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Malcolm X - The House Negro and the Field Negro · Gil I Am

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: To understand this, you have to go back to what
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: young brother here referred to as the house Negro and
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: the field Negro. Back during slavery, there was two kind
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: of slaves. There was the house Negro in the field Negro.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: The house Negro.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: They lived in the house with master.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: They dressed pretty good, They ate good because they eat
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: his food what he left.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: They lived in the attic or the basement.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: But still they lived near their master, and they loved
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: their master more than the master loved himself.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: They would they would give their life.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: To save their master's house quicker than the master would.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: The house Negro.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: If the master said we got a good house here,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: the house Negro say, yeah, we got a good house here.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Whenever the master said we, he said we. That's how
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: you can tell a house Negro.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: If the masters if the house caught on fire, the
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: house Negro would fight harder to put the blaze out.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: Than the master would.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: If the master got sick, the house Negro would say,
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: what's the.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: Matter, boss, we thick? Wreathe thick.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: He identified himself with his master more than his master.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: Identified with himself. And if you came to the house
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: Negro and.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Said, let's run away, let's.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: Escape, Let's separate.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: That house Negro would look at you and say, man,
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: you Christ, what you mean separate? Where is there a
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: better house than this? Where can I wear better clothes
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: than this? Where can I eat better.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: Food than this? That was that house Negro.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: In those days, he was called a house nigger, And
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: that's what we call him today, because we still.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: Got some house niggers running around here.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: This modern house Negro loves his master. He wants to
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: live near him. He'll pay three times as much as
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: the house is worth, just to live Nigro's master, and
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: then brag about I'm the only Negro out here. I'm
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: the only one on my job. I'm the only one
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: in this school. You nothing but a house Negro. And
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: if someone come to you right now and say let's separate,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: you say the same thing that the house Negro said
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: on the plantation, puruse you mean separated from America. This
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: good white man, what are you gonna be, had a
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: better job than you get here?
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: I mean, this is what you say. I ain't left
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: nothing in.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: Africause that's what you say while you left your mind
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: in Africa. On that same plantation, there was the field Negro.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: The field Negro, those were the masses. There was always
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: more negroes in the field. Then there was negroes in
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: the house. The negro in the field caught hell right,
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: he ate left over us. And the house they ate
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: high up.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: On the hull.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: The negro in the field didn't get nothing but what
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: was left of the insides of the hall.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: They call them shetlands nowadays.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: In those days they call him what the guts. That's
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: what you were, a gut eater, and some of you
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: all still gut eaters. The field Negro was beaten from
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: morning till night. He lived in a shack, in a hut.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: He wore cast off clothes, and he hated his mast.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: I say he hated his mast. He was intelligent. That
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: house Negro loved his mast. But that field Negro. Remember
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: they were in the majority, and they hated the mast.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: When the house caught on fire, he didn't try and
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: put it out.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: That field Negro prayed for a wind, for a breeze.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: When the master got sick, the field Negro prayed that
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: he died.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: If someone come to the field Negro and say let's
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: separate and let's run, he didn't say where are we gone?
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: He say, any place says better than hear it. You
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: got field negroes in America today. I'm a field negro.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: The masters are the field negroes. When they see this
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: man's house on fire. You don't hear these little negroes
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: talking about our government is in trouble. They say the
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: government is in trouble. Imagine a negro our government. I
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: even heard one say our astronauts, they won't even let
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: him near a plan, and our astronauts, our navy. That's
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: a negro that's out of his mind. That's our negro that's.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: Out of his mind.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Just as the slave master in that day use Tom,
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: the house negro, to keep the field negroes in check.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: The same old slave master today has negroes who are
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: nothing but modern Uncle Tom's twentieth century uncle toms to
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: keep you and me in check, keep us under control,
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: keep us passive and peaceful, in non violence. That's Tom
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: making you non violent. It's like when you go to
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: the dentist and the man who's gonna take your tooth,
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: you're gonna fight him when he started pulling, So they
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: squirt some stuff in your jaw called nov kine to
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: make you think they're not doing anything to you.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: So you sit there. In course, you got all that
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: novo kin in your jaw.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: You suffer peacefully, blood running all down your jaw, and
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: you don't know what's happening. Because someone has taught you
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: to suffer peacefully. The white man do the same thing
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: to you in the street when he gonna want to
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: put knots on your head and take advantage of you,
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: and don't have to be afraid of your fighting back.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: To keep you from fighting back, you get these old
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: religious Uncle Tom's.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: To teach you and me. They're just like novo kine.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: Suffer peacefully, don't stop and just suffer peacefully. As Reverend
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: Cleek pointed out, let your blood flow in the streets.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: This is a seed. And you know he's a Christian preacher.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: If it's a shame to him, you know what it
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: is to me. Cause nothing in our good the Kawan
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: as you call it, Koran teaches us to suffer peacefully.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: Our religion teaches us to be intelligent, be peaceful, be courteous,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: obey the law.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: Respect everyone.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: But if someone puts his hand on you, send them
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: to the cemetery.
