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Malcolm X...Interview At Berkeley (1963) · Gil I Am

0:08
Speaker 1: Today in our discussion of minority groups, we have with us.
0:16
Speaker 2: Two guests.
0:17
Speaker 1: One is Minister Malcolm ex Shabaz, one of the top
0:23
Speaker 1: leaders of the Nation of Islam or the so called
0:28
Speaker 1: Black Muslims, and we also have mister Herman Blake uh
0:34
Speaker 1: one of the teaching assistants in the courts. We will
0:39
Speaker 1: discuss today some of the the goals and some of
0:43
Speaker 1: the strategies of the Nation of Islam, and I wonder
0:48
Speaker 1: if mister Blake might start it off by asking mister
0:52
Speaker 1: Sabaz a question.
0:54
Speaker 3: A Minister Malcolm, the thing that I thought might be
0:57
Speaker 3: good for starting it off is to talk about one
1:00
Speaker 3: of the most pervasive beliefs in the general society about
1:03
Speaker 3: the Nation of Islam, and that is that it is
1:06
Speaker 3: an organization dedicated to the use of violent means to
1:10
Speaker 3: attain its goals. The question I have is how true
1:17
Speaker 3: is this and why do you think it persists in society?
1:22
Speaker 4: Well, the the Muslims who have accepted the religion of
1:27
Speaker 4: Islam and follow the religious guidance of the Honorable Elijah
1:31
Speaker 4: Muhammad have never bombed any churches, have never murdered any
1:38
Speaker 4: little girls as was done in Birmingham, have never lynched anybody.
1:45
Speaker 4: Have never, at any time been guilty of initiating any
1:49
Speaker 4: aggressive acts of violence during the entire.
1:53
Speaker 5: UH thirty three years or more that the Honorable Elijah
1:57
Speaker 5: Muhammad has been teaching us. The charge of violence against
2:03
Speaker 5: us actually stems from the guilt complex that exists in
2:08
Speaker 5: the conscious and sub conscious minds of most white people
2:11
Speaker 5: in this country. They know that they've been violent in
2:17
Speaker 5: their brutality against Negroes, and they feel that someday the
2:23
Speaker 5: negro is going to wake up and try and do
2:27
Speaker 5: unto them as they have done unto do unto the whites,
2:31
Speaker 5: as the whites have done unto us.
2:33
Speaker 2: We are in a violent group. We do UH.
2:37
Speaker 5: We are taught by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad to be
2:41
Speaker 5: to obey the law, to respect everyone who respects us.
2:45
Speaker 2: We're taught to display courtesy, to be polite.
2:49
Speaker 6: But we're also taught that at any time anyone in
2:52
Speaker 6: any way UH inflicts or seeks to inflict violence upon us,
2:59
Speaker 6: we are within our religious rights to retaliate in self
3:04
Speaker 6: defense to the maximum degree of our ability. We never
3:09
Speaker 6: initiate any violence upon anyone, but if anyone attacks us,
3:13
Speaker 6: we reserve the right to defend ourselves.
3:16
Speaker 2: So to accuse us of of being violence is like.
3:20
Speaker 5: Accusing a man who is being lynched, who is being
3:24
Speaker 5: hung on a tree, Uh, simply because he struggles vigorously
3:29
Speaker 5: against his lyncher, the victim is accused of violence, but
3:34
Speaker 5: the lynchier is never accused of violence. And I only
3:37
Speaker 5: point this out because the various racist groups that are
3:44
Speaker 5: set up in this country by whites and who have
3:47
Speaker 5: actually practiced violence against blacks for four hundred years are
3:52
Speaker 5: never associated or identified or made synonymous with the term violence.
3:57
Speaker 5: But whites speak of muslim almost synonymously with violence. Whenever
4:03
Speaker 5: Muslims are mentioned by them, violence is brought up, but
4:07
Speaker 5: not but it's not connected with any other group. This
4:10
Speaker 5: is a sort of a propaganda tactic or what I
4:13
Speaker 5: would call psychological warfare to in some way make uh
4:20
Speaker 5: the image of the Muslims in this country be a
4:22
Speaker 5: violent image rather than a religious image. UH.
4:27
Speaker 2: I like to ask a question in that regard.
4:29
Speaker 1: What's interesting is that UH members of the Nation of
4:35
Speaker 1: Islam have not used violence even when UH black Americans
4:41
Speaker 1: were attacked. UH, how do you account for this t
4:44
Speaker 1: It does this in any way contradict UH some of
4:48
Speaker 1: the basic premises of your movement.
4:50
Speaker 2: I don't know how you mean.
4:52
Speaker 1: Well, you maintain, for example, that that you will not
4:56
Speaker 1: or that you should not use violence unless you are
4:59
Speaker 1: attacked by the whole white man. And I think we
5:01
Speaker 1: can note in the last several years, certainly dozens and
5:05
Speaker 1: dozens and dozens of instances in which Negroes have been
5:09
Speaker 1: uh attacked, uh killed in some.
5:12
Speaker 2: Instances you mean in these demonstrations.
5:14
Speaker 1: Demonstrations and and the bombings for example recently in Birmingham
5:17
Speaker 1: with that killed four little Negro girls. And what interests
5:20
Speaker 1: me is the fact is is that the Nation of
5:22
Speaker 1: Islam has not done anything to retaliate.
5:24
Speaker 5: I think you should be happy, right, No, no, no,
5:29
Speaker 5: The important thing is does your lack of action no
5:32
Speaker 5: contradict any of your basic prints.
5:33
Speaker 2: I'll explain it.
5:35
Speaker 5: You should be happy that Muslims who follow the honorable
5:39
Speaker 5: Elijah Muhammad number one don't believe in any form of integration,
5:44
Speaker 5: and who bl and and believe that every mention of
5:47
Speaker 5: the word integration by whites, whether it be from the
5:51
Speaker 5: mouth of Kennedy on down to the mouth of the lowest,
5:56
Speaker 5: raggediest white liberal in the street, who is like involving
6:01
Speaker 5: himself in these integration efforts.
