Transcript

Who was Malcolm X · Gil I Am

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Speaker 1: Who taught you to hate your own kind? Who taught
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Speaker 1: you to hate the race that you belong to so
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Speaker 1: much perl that you don't want to be around each other? No,
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Speaker 1: before you come after and look for Muhammed, does he
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Speaker 1: teach you should ask who yourself? Who taught you to
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Speaker 1: hate me? What God needs you?
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Speaker 2: How did one man go from petty criminal to becoming
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Speaker 2: a global voice against racism? He's one of the most
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Speaker 2: prominent Muslims in modern history and a symbol of black
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Speaker 2: liberation who has inspired generations. A gangster, a preacher, and
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Speaker 2: a revolutionary. This is the extraordinary journey of Malcolm X.
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Speaker 2: Malcolm X was born in nineteen twenty five in Omaha, Nebraska.
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Speaker 2: His parents, Earl and Louise Little, were followers of the
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Speaker 2: Pan African activist Marcus Garvey. As a result, their family
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Speaker 2: was subjected to constant harassment by the Ku Klux Klan,
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Speaker 2: who burned down their home when Malcolm was just four
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Speaker 2: years old. The family moved to Michigan, where they were
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Speaker 2: threatened by the Black Legion, an offshoot of the KKK.
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Speaker 2: Four of Malcolm's uncles were all also murdered by white racists.
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Speaker 2: Malcolm's father died when he was six. The incident was
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Speaker 2: officially ruled a street car accident, although his mother believed
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Speaker 2: he had ultimately been murdered by the black legion. When
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Speaker 2: Malcolm was thirteen, his mother was committed to a mental institution.
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Speaker 2: Her children were split up and sent to different foster homes.
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Speaker 2: Malcolm was an excellent student, but dropped out of school
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Speaker 2: after a white teacher told him it was unrealistic for
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Speaker 2: a young black boy to have aspirations of being a lawyer.
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Speaker 2: After a few years in Michigan and Boston, he moved
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Speaker 2: to Harlem at the age of eighteen, where he was
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Speaker 2: involved in gambling, robbery, drug dealing, and pimping. At the
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Speaker 2: age of twenty one, after committing a string of robberies
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Speaker 2: with a small gang in Boston, Malcolm was arrested and
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Speaker 2: sentenced to eight to ten years of Charlestown State prison.
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Speaker 2: Incarceration was the beginning of Malcolm's transformation. While in prison,
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Speaker 2: his siblings began writing to him about the Nation of
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Speaker 2: Islam and its leader, Elijah Muhammad. The Nation of Islam
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Speaker 2: promoted black independence and rejected the notion of the superiority
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Speaker 2: of white people. Instead, Elijah Muhammad taught his followers a
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Speaker 2: form of separatism from whites, who were actually considered devils
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Speaker 2: inferior to black people, who were the original inhabitants of earth. Malcolm,
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Speaker 2: initially hostile to the idea of any religion, eventually became
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Speaker 2: a member of the Nation. He read books constantly and
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Speaker 2: began writing regularly to Elijah Muhammad. Mohammad's followers were taught
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Speaker 2: to abandon their given family names, as they were actually
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Speaker 2: the names of former slave owners, so Malcolm Little became
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Speaker 2: Malcolm X. After being paroled, Malcolm visited Elijah Muhammad in
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Speaker 2: Chicago in June. The next year, he was named assistant
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Speaker 2: minister of the Nation of Islam's Temple Number one in Detroit.
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Speaker 2: He later established Boston's Temple number eleven and expanded Temple
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Speaker 2: number twelve in Philadelphia.
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Speaker 3: And those of you who think that you perhaps came
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Speaker 3: here to hear tell you to turn the other chiefs
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Speaker 3: to the brutality, younger white man, I say again, you
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Speaker 3: cames are.
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Speaker 1: Their own place.
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Speaker 2: Finally, he was selected to lead Temple number seven in Harlem,
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Speaker 2: where he was responsible for a huge surgeon membership.