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: That's a good religion. In fact, that's at all time religion.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: That's the one that Ma and Paul used to talk about.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: and a head for a head, and a life for
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: a life. That's a good religion. And then anybody no
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: one resents that kind of religion being taught but a
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: wolf who intends to make you his meal. This is
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: the way it is with the white man in America.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: He's a wolf and you a sheep. Anytime a shepherd,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: a pastor teach you and me not to run from
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: the white man. And at the same time, teachers don't
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: fight white man. He's a trader to you and me.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: Don't lay down our life all by itself. No, preserve
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: your life. It's the best thing you got, and if
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: you got to give it up, let it be.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: Even Stephen the slave master took Tom and dressed him well, and.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: Fed him well, and even gave him a little education,
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: a little education, gave him a long coat and a
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: top hat, and made all the other slaves look up
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: to him.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: Then he used Tom to control them.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: The same strategy that was used in those days is
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: used today by the same white man.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: He take a Negro Negro and make him prominent, build him.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: Up, publicizing, make him a celebrity, and then he becomes
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: a spokesman for negro and a Negro leader. I would
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: like to just mention one thing else quickly, and that
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: is the method that the white man uses. How the
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: white man uses these big guns or Negro leaders against
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: the Black revolution. They're not a part of the Black revolution.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: They're used against the Black Revolution. When Martin Luther King
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: failed to desegregate Albany, Georgia, the civil rights struggle in
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: America reached its low point.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: King became bankrupt almost as a leader.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: Plus even financially, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference was in
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: financial trouble. Plus it was in troubled period with the
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: people when they failed to desegregate Albany, Georgia. Other Negro
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: civil rights leaders of so called national stature became fallen idols.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: As they became fallen idols begin to lose their prestige
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: and influence, local Negro leaders began to stir up the
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: masses in Cambridge, Maryland, Gloria Richardson in Danville Danville, Virginia,
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: and other parts of the country. Local leaders began to
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: stir up.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: Our people at the grassroots level.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: This was never done by these negroes whom you recognize
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: of national stature. They controlled you, but they never incited
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: you or excited you. They controlled you, they contained you,
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: they kept you on the plantation. As soon as King
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: failed in Birmingham, negroes.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: Took to the streets.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: King got out and went out to California to a
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: big rally and raised about I don't know how many
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: thousands of dollars, come to Detroit and had a march
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: and raised some more thousands of dollars. And recall, right
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: after that, Wilkins attacked King, accused King and the Core
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: of starting trouble everywhere and then making the NAACP get
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: them out of.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: Jail and spend a lot of money.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: And then he accused King and Corps raising all the
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: money and not paying it back.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: This happened.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: I got it in documented evidence in the newspaper. Roy
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: started attacting King, and King started attacking Roy, and farmers
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: started attacking both of them. And as these Negroes of
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: national stature began to attack each other, they begin to
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: lose their control of the Negro masses, and Negroes was
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: out there in the streets. They was talking about we're
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: gonna march on Washington, by the way, And right at
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: that time, Birmingham had exploded, and the Negroes in Birmingham member.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: They also exploded.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: They began to stab the crackers in the back and
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: bust them upside their head. Yes they did. That's when
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: Kennedy sent in the truth down in Birmingham. So and
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: right after that, Kennedy got on the television.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: And said this is a moral issue.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: That's when he said he gonna put out a civil
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: rights bill. And when he mentioned civil rights building, the
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Southern crackers start talking about they were gonna boycotted the filibuster.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: Then the Negroes start talking about what we're gonna match
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: on Washington, match on the Senate, match on the White House,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: match on the Congress, and tie it up, bring it
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: to a halt, don't let the government proceed. They even
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: said they were going to go out to the airport
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: and lay down on the runaway and don't let no
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: airplanes land. I'm telling you what they said. That was revolution.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: That was revolution. That wasn't the revolution. It was the
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: grass ruts out there in the street scared the White
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: man to death, scared the white power structure in Washington,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: d C.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: To death. I was there.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: When they found out that this black steamroller was gonna
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: come down on the Capitol. They called in Wilkins, they
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: called in Randolph, they called in these national Negro leaders
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: that you respect, and told them call it off. Kennedy said, look,
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: you're all letting this thing go too far right and
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: old Tom said, Boss, I can't stop it because I
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: didn't start it. I'm telling you what they said. They said,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: I'm not even in it, much less at the head
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: of it. They said, these negroes are doing things.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: On their own.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: They're running ahead of us.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: And that old.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: Shrewd Fox, he said, well, if you all are in it,
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: I'll put you in it.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: I'll put you at the head of it.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: I'll endorse it, I'll welcome it, I'll help it.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: I'll join it.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: The very a matter of hours went by, they had
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: a meeting at the Carllile Hotel in New York City.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: The Carlile Hotel.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: Is owned by the Kennedy family. That's the hotel Kennedy spent.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: The night at. Two Nights Ago belongs to his family.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: A philanthropic society headed by a white man named Stephen Courrier,
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: called all the top civil rights leaders.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: Together at the Carlyle Hotel.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: And told it that by you all fighting each other,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: you're destroying the civil rights movement. And since you're fighting
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: over money from white liberals, let us set up what's
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: known as the Council for you civil rights leadership, This
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: Farmness Counsel, and all the civil rights organizations will belong
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: to it, and we'll use it for fundraising purposes.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: Let me show you how tricky the white man is.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: And as soon as they got it formed, they elected
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: Whittingey Young as the chairman, and who you think became
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: the co chairman, Stephen Currier, the white man, a millionaire.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: Powell was talking about it down at the Cobo today.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: This is what he was talking about. Powell knows what happened.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: Randolph knows it happened, Wilkins knows what happened.