6:04
Speaker 2: If we believed in it, we.
6:06
Speaker 5: Would integrate and we would fight anybody who got in
6:09
Speaker 5: our way or made any effort whatsoever to stop us
6:13
Speaker 5: from integrating. If we really believed that the law of
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Speaker 5: the land, the Supreme Court and other so called judicial
6:20
Speaker 5: bodies were for real UH when they talked about integration,
6:25
Speaker 5: we would integrate. And knowing that the law was on
6:28
Speaker 5: our side in any effort we made to demonstrate toward integration,
6:33
Speaker 5: why we would know the law should be on our side.
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Speaker 2: UH, if it's the law of the land.
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Speaker 5: If it is the law of the land, then the
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Speaker 5: demonstrators are within the law and the uh UH discriminators
6:44
Speaker 5: are against the law.
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Speaker 2: But to show you the hypocrisy of the.
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Speaker 5: Law, when Negroes demonstrate for integration, instead of uh arresting
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Speaker 5: the discriminators, the law arrests the demonstrators. So this is
6:57
Speaker 5: a foolish move on the part of Groves. And when
7:01
Speaker 5: you foolishly get yourself involved with a uh An enemy,
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Speaker 5: then whatever comes upon you, that's your business. As Muslims,
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Speaker 5: we believe that separation is the best way and the
7:14
Speaker 5: only sensible way, not integration and.
7:17
Speaker 2: On, but on the other hand, when we see our
7:20
Speaker 2: people being.
7:21
Speaker 5: Brutalized by white bigots, white racists, uh, we think that
7:29
Speaker 5: they are foolish to allow themselves to be beaten and
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Speaker 5: brutalized and do nothing whatsoever to protect themselves.
7:37
Speaker 2: They are foolish.
7:38
Speaker 5: They if they should have the right to dr to
7:41
Speaker 5: defend themselves against any attack made against them by anyone.
7:45
Speaker 5: If a dog is biting a black man, the black
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Speaker 5: man should kill the dog, whether the d the dog
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Speaker 5: is a police dog, a hound dog, or any kind
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Speaker 5: of dog. If a dog is sicked on a black man,
7:56
Speaker 5: when that black man is doing nothing but trying to
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Speaker 5: uh uh take advantage of what the government says it's
8:02
Speaker 5: supposed to be his, then that black man should kill
8:05
Speaker 5: that dog or any two legged dog who sticks the
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Speaker 5: dog on it.
8:09
Speaker 1: Should other black men help that particular person who was attacked.
8:14
Speaker 5: I think you'll find, sir, that there will come a
8:17
Speaker 5: time when black people wake up and become intellectually independent
8:24
Speaker 5: enough to think for themselves as other humans are intellectually
8:29
Speaker 5: independent enough to think for themselves. Then the black man
8:33
Speaker 5: will think like a black man, and he will feel
8:37
Speaker 5: for other black people. And this new thinking and feeling
8:41
Speaker 5: will cause black people to stick together. And then at
8:45
Speaker 5: that point you'll have a situation where when you attack
8:48
Speaker 5: one black man, you are attacking all black men. And
8:52
Speaker 5: this type of black thinking will cause all black people
8:57
Speaker 5: to stick together.
8:58
Speaker 2: And this type of thing.
9:00
Speaker 5: King also will bring an end to the brutality inflicted
9:04
Speaker 5: upon black people by white people.
9:06
Speaker 2: And it is the only thing that we're bringing into it.
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Speaker 5: No federal court, state court, or city court we're bringing
9:13
Speaker 5: into it. It's something that the black man has to
9:16
Speaker 5: bring an end to himself.
9:18
Speaker 3: Minister Malcolm, let me, on the basis of your two
9:23
Speaker 3: m remarks, ask uh Uh a double prong question. One,
9:27
Speaker 3: is it then your assertion that the laws res with
9:31
Speaker 3: respect to how negroes are supposed to have equal opportunity
9:35
Speaker 3: and equal rights in this country are not meaningful or
9:40
Speaker 3: believed by whites? And secondly, what it then is your
9:45
Speaker 3: opinion and attitude toward the civil rights movement in general,
9:49
Speaker 3: and particularly UH the Reverend Martin Luther King and his
9:52
Speaker 3: philosophy of non violent dru direct action.
9:55
Speaker 2: If Uh the white people.
10:00
Speaker 5: Really passed meaningful laws, it would not be necessary to
10:05
Speaker 5: pass any more laws. There are already enough laws on
10:10
Speaker 5: the law books to protect an American citizen. You only
10:16
Speaker 5: need uh additional laws when you're dealing with someone who's
10:20
Speaker 5: not regarded as an American citizen. But whites are so
10:24
Speaker 5: hypocritical they don't wanna admit that this black man is.
10:27
Speaker 2: Not a citizen.
10:29
Speaker 5: Uh, so they classify him as a a second class
10:32
Speaker 5: citizen to uh to get around uh making him a
10:35
Speaker 5: real citizen.
10:36
Speaker 2: If he was a real citizen, you'd need no more laws.
10:39
Speaker 2: You need no civil rights legislation. Uh civil rights.
10:43
Speaker 5: Uh.
10:43
Speaker 2: When you have civil rights, you have citizenship. It's automatic.
10:46
Speaker 5: White people don't need laws to protect their citizenship because
10:50
Speaker 5: they're citizens, but they want they uh they don't wanna
10:53
Speaker 5: tell us we're not citizens, and at the same time,
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Speaker 5: they don't wanna pass laws that are meaningful enough to
10:59
Speaker 5: protect us as if we were citizens. And the Supreme
11:01
Speaker 5: Court desegregation decision is the best.
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Speaker 2: Example I know. That's a law from the Supreme Court.
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Speaker 5: Ten years have gone by, no no desegregated schools that
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Speaker 5: it hasn't been implemented beyond I think nine percent in
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Speaker 5: ten years. So this just shows you the hypocrisy of
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Speaker 5: the American white man. They talk out of both signs
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Speaker 5: of their mouth. And UH for this reason, we who
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Speaker 5: are Muslims, that is, who believe in the religion of Islam,
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Speaker 5: who believe in God, we don't believe that black people
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Speaker 5: will ever get any laws, get any problem with laws
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Speaker 5: being passed or uh new persons being put in office.
