that to make us think we were making progress. Imagine marching on Washington and getting nothing for it whatsoever...

In '63 it was the march on Washington. In '64, what was it? The civil rights bill. Right after they passed the civil rights bill they murdered a Negro in Georgia and did nothing about it, murdered two whites and a Negro in Mississippi and did nothing about it. So that the civil rights bill has produced nothing where we're concerned. It was only a valve, a vent, that was devised to enable us to let off our frustrations. But the bill itself was not designed to solve our problems.

Since we see what they did in 1963, and we saw what they did in 1964, what will they do now, in 1965? If the march on Washington was supposed to lessen the explosion, and the civil rights bill was designed to lessen the explosion-that's all it was designed to do, it wasn't designed to solve the problems.

It was designed to lessen the explosion, because everyone in his right mind knows there would have been an explosion. You can't have all those ingredients, those explosive ingredients that exist in Harlem and elsewhere where our people suffer and not have an explosion. So these are devices to lessen the danger of the explosion, but not designed to remove the material that's going to explode.

Crumbs in 1965 What will they give us in 1965? I just read where they planned to make a Black cabinet member. Yes, they have a new gimmick every year. They're going to take one of their boys, Black boys, and put him in the cabinet so he can walk around Washington with a cigar-fire on one end and fool on the other....

On the national scale during 1964, as 1 just mentioned, politically, the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party had its face slapped at Atlantic City, at a convention over which Lyndon B. Johnson was the boss and Hubert Humphrey was the next boss and Mayor Wagner had a lot of influence himself; still none of that influence was shown in any way whatsoever when the hopes and aspirations of the people, the Black people of Mississippi, were at stake....

In 1964, 97 percent of the Black American voters supported Lyndon B. Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, and the Democratic Party. Ninety-seven percent! No minority group in the history of the world has ever given so much of its uncompromising support to one candidate and one party. No one people, no one group, has ever gone all the way to support a party and its candidate as did the people, the Black people, in America in 1964....

And the first act of the Democratic Party, Lyndon B. Johnson included—in 1965, when the representatives from the state of Mississippi who refused to support Johnson came to Washington, D.C., and the Black people of Mississippi sent representatives there to challenge the legality of these people being seated, what did Johnson say? Nothing! What did Humphrey say? Nothing! What did Robert "Pretty Boy" Kennedy say? Nothing! Not one thing! These are the people that Black people have supported. This is the party that they have supported....

The frustration of these Black representatives from Mississippi when they arrived in Washington, D.C., the other day, thinking, you know, that the Great Society was going to include them—only to see the door close in their face like that. That's what makes them think. That's what makes them realize what they're up against. It is this type of frustration that produced the Mau-Mau. They reached the point where they saw that it takes power to talk to power. It takes power to make power respect you. It takes madness, almost, to deal with a power structure that's so corrupt-so corrupt.

So 1965 should see a lot of action. Since the old methods haven't worked, they'll be forced to try new methods...

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