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: King knows it happened.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: Every one of that's so called Big Six, they know
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: what happened.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: Once they farmed it. But the white man over it.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: He promised them and gave them eight hundred thousand dollars
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: to split up between the Big Six.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: And told them that after the march was over, they
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: give them seven hundred.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: Thousand more a million and a half dollars split up
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: between the leaders that you've been following going to jail
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: for crying crocodile to his fall, and they'd nothing but
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: Frank James and Jesse James and what you call it brothers.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: Soon as they they got the setup organized, the white
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: men made available to them top public relations experts.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: Opened the news.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: Media across the country at their disposal. And then they
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: begin to project these big six as the leaders of
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: the march. Originally, they weren't even in the march. You
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: was talking this march talk on Houston Street. Is Houston
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: Street still here? On Hauston Street. You was talking to
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: march talk on Lenox Avenue and down on what's you
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: called it, Phillimore Street in Central Avenue and forty second
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: Street in sixty third Street, that's where the march talk
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: was being talked.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: But the white men put.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: The Big sixth ahead of it, made them the march.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: They became the march. They took it over.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: And the first move they made after they took it over,
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: they invited Walter Ruther, a white man they invited as
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: a priest, a rabbi, and an old white preacher. Yes,
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: the whole white preacher. The same white element that put
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: Kennedy in power. Labored the Catholics, the jew In Liberal Protestants,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: same clique that put Kennedy in power, join the march
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: on Washington. It's just like when you got some coffee.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: It's too black, which means it's too strong.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: What you do? You integrate it with cream. You make
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: it weak.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: If you pour out too much cream in, you won't
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: even know you ever had coffee. It used to be hot,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: it becomes cool. It used to be strong, it becomes weak.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: It used to wake you up, Now it'll put you
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: to sleep. This is what they did with the Marsha
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: on Washington. They joined it. They didn't integrate it, they
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: didn't filtrated it. They joined it, became a part of it,
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: took it over, and they took it over.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: It lost its militancy.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: They ceased to be angry, they ceased to be hot,
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: They ceased to be uncompromising.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: Why it even ceased to be a monch. It became a.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: Picnic, a circus, nothing but a circus with clowns and all.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: You had one right here in Detroit.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: I saw it on television with clowns leaving at white
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: clowns and black clowns. I know you don't like what
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: I'm saying, but I'm gonna tell you anyway because I.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: Can prove what I'm saying.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: If you think I'm telling you wrong, you bring me
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: Martin Luther King and Ah Philip Randolph and James Farmer
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: and those other.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: Three and see if they'll.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: Deny it over a microphone. No, it was a sellouts.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: It was a takeover. When James Baldwin came in from Paris,
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: they wouldn't let him talk because they couldn't make him
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: go write a script Burt Lancaster Rogus speech at Balden.
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: Was supposed to make. They wouldn't let Baldwin get up
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: there because they know Baldwin leavel Us say anything. They
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: controlled it so tight.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: They told those negroes what time to hit town, how
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: to come, where to stop, what sign to carry, what
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: song to sing, what speech they couldn't make, and what
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: speech they couldn't make, and then told them to get
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: out of town by sundown. And every one of those
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: times were out of town by sundown. Now, I know
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: you don't like my saying this, but I can back
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: it out. It was a circus a performance. It beat
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: anything Hollywood could ever do the performance of the Year.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: Ruth and those other three devils.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: Should get an Academy Award for the Best Actors because
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: they acted like.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: They really loved Negroes and pooled a whole lot of
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: negro
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: And the six Negro leaders should get a on An
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: award too for the Best Supporting Cast.