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Speaker 5: Uh white liberals being put in office. There is nothing
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Speaker 5: that the white man will ever do to bring about
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Speaker 5: uh true sincere citizenship or civil rights recognition for black
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Speaker 5: people in this country. Nothing will they ever do. They
11:54
Speaker 5: will always talk it, but they won't practice it. And
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Speaker 5: UH with the Supreme Court, if the NAACP can tell
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Speaker 5: me that they want a desegregation decision for me, uh
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Speaker 5: ten years ago, but yet the schools haven't been desegregated.
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Speaker 5: As I say, this is a victory with no victory.
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Speaker 2: Uh.
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Speaker 5: It's a victory that you can talk about, but it's
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Speaker 5: a victory you can't show me. So if you represent
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Speaker 5: the NAACP and you are telling me about this great
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Speaker 5: victory you won for me, when I look at you,
12:20
Speaker 5: I have to uh conclude that either you have been
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Speaker 5: duped yourself or else you are trying to dupe me.
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Speaker 5: And in most instance instances where the civil rights struggle
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Speaker 5: is involved, there is no civil rights leader can point
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Speaker 5: to me one concrete game, practical game that black people
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Speaker 5: have made in the civil rights feel in this country,
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Speaker 5: not only during the past ten years, but during the
12:45
Speaker 5: past one hundred years now.
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Speaker 3: The other part was uh, with respect to mister King
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Speaker 3: and the non violent direct.
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Speaker 5: Action, Well, I will let uh uh Jimmy Baldwin and
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Speaker 5: John Killing's and lou Lomacs the writers answer that uh
13:04
Speaker 5: d uh speaking right after these the this church was
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Speaker 5: bombed in Birmingham. Christian Church was bombed in Birmingham by
13:10
Speaker 5: Christians too, mind you.
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Speaker 2: And these four little girls were murdered.
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Speaker 3: Uh.
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Speaker 5: John Killins and James Baldwin and uh Lomas and the
13:18
Speaker 5: Negro writers and actors had a meeting at the town
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Speaker 5: Hall in New York, and Killin pointed out concerning these
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Speaker 5: murders of these little girls, said the killings had raised
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Speaker 5: doubts about the intelligence.
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Speaker 2: Of the non violent a of non violence in the
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Speaker 2: civil rights struggle.
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Speaker 5: He went on to declare that he could no longer
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Speaker 5: be asked to love those who persecuted and killed Negroes.
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Speaker 5: He also uh and the writer uh, mister Handler, who's
13:46
Speaker 5: who's uh?
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Speaker 2: Describing this, said that Killin's.
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Speaker 5: It was not clear concerning Killer's Killin's remarks to his
13:54
Speaker 5: audience that he was breaking with the It was Claire
13:56
Speaker 5: rather to his audience that he was breaking with the
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Speaker 5: doctrine of the en Martin Luther King's philosophy that as Christians,
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Speaker 5: Negroes should love their fellow man in.
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Speaker 2: A truly religious sense.
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Speaker 5: Now, James Baldwin, speaking on that same platform, said, and
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Speaker 5: I was present during this entire affair, asserted that the
14:15
Speaker 5: American people shared a collective guilt for the persecution of
14:18
Speaker 5: negro as much as Germans did because of their silence
14:21
Speaker 5: during the Nazi persecution. He denounced President Kennedy for what
14:25
Speaker 5: he termed Kennedy's lack of passion in the civil rights struggle.
14:29
Speaker 5: Mister Baldwin said that there could no longer be a
14:31
Speaker 5: Republican Party for the Negro people as long as it
14:34
Speaker 5: had listed a Barry Goldwater, nor a Democratic Party for
14:37
Speaker 5: the Negro people with a Senator to Eastland on its roster.
14:41
Speaker 5: He asserted that the federal government acted swiftly and energetically.
14:45
Speaker 5: That unless the federal government acted swiftly and energetically, future
14:49
Speaker 5: slaughter would make Birmingham look like a dress rehearsal. And
14:53
Speaker 5: now what do I think about King's attitude?
14:57
Speaker 2: King's right hand man what Walker?
15:01
Speaker 5: At King's convention, according to the New York Times on
15:03
Speaker 5: September the twenty sixth, said, we quote, we have been duped,
15:08
Speaker 5: meaning these persons involved in the civil rights struggle of
15:11
Speaker 5: which King is the symbolic leader.
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Speaker 2: His right hand man says, and I quote.
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Speaker 5: We have been duped or have duped ourselves into believing
15:20
Speaker 5: that the chains have been broken, when in truth, we
15:23
Speaker 5: have only been chained more securely. Half freedom has in
15:27
Speaker 5: many instances been worse than no freedom at all. Why
15:31
Speaker 5: don't ask me what I think about their struggle. I
15:33
Speaker 5: can tell you what they think about their struggle, and
15:36
Speaker 5: they have and they are are pointing out that it
15:39
Speaker 5: is becoming more difficult every day for the civil rights
15:42
Speaker 5: leaders to keep the masses of black people uh nonviolent
15:46
Speaker 5: and long suffering and patient and keep them from becoming disenchanted.
15:52
Speaker 5: Hope that answers your question.
15:54
Speaker 3: Well, now there's a new party which has started on
15:57
Speaker 3: the East Coast called the Freedom Now Party, an all
16:01
Speaker 3: black organization. Would you comment upon this, and also upon
16:07
Speaker 3: the possibility that the Nation of Islam might begin to
16:10
Speaker 3: turn some of its attention to the political arena in
16:13
Speaker 3: view of the fact that it is in the political
16:16
Speaker 3: arena that uh Negroes have not been able to in
16:19
Speaker 3: any way get justice. As has been pointed out in
16:22
Speaker 3: your previous statement.
