Malcolm X in discussion
Malcolm X was an implacable fighter against racism who came to understand that it is central to capitalism.
In 1946, Malcolm X was sent to prison for petty crime in the United States. While inside, he joined the Nation of Islam, a group that thought black people must form a separate society free from white influence.
On leaving prison he rose up the group’s ranks and positioned himself and the Nation of Islam at the centre of the Civil Rights movement.
But Malcolm X came into conflict with the Nation of Islam’s leaders about the way forward, which led to his expulsion.
He was later assassinated at the organisation’s hands in 1965.
Malcolm X’s politics evolved and he came to see black and white unity as necessary. Mainstream interpretations try to use this to tame his legacy. But his call to resist racism “by any means necessary” continues to inspire struggles against racism today.
Is it true to say your book is a challenge to the myths about Malcolm X and centres on his politics of liberation?
In the book, I say there are two Malcolm Xs.
One is the violent “evil twin” of the peaceful Martin Luther King, who was widely vilified by the press. The other is the Malcolm X who has been co-opted by the American project.
In a way, it is worse that we know so much about Malcolm X, because at the same time we know so little.
The PR image of Malcolm X is very damaging. And the idea that a “mature” Malcolm X was embracing electoral politics really hides the real Malcolm X.
His legacy is claimed by lots of “false prophets”.
There are those who push the idea that when he died, Malcolm X was turning towards peaceful civil rights campaigning. This is complete nonsense. It creates the idea that Malcolm X was rejecting violence. But Malcolm X was getting more radical.
He was a critic of the civil rights movement, and he savagely condemned the 1963 March on Washington as a sell out.
You say that Malcolm X left a robust body of work that measures up to anything produced by academia. But you reject attempts to have Malcolm X included in the academic canon. Why is that?
Malcolm X was not academic—that is what makes him so powerful. Academia doesn’t have the credibility to judge Malcolm X.
And I say that as a professor myself. Malcolm X was not a political philosopher—he was more important than that.
But people do try to legitimise Malcolm X for academia all the time. The role of academia is to maintain the status quo.
One of the ways Malcolm X’s ideas—all radical ideas—are made liberal is when they come into the universities, with academics interpreting them.
So you get the analysis, like that racism is an endemic feature of society, but you don’t get the solution—which is revolution.
And that is because we get paid really well. Academic Marxism is an oxymoron.
Can you talk more about Malcolm X’s developing ideas about whiteness?
So Malcolm X moves aways from calling people white devils. He always used confrontational language.
And the Nation of Islam did believe that white people were devils. But Malcolm X moved from blaming white people as individuals towards blaming white society.
This was a more radical truth, as not blaming individuals is not a softening, but a hardening of his views.
The huge transformation in Malcolm X’s life occurred when he was in prison, when he joined the Nation of Islam. But his ideas about the role of women in the struggle did develop. Can you talk more about that?
I do want to stress that Malcolm X was not a feminist. The Nation of Islam was deeply patriarchal, and these were ideas that Malcolm X embraced when he joined.
But when he left, he became open to the idea of female leaders.
Some of the key influences in his life were strong black women—his mother Louise and his big sister Ella Collins.
And then he met women such as Shirley Graham Du Bois in Ghana. So he was moving towards seeing women as part of the struggle.
In most of his work, Malcolm X is speaking not to black men or women, but to black people.
He had his blind spots, but he came to see that women could play an important role in the struggle.
Everyone knows Malcolm X as a great speaker. But you argue that he was also a great organiser.
When Malcolm X joined the Nation of Islam, he is joining a tiny organisation.
People say the Nation of Islam made Malcolm X, but Malcolm X almost single-handedly built the Nation to around 70,000 members.
He went door to door, city to city, to Detroit, Boston, New York.
Everywhere the Nation was strong, it was Malcolm X who started it and built it.
You write about the need to get back on the road to revolution, which you say is both possible and necessary. What does that revolution look like?
Just before Malcolm died, he set up the Organisation for Afro-American Unity. It was a revolutionary vehicle to link black people across the world, to connect black people in the Western hemisphere with Africa.
And that is what black power is—it is all of us, all together in that kind of unity. This was at the heart of Malcolm X’s vision for black liberation.
Realising that global unity should be easier now because we are connected through the internet and travel is much easier.
Revolution has always been the only solution. Europeans were behind when they first went to Africa. They imposed slavery and colonialism because black people were not organised together. This lack of unity meant they could be controlled from outside.
When Malcolm X though he would be killed by the CIA because he was linking up the black diaspora internationally.
Malcolm X was killed in 1965.
It was the international element that made Malcom X so dangerous, If he had stayed in the US, he wouldn’t have been such a threat to the system.
- Kehinde Andrews is speaking on his new book at Marxism Festival, 6.30pm, Fri 4 July, central London. More details at bit.ly/marxism25