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Speaker 3: We don't teach you to turn the other cheek. We
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Speaker 3: don't teach you to turn the other cheek in the South,
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Speaker 3: and we don't teach you to turn the other cheek
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Speaker 3: in the knaw. We teach you to obey the law.
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Speaker 3: We teach you to carry ourselves in in a respectable way.
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Speaker 3: But at the same time, we teach you that anyone
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Speaker 3: who put their hand on you, do your best to
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Speaker 3: see that he doesn't put it on anybody else.
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Speaker 2: The FBI now had him under surveillance due to his
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Speaker 2: sudden profile as the nation's rising stock. Malcolm's rise to
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Speaker 2: national prominence happened in nineteen fifty seven when he intervened
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Speaker 2: at a police station to arrange for medical assistance and
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Speaker 2: legal help for members of the Nation who had been
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Speaker 2: beaten and arrested by New York police. The crowd of
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Speaker 2: protesters outside grew to almost four thousand. Witnessing Malcolm's control
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Speaker 2: of the crowd shook the New York Police Department. Within weeks,
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Speaker 2: they had him under surveillance and officially began infiltrating the nation.
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Speaker 2: In nineteen fifty eight, Malcolm married his wife, Betty, with
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Speaker 2: whom he would have six daughters. Malcolm's profile continue to
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Speaker 2: grow via print and television appearances, and he began to
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Speaker 2: gain international exposure.
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Speaker 3: Who is this that control the prostitution in Harlem? Just
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Speaker 3: the right man who controls the ours, not sell out
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Speaker 3: of whiskey in rhyme. Just the right man who gives
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Speaker 3: you the secret cars and the zight. But you use
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Speaker 3: the campbell with just the right man, and afore you
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Speaker 3: sell him to you, he catch you with him and
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Speaker 3: push you in jails and us.
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Speaker 2: He was deeply critical of the growing civil rights movement
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Speaker 2: and it's leader. It's like doctor Martin Luther King, who
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Speaker 2: preached integration.
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Speaker 4: That's what you mean by non violent. Be defenseless. Be
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Speaker 4: defenseless in the face of one of the most cruel
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Speaker 4: beasts that has ever taken the people into captivity. That's
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Speaker 4: just American white man. One hundred years ago, they used
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Speaker 4: to put put on a white sheet and use a
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Speaker 4: bloodhound against Negroes. Today they've taken off the white sheet
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Speaker 4: and put on police uniforms. They traded in the bloodhounds
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Speaker 4: for police dogs, and they're still doing the same thing.
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Speaker 4: And just as Uncle Tom back doing slaver used to
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Speaker 4: keep the Negroes from resisting the bloodhound or resisting the
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Speaker 4: kuplus by teaching them to love their enemy, or Luther
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Speaker 4: King's just the twentieth century, or modern Uncle Tom, or
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Speaker 4: a religious Uncle Tom who was doing the same thing today.
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Speaker 2: Malcolm's message was being heard louder than ever, but his
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Speaker 2: relationship with the man who had transformed his life was
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Speaker 2: about to fracture. Tensions were growing within the nation over
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Speaker 2: the amount of attention Malcolm was receiving compared to his mentor,
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Speaker 2: Elijah Muhammad. An unprovoked raid on the Nation of Islam
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Speaker 2: Musque by police in Los Angeles led to one member
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Speaker 2: being paralyzed and another being killed. No charges were laid
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Speaker 2: against the police.
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Speaker 1: The white man believes you when you go to him
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Speaker 1: without old sweet talk, because you've been sweet talking to
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Speaker 1: him ever since he brought you here. Stop sweet talking,
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Speaker 1: Tell him how you see, tell him how what kind
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Speaker 1: of hell you've been catching, and let him know that
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Speaker 1: if he's not ready the clean his house up it
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Speaker 1: he's not ready the queen here his house up. He
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Speaker 1: shouldn't have a hush.
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Speaker 5: He should catch on fire and burned down.
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Speaker 2: Malcolm was reportedly stunned by Elijah Muhammad's refusal to allow
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Speaker 2: any form of response or retaliation for the incident. The
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Speaker 2: two also disagreed over Malcolm's desire to begin working with
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Speaker 2: civil rights organizations, black politicians, and other religious organizations.