16:23
Speaker 5: I'm not familiar with the Freedom Now Party. I'm not
16:27
Speaker 5: too familiar with politics period, only that in the sense
16:31
Speaker 5: that n uh white politicians have usually been very hypocritical
16:35
Speaker 5: uh where the so called negroes are concerned.
16:38
Speaker 2: Uh, So I'm a.
16:39
Speaker 5: Bit disenchanted uh with politicians and politics. The Honorable Elijah
16:43
Speaker 5: Muhammad is a religious name, and his teaching is religious
16:46
Speaker 5: and his solutions are religious.
16:49
Speaker 3: Uh.
16:49
Speaker 5: The Freedom Now Party, from what I understand, is headed
16:52
Speaker 5: by a man named a lawyer named Conrad Lynne. I
16:56
Speaker 5: know him, probably means well uh uh. Before asking an
17:00
Speaker 5: opinion on what it is he's trying to do, I
17:02
Speaker 5: would like to uh analyze it and see who's subsidizing him,
17:07
Speaker 5: see who his friends are, especially who his white friends are. Uh.
17:11
Speaker 5: And after UH c a careful analysis, if I could
17:15
Speaker 5: conclude that uh there was no uh white support, I
17:20
Speaker 5: would be inclined to have confidence in it. But if
17:23
Speaker 5: I saw him leaning too heavily upon his white liberal
17:26
Speaker 5: friends for support, then I'd be suspicious.
17:29
Speaker 2: Of that too.
17:30
Speaker 5: The Muslims, in my opinion, UH represent the an all
17:33
Speaker 5: Black party UH. And the Honorable Elijah Muhammad pointed out
17:37
Speaker 5: at UH before ten thousand in Philadelphia on UH September
17:41
Speaker 5: the twenty ninth UH at a rally that we were
17:44
Speaker 5: having that in nineteen sixty four, the Black people should
17:48
Speaker 5: band together and do something about electing UH, selecting and
17:52
Speaker 5: electing UH representatives, black representatives politically UH who have the
17:58
Speaker 5: uh S rights and the the best interests of the
18:03
Speaker 5: Black people at heart, and that we should also unite
18:06
Speaker 5: together and sweep out of office all of the black
18:08
Speaker 5: political puppets who are used by the white power structure
18:11
Speaker 5: to continue white supremacy UH in our communities.
18:17
Speaker 1: In that regard, would you include Congressman Dawson, for example,
18:21
Speaker 1: from Chicago and some of the people who represent him
18:23
Speaker 1: on the Chicago City Council in which we guard UH
18:27
Speaker 1: in in the in the area of acting as a puppet.
18:30
Speaker 5: I don't know what mister Muhammed's opinion is of Congressman Dawson.
18:34
Speaker 5: They both live right there in the city of Chicago together.
18:37
Speaker 3: UH.
18:37
Speaker 2: I don't know what his uh opinion is of Congressman
18:40
Speaker 2: uh Dawson.
18:41
Speaker 5: Uh. I'm suspicious of any negro, be he politician, UH
18:46
Speaker 5: be he clergyman, or a civic leader who is constantly
18:49
Speaker 5: patted on the back by whites. I have a tendency
18:52
Speaker 5: to lead toward the Negro politician who is constantly condemned
18:56
Speaker 5: by the white power structure.
18:58
Speaker 2: Uh. This is my thought pattern. I'm giving you an
19:01
Speaker 2: insight of it.
19:03
Speaker 3: You uh though mention Mr Lynn and saying you'd like
19:06
Speaker 3: to know who his white friends are. Now, I'm wondering
19:09
Speaker 3: if you didn't make a contradictory statement in mostlim terms
19:12
Speaker 3: by using white and.
19:13
Speaker 2: Friend in the same phrase. I is you say in quotes?
19:17
Speaker 3: I say in other words, if a I A a
19:19
Speaker 3: black man cannot have a white man as a friend.
19:22
Speaker 5: He may have a white man who's friendly. But being
19:25
Speaker 5: friendly and being a friend, I think are two different things.
19:29
Speaker 5: I think there are many whites who act friendly toward negroes.
19:33
Speaker 5: A fox acts acts friendly toward the lamb, and usually
19:38
Speaker 5: the fox is the one who ends up with the
19:40
Speaker 5: lamb chop on his plate. The wolf doesn't act friendly,
19:45
Speaker 5: and therefore the wolf has more difficulty in getting the
19:49
Speaker 5: lamb chopped.
19:51
Speaker 2: In his play. I'd like to point out all that
19:53
Speaker 2: I I.
19:54
Speaker 5: I say that because it is usually the if you
19:57
Speaker 5: l study the structure of the Negro community a economically, politically, civically, psychologically,
20:03
Speaker 5: and otherwise it's controlled by the white liberal who usually
20:07
Speaker 5: poses as the friend of the negro, who actually differs
20:10
Speaker 5: from the white conservative and in the same way that
20:13
Speaker 5: the fox differs from the wolf.
20:15
Speaker 2: UH.
20:15
Speaker 5: Their appetite is the same, their motives are the same.
20:19
Speaker 5: It's only their mannerisms and and methods that differ.
20:24
Speaker 1: I would agree that, no doubt, there have been a
20:27
Speaker 1: large number of of whites who have posed as liberals
20:31
Speaker 1: and as friends of the negro, and who have time
20:34
Speaker 1: and again betrayed the negro.
20:37
Speaker 5: UH.
20:37
Speaker 1: On the other hand, I think one could point to
20:39
Speaker 1: a large number of.
20:40
Speaker 2: Whites UH who have struggled for civil rights.
20:45
Speaker 7: Give me mood equality and have got little or nothing
20:47
Speaker 7: out of it, UH other than UH quite a few bruises.
20:52
Speaker 7: Give me an example, well, the the large number of
20:54
Speaker 7: of white UH students who have gone into the South,
20:57
Speaker 7: for example, working for a Snick and other organizations.
21:00
Speaker 5: Not working for Snick or other organizations but working for
21:03
Speaker 5: the white UH political machines who benefit by the voting
21:08
Speaker 5: UH efforts of negro.
21:09
Speaker 2: Okay, I'll be more specific.
21:11
Speaker 3: UH.
21:11
Speaker 2: I would cite Herbert.
21:12
Speaker 1: Hill, for example, as an a as as a kind
21:14
Speaker 1: of person who has UH champion Negro job rights for example,
21:19
Speaker 1: UH in New York City and elsewhere, he has fought
21:21
Speaker 1: the political machine.
21:22
Speaker 5: First time I met Herbert Hill personally was when they
21:25
Speaker 5: were picketing to stop the working on the UH Harlem
21:29
Speaker 5: Hospital in Harlem. Negroes for ten years had to fight
21:33
Speaker 5: the city to get an annex built on the Harlem hospital.
21:38
Speaker 5: Cause in Harlem we need a hospital more so than
21:40
Speaker 5: anything else. Our people are sick. Plus we do a
21:43
Speaker 5: lot of cutting and shooting of each other, though we
21:45
Speaker 5: profess to be non violent. And UH Herbert Hill brought
21:49
Speaker 5: his forces.
21:50
Speaker 2: Out and stopped the working on that site. UH. This
21:54
Speaker 2: is the first time I ever saw it.
21:56
Speaker 5: Then, UH, when work was brought to a halt on
21:58
Speaker 5: a hospital in Harlem, the same Negroes tried to UH
22:02
Speaker 5: stop the work at the Downstate UH Medical Center in Brooklyn,
22:05
Speaker 5: which is predominantly white. They they were out there for
22:08
Speaker 5: three months during the summer, couldn't stop anything, and I
22:11
Speaker 5: never saw Herbert Hill out there one time. Now, whenever something,
22:14
Speaker 5: whenever it takes uh a stoppage of something that's going
22:17
Speaker 5: to affect the white man, you find the white liberal absent.
22:22
Speaker 2: But it's when it uh.
22:23
Speaker 5: Involves something that primarily will affect the best interests of
22:26
Speaker 5: black people and black people only then that white liberal
22:30
Speaker 5: is president.
22:30
Speaker 2: Herbert Hill is the labor secretary for the.
22:32
Speaker 5: NAACP, and uh, uh if he was interested in black people,
22:37
Speaker 5: he would prepare a black man with the type of
22:39
Speaker 5: knowledge and understanding of the labor troubles involving black people
22:43
Speaker 5: that would enable uh a black man to sit in
22:46
Speaker 5: the same position as Secretary of Labor or labor secretary
22:49
Speaker 5: in the NAACP. I'm suspicious of whites who joined negroes
22:53
Speaker 5: and always have to be in the lead, who always
22:56
Speaker 5: have to be the head, who always have to be
22:58
Speaker 5: at the top in negro organized. Those whites who really
23:02
Speaker 5: have the interest of blacks at heart, let 'em give
23:04
Speaker 5: some advice to some negroes and stand on the sideline,
23:06
Speaker 5: but don't join the organization and then get at the
23:09
Speaker 5: head of it and pose as a friend of negroes.
23:11
Speaker 1: Well, I I would uh, defind his sincerity and his commitment.
23:18
Speaker 1: And more than that, I would say that just because
23:20
Speaker 1: a person is a Negro or a Black American does
23:24
Speaker 1: not mean there's going to struggle for for Negro rights,
23:27
Speaker 1: or f or for jobs for negroes or anything else.
23:29
Speaker 1: I think that today you could point to a large
23:31
Speaker 1: number of of Negro leaders who have consistently betrayed negroes
23:35
Speaker 1: and a whole host of area.
23:36
Speaker 2: They aren't really Negro leaders.
23:38
Speaker 5: These are puppets that have been put in front of
23:40
Speaker 5: the Negro community.
23:41
Speaker 2: By white liberals.
23:43
Speaker 5: These are parents that have been put in front of
23:45
Speaker 5: the Negro community by white liberals.
23:47
Speaker 2: You can't name me a.
23:48
Speaker 5: Negro leader who has been a Negro leader, who has
23:52
Speaker 5: been betrayed, who has betrayed negroes, who is not who
23:55
Speaker 5: has not been endorsed, sanctioned, uh, subsidized and supple by
24:00
Speaker 5: the white liberals.
24:02
Speaker 2: Minister Malcolm, I'd like to well.
24:04
Speaker 1: I'd like one example would be Congressman Dawson, for example,
24:07
Speaker 1: in Chicago, and in in Chicago, a large number of
24:10
Speaker 1: Liberals located in the Hyde Park district have consistently fought
24:12
Speaker 1: Dawson and his betrayals of the Negro and they've also
24:15
Speaker 1: fought some of the people who represent Dawson on the
24:17
Speaker 1: Chicago City Council.
24:19
Speaker 5: The only Negro I know who is constantly fought, only
24:21
Speaker 5: Negro politician that I know who is constantly fought by.
24:24
Speaker 2: White liberals is Adam Clayton Powell. And they called him a.
24:27
Speaker 5: Racist because he speaks so bluntly on the race issue.
24:31
Speaker 2: Uh, but I'm not, as I said, not too familiar
24:34
Speaker 2: with Dawson in his work.
24:37
Speaker 3: Let me let me return uh to the Nation of
24:39
Speaker 3: Islam per se minister by raising a question which uh
24:44
Speaker 3: struck me as a result of reading some of Baldwin's work,
24:47
Speaker 3: namely The Fire Next Time. Baldwin pointed out that in Harlem,
24:50
Speaker 3: for many years he had passed the street corners in
24:53
Speaker 3: the soap boxes and heard people speaking from these platforms
24:56
Speaker 3: who were known as Black nationalists, and nobody was listening.
25:00
Speaker 3: And he said, all of a sudden, he realized that
25:03
Speaker 3: people were beginning to listen to the Muslim speakers on
25:07
Speaker 3: the street corners in Harlem. The message essentially was the same,
25:13
Speaker 3: but it was that now many many people were listening
25:16
Speaker 3: to what this message was. And you pointed out that, Uh,
25:20
Speaker 3: the Nation of Islam has been in the UH picture
25:22
Speaker 3: for about thirty three years. What is it, in your
25:26
Speaker 3: judgment that has caused this tremendous amount of support that
25:30
Speaker 3: the Nation of Islam has garnered in the Negro community
25:33
Speaker 3: in say the last ten years.
25:35
Speaker 5: When you put a seed in the soil, it remains
25:39
Speaker 5: beneath the soil until the season changes. And but and
25:44
Speaker 5: when the season changes, that the seasonal change automatically brings
25:48
Speaker 5: about UH. Rather atmospheric conditions, ring about a seasonal change
25:53
Speaker 5: that makes that seed come up or crop grow.
25:57
Speaker 2: UH in its appointed time.
25:59
Speaker 5: And all over this world today, God himself has brought
26:04
Speaker 5: about political a UH changes, a political atmosphere, sociological social atmosphere,
26:12
Speaker 5: economic atmosphere, these economic conditions, These political conditions and social
26:17
Speaker 5: conditions UH combined to bring about a situation that is
26:23
Speaker 5: making Black people in America more receptive, their mind more
26:27
Speaker 5: fertile to the steed of truth that the Honorable Elijah
26:31
Speaker 5: Muhammad has been planting for thirty some years. And this
26:35
Speaker 5: is springing up today and causing our people to see
26:37
Speaker 5: and understand now what they couldn't see and understand before.
26:41
Speaker 3: What is the nature of the situation which is making
26:43
Speaker 3: Black people more receptive the.
26:45
Speaker 5: Well you take UH the in the past, say fifteen years,
26:50
Speaker 5: how uh the nations have emerged doc nations have emerged
26:54
Speaker 5: in in Africa. UH. Prior to ten years ago, most
26:58
Speaker 5: Negroes associated identified after with a savage, jungle like place,
27:03
Speaker 5: and whenever you mentioned the word African, in their mind's eye,
27:06
Speaker 5: they could see the image of someone running around with
27:09
Speaker 5: a spear UH with no language. Who'd say other bugaboo
27:13
Speaker 5: or buana or something and Uh who'd be in a
27:15
Speaker 5: jungle running from lions or chasing lions. But then when
27:20
Speaker 5: UH after the war, when the United Nations were set
27:23
Speaker 5: up in New York City, UH, black people began to
27:26
Speaker 5: look at uh uh men like tom im Boya. They
27:29
Speaker 5: began to look at men like Nuh Nakrouma. They begin
27:33
Speaker 5: to see men like La Mumba. They begin to see
27:35
Speaker 5: men like Nasa. They began to see UH, these uh
27:39
Speaker 5: Beloi and Zekwa who could UH exchange intellectually with whites
27:45
Speaker 5: on an international level in a political form and hold
27:48
Speaker 5: their own This made the black people in this country
27:51
Speaker 5: realize that what the Honorable Elijah Mohammad had been teaching
27:55
Speaker 5: all the time actually had substance, and they began to
27:58
Speaker 5: turn it over in their mind and see that what
28:01
Speaker 5: he was saying had more weight to it than what
28:03
Speaker 5: these other uh negroes were saying. And they begin to
28:06
Speaker 5: identify themselves with the black world and the black struggle
28:10
Speaker 5: more uh closely than they identified themselves with this so
28:13
Speaker 5: called white world.
28:15
Speaker 2: Let me ask you.
28:18
Speaker 3: A question with respect to a statement which Essian Utum
28:22
Speaker 3: quotes as being on a bulletin board in the University
28:24
Speaker 3: of Islam and Chicago by the Honorbly Large Muhammed.
28:29
Speaker 2: According to.
28:31
Speaker 3: Essian, Mr Muhammad, state up you, mighty race. You can
28:36
Speaker 3: accomplish what you willed build your future on these foundations freedom,
28:44
Speaker 3: justice and equality. What is the definition of freedom, justice
28:53
Speaker 3: and equality for.
28:54
Speaker 2: The black man?
28:55
Speaker 3: And where and when is it to be attained?
28:58
Speaker 5: Well, take equality. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad doesn't teach us
29:02
Speaker 5: to uh associate equality with whites. Equality has nothing to
29:07
Speaker 5: do with whites. We want e We don't want to
29:10
Speaker 5: be equal with the white man. He's not the criteria
29:13
Speaker 5: or yard stick by which equality is measured. He's not
29:17
Speaker 5: in a position to tell us we are equal. It's
29:20
Speaker 5: not his right, it's not his to do equality. We
29:24
Speaker 5: want equality. We had equality before the white man was created.
29:29
Speaker 5: We had the We had equality before the white men
29:31
Speaker 5: came into existence. And we want equality whether the white
29:35
Speaker 5: man is on this earth or not. Equality means the
29:38
Speaker 5: uh opportunity to develop all of our dormant potential, all
29:43
Speaker 5: all of our dormant capability and c and and UH
29:47
Speaker 5: in developing this dormant UH capability, the right in the
29:52
Speaker 5: ability to stand on this earth, on some land UH
29:55
Speaker 5: of our own, and bring about a civilization and a
29:59
Speaker 5: society and we will in which we will be completely independent,
30:04
Speaker 5: complete freedom to uh uh take.
30:07
Speaker 2: Care of the needs, to take care.
30:09
Speaker 5: Of the uh wants and the likes and the dislikes
30:13
Speaker 5: of our people, to establish our own nation, our own society,
30:17
Speaker 5: our own heaven, our own future. This is what we
30:20
Speaker 5: mean by freedom by UH. Equality and justice means UH.
30:25
Speaker 5: As you sow, so shall you reap. If you do wrong,
30:28
Speaker 5: you'll get wrong in return, and if you do right,
30:31
Speaker 5: you'll get right in return.
30:33
Speaker 2: When you're in your own.
30:34
Speaker 5: Nation and your own land, you're in a position to
30:37
Speaker 5: get justice. But when you're in another man's country and
30:40
Speaker 5: another man's land, under another man's flag and under another.
30:43
Speaker 2: Man's uh uh a government and under.
30:46
Speaker 5: Another man's court system, you have to look to that
30:50
Speaker 5: other man for justice and you'll never get it. And
30:53
Speaker 5: Negroes in this country probably are authorities on that Huh.
30:56
Speaker 1: To what extent does this formulation approach that to expoun
30:59
Speaker 1: it by Zionists, They, for example, many Zionist Zionis maintained
31:05
Speaker 1: they could never expect uh justice in the Zyrus courts
31:09
Speaker 1: and and the the courts found in other countries in
31:11
Speaker 1: Eastern Europe and so on. And they decided that it
31:14
Speaker 1: would be wise to establish a separate state in in.
31:16
Speaker 5: Israel, and the and the and all of the world
31:19
Speaker 5: powers got together, the white world powers, I should say,
31:21
Speaker 5: got together and helped all of these white Jews to
31:24
Speaker 5: establish a separate state uh in the heart of a
31:27
Speaker 5: dark skinned people's territory. Uh. And if white people can
31:33
Speaker 5: get together and and and let other whites help other whites.
31:37
Speaker 2: Uh to establish uh an.
31:39
Speaker 5: Independent nation right in the midst of dark skinned people.
31:44
Speaker 5: And then we see, we don't see where white people
31:47
Speaker 5: should be so much against the honorable Elijah muhammad solution
31:51
Speaker 5: not of setting up an independent doc nation in a
31:54
Speaker 5: white people's property. But he's asking uh uh the opportunity
31:58
Speaker 5: to set up an independent nessation in our own on
32:01
Speaker 5: our own continent. Let us leave America and go back
32:03
Speaker 5: home among our own people, on our own land and
32:06
Speaker 5: set up our own independent society. But all he says
32:08
Speaker 5: is that this government which made us slaves should supply
32:12
Speaker 5: the transportation for us to get back home, and give
32:14
Speaker 5: us all of the machinery and the tools necessary for
32:17
Speaker 5: us to till the soil and establish our own agricultural system,
32:21
Speaker 5: to feed and clothe our people, our own economy, and
32:24
Speaker 5: in some way become an independent people among our own
32:26
Speaker 5: people on our own continent. This is intelligent and Zionists
32:30
Speaker 5: should never criticize us.
32:31
Speaker 3: You say then that the United States is not the
32:34
Speaker 3: black man's country.
32:35
Speaker 2: The American laws are not black men's laws.
32:37
Speaker 3: No, s I American laws are not the black man's laws.
32:41
Speaker 5: All the the uh laws here in America were made
32:43
Speaker 5: white by white people for the benefit of white people.
32:46
Speaker 5: The Constitution was written by whites for the benefit of whites.
32:50
Speaker 5: It was never written for the benefit of blacks. And
32:52
Speaker 5: and when you read the Constitution, I think in article one,
32:55
Speaker 5: se section article one, section two, or section one Article
32:58
Speaker 5: one and one of the tooths and it's in the cost.
33:00
Speaker 5: It says that UH that classifies black people as three
33:03
Speaker 5: fifths of a man, three fifths of a man, sub human,
33:07
Speaker 5: less than a human being.
33:09
Speaker 2: It relegates us to the level.
33:10
Speaker 5: Of cattle, hogs, chickens, cows, a commodity that could be
33:15
Speaker 5: bought and sold at the will of the master. No,
33:18
Speaker 5: it was written by whites for the benefit of whites
33:22
Speaker 5: and to the detriment of blacks. And when a black
33:25
Speaker 5: man stands up talking about his constitutional rights, he's out
33:28
Speaker 5: of his mind.
33:30
Speaker 3: A Minister Malcolm in a textbook which the students have read,
33:34
Speaker 3: supposedly there is a statement which is a quotation from
33:38
Speaker 3: Essian and essentially that from UH Lincoln, to the effect
33:43
Speaker 3: that UH, the Nation of Islam does not have a
33:48
Speaker 3: great deal of support in the Negro community in this
33:51
Speaker 3: country by and large. And a recent national poll of
33:55
Speaker 3: American Negroes found that leaders and rank and file, according
34:01
Speaker 3: to their statistics, supported the n Reverend Martin Luther King
34:05
Speaker 3: somewhere over ninety percent, whereas the support unfavorable rating that
34:10
Speaker 3: they gave Minister Muhammad was less than twenty percent, and
34:14
Speaker 3: somewhere around forty five percent of them gave an unfavorable
34:18
Speaker 3: rating to Mr Muhammad. What would your response be in
34:22
Speaker 3: terms of Baldwin's statement that this is a growing thing
34:26
Speaker 3: and the kinds of evidence that we have that there
34:29
Speaker 3: isn't much to it.
34:32
Speaker 5: Well, Uh, that that statement I made just made concerning
34:35
Speaker 5: the Constitution is Article I, section two in the Constitution.
34:38
Speaker 2: Where it classifies us as chatnel.
34:40
Speaker 5: Uh. Baldwin did point out that Mr Muhammad has the
34:43
Speaker 5: only grassroots support and is the only one whose whole
34:46
Speaker 5: b following operates or functions on the mass vehicle. I
34:50
Speaker 5: and I think Baldwin told doctor Kenneth Clark that, Uh,
34:53
Speaker 5: Martin Luther King's at the end of his rope. Now, Uh,
34:56
Speaker 5: the concerning the UH poll taken by Newsweek magazine, I
34:59
Speaker 5: think he said that this was the leaders who said that, uh,
35:03
Speaker 5: who went with King and against Mster Muhammad around ninety percent.
35:07
Speaker 2: I just told you a little while ago. These leaders
35:09
Speaker 2: that they call leaders.
35:10
Speaker 5: This included Lena Horne, This included Dick Gregory, And this
35:14
Speaker 5: included comedians, comics, trumpet players, baseball players. Show me in
35:19
Speaker 5: the white community where a comedian is a white leader.
35:22
Speaker 5: Show me in the white community where a singer is
35:24
Speaker 5: a white leader. Or a dancer or a trumpet player
35:27
Speaker 5: is a white leader. These aren't leaders. These are puppets
35:30
Speaker 5: and clowns that uh have been set up over the
35:34
Speaker 5: white community and or over the black community by the
35:37
Speaker 5: white community and have been made celebrities and usually say
35:40
Speaker 5: exactly what uh they know that the white man wants
35:43
Speaker 5: to hear. And it is an honor actually that they
35:47
Speaker 5: endorsed doctor Martin Luther King and uh uh were against
35:53
Speaker 5: the honorable Elijah Muhammed.
35:54
Speaker 2: That's actually an honor now when you say that. They
35:57
Speaker 2: also in this same.
35:58
Speaker 5: Newsweek poll magazine they uh, I think the posters said
36:01
Speaker 5: that he went into the Negro community and asked about
36:05
Speaker 5: the Muslims, and many.
36:07
Speaker 2: Negroes whom he asked said, well, I never heard of
36:09
Speaker 2: the Muslims. Who are they? You know? This is the
36:11
Speaker 2: rank and file were tak Oh yeah, now And when
36:13
Speaker 2: they got down to the rank and file, this was
36:15
Speaker 2: the answers that they got.
36:16
Speaker 3: Uh.
36:16
Speaker 5: This is equivalent to uh the situation in Kenya doing
36:20
Speaker 5: the Mau Mau uprising, when many UH frightened UH whites
36:25
Speaker 5: in Kenya Africa would go among the Africans and ask
36:29
Speaker 5: them what about the Mau Mau and the.
36:32
Speaker 2: African was there, I never heard of them.
36:33
Speaker 5: And the same white man who would ask the African
36:36
Speaker 5: this question and very naively believe what the African said.
36:40
Speaker 5: When he went to bed that night he would lose
36:41
Speaker 5: his head. And usually the one who took his head
36:44
Speaker 5: was the same African who told him that afternoon he
36:46
Speaker 5: had never heard of the Mau.
36:47
Speaker 2: Mau except uh.
36:49
Speaker 3: In the news we pulled, they used Negro interviewers.
36:53
Speaker 5: You'll find that oft times Negroes are as much on
36:57
Speaker 5: god uh around negro interviewers, who usually represent the bourgeois
37:02
Speaker 5: uh element of Negroes, as they are on guard around whites.
37:06
Speaker 2: UH.
37:06
Speaker 5: Usually Negroes know that when this bourgeois negro walks through
37:10
Speaker 5: the door, he is not doing something that he's initiated himself,
37:14
Speaker 5: but he's involved in something in which the white man
37:16
Speaker 5: is the uh absolute author of and has sent him
37:19
Speaker 5: to the Negro community for some information. And when they
37:22
Speaker 5: give that Negro some information, usually they give him the
37:25
Speaker 5: information that they want the white want him to take
37:27
Speaker 5: back to the white man, because that's who he's gonna
37:29
Speaker 5: take it back to us.
37:31
Speaker 3: Cool Uh, our time is just about up, Minison Malcolm
37:35
Speaker 3: and UH perhaps you could summarize and conclude by giving
37:40
Speaker 3: us in your opinion or in the opinion of mystery
37:42
Speaker 3: Elijah Muhammad, what would be the ideal solution to the
37:48
Speaker 3: racial problem in the United States today?
37:51
Speaker 5: Well, on Thursday, October the third, the New York Tribune
37:54
Speaker 5: in an editorial pointed out in Boston on a in
37:57
Speaker 5: an article called the Civil Rights Iceberg. They pointed out
38:01
Speaker 5: how Kennedy had realized that beneath the water the civil
38:05
Speaker 5: rights UH, whole problem UH was political suicide because in
38:10
Speaker 5: his own hometown, the head of the Board of Education,
38:12
Speaker 5: a woman named Missus Hicks, was running against the NAACP philosophy,
38:18
Speaker 5: and she swept aside all other opposition. The whole white
38:22
Speaker 5: community supported her in opposition to the NAACP's desire for
38:26
Speaker 5: integrated schools, integrated.
38:27
Speaker 2: Housing in otherwise.
38:29
Speaker 5: So I say that to say this that even the
38:31
Speaker 5: Jewish Committee community, which is supposed to be pro liberal,
38:34
Speaker 5: went against the NAACP. Whites are against integration in practice,
38:39
Speaker 5: but therefore it in principle.
38:41
Speaker 2: So the only solution is separation.
38:43
Speaker 5: And the honorable Delijia Muhammad says that this can be
38:45
Speaker 5: brought about simply by letting our people be exposed to
38:49
Speaker 5: the truth about ourselves, about the white man, about our
38:53
Speaker 5: history and our condition in this country. And once we
38:55
Speaker 5: are exposed to the complete truth as things, about things
38:59
Speaker 5: as they actually exists in this country, the masses of
39:01
Speaker 5: black people will choose complete separation from this entire system
39:05
Speaker 5: political system, economic system, social system, and whatever other aspect
39:10
Speaker 5: or description you uh are ac uh uh adjective you
39:12
Speaker 5: wanna attach to it. Let us go back home to
39:14
Speaker 5: our own people, live among our own kind, and solve
39:17
Speaker 5: our own problems ourselves. And if the white man doesn't
39:19
Speaker 5: want us to go back to our own people and
39:21
Speaker 5: live in our own country, then since we can't get
39:23
Speaker 5: along together in peace on this country we're the white people,
39:26
Speaker 5: let us separate part of this continent, migrate to that
39:29
Speaker 5: separate territory.
39:30
Speaker 2: Let the government give us.
39:31
Speaker 5: Everything we'd need to establish our own independent economic system
39:35
Speaker 5: in society, and thereby we'll be able to solve our
39:39
Speaker 5: own problems ourselves and prove that we're a human beings
39:42
Speaker 5: and a part of the human family and can do
39:43
Speaker 5: for ourselves what other humans have done for themselves. And
39:46
Speaker 5: then we'll be able to stop blaming the white man
39:49
Speaker 5: for what he has done, and stop begging the white
39:51
Speaker 5: man to solve our problems.
39:52
Speaker 2: We'll be able to solve our problems ourselves. Thank you
39:56
Speaker 2: very much. That's it.