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Speaker 6: Then suddenly, here is a bulletin from CBS News.
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Speaker 7: Three shots were fired at President Canaday's motorcade and downtown Dallas.
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Speaker 7: The President Kennaday has been seriously wounded.
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Speaker 2: Malcolm's response to the Kennedy assassination led to him being
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Speaker 2: officially silenced for ninety days.
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Speaker 8: Malcolm acts, you were involved in a controversy some months
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Speaker 8: ago with your leader. Is is that overworld?
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Speaker 6: I've been.
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Speaker 8: I ran in fouind for the past ninety days because
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Speaker 8: of comptatements I made in sending the President of the
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Speaker 8: United States.
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Speaker 5: Which were distorted.
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Speaker 8: They were distorted. And yes, what did you say, Malcolm, Well,
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Speaker 8: I said the same thing that everybody said. His fascination
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Speaker 8: was the result of the climate of hate, which only
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Speaker 8: I said, the chickens came home the roof, and which
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Speaker 8: means the same thing.
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Speaker 2: In March of nineteen sixty five, for Malcolm publicly announced
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Speaker 2: his break from the Nation of Islam. He also expressed
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Speaker 2: a desire to work with other civil rights leaders, saying
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Speaker 2: that Elijah Muhammad had prevented him from doing so. Then
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Speaker 2: came a bombshell.
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Speaker 7: Well, in reality, I never even left the Muslim movement.
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Speaker 7: They put me out, and they put me out because
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Speaker 7: of what I knew, And what I knew was told
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Speaker 7: to me by mister Muhammad's son, Wallace Muhammad himself. They
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Speaker 7: put me out and they put him out.
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Speaker 9: Who is the father of all of these various children
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Speaker 9: whom you have enumerated.
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Speaker 7: The first one to tell me who the father was
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Speaker 7: was Wallace Muhammad, and he told me that the father
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Speaker 7: was Elijah Muhammad himself.
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Speaker 9: Wonder how many of these illegitimate children did he father
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Speaker 9: With the sisters?
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Speaker 4: Well, he made six sisters pregnant.
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Speaker 7: They all had children. Two of those six had two children.
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Speaker 7: I am told that there is a seventh sister who
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Speaker 7: is supposed to be in Mexico right now, and she's
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Speaker 7: supposed to be having a child by him.
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Speaker 9: Are you not perhaps afraid of what might happen to
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Speaker 9: you as a result of making these revelations?
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Speaker 6: Oh?
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Speaker 4: Yes, I probably am a dead man already.
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Speaker 2: After splitting from the Nation, Malcolm began learning the tenets
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Speaker 2: and practices of Sunni Islam. He founded the Muslim Usque Incorporated,
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Speaker 2: a religious organization, and the Organization of Afro American Unity,
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Speaker 2: a non religious group promoting Pan Africanism. He had softened
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Speaker 2: his position on Martin Luther King, who he met only
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Speaker 2: once in person, and later the same year he performed
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Speaker 2: hadj the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca. This was to be
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Speaker 2: yet another transformative experience for him.
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Speaker 5: When I was in on the pilgrimage, I had close
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Speaker 5: contact with Muslims who skin would in America be classified
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Speaker 5: as white, and with Muslims who were themselves would be
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Speaker 5: classified as white in America. But these particularly Muslims, didn't
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Speaker 5: call themselves white. They looked upon themselves as human beings,
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Speaker 5: as part of the human family, and therefore they looked
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Speaker 5: upon all other segments of the human family as part.
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Speaker 3: Of that same family. Now they had.
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Speaker 5: A different look, or a different air, or a different
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Speaker 5: added then that which is reflected in the attitude of
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Speaker 5: the man in America who called himself white. So I
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Speaker 5: said that if Islam had done this, had done that
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Speaker 5: for them, perhaps if the white man in America would
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Speaker 5: study Islam, perhaps they could do the same thing for him.
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Speaker 2: After Mecca, Malcolm made two trips to Africa meeting officials
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Speaker 2: and speaking on radio and television across the continent. In Cairo,
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Speaker 2: he attended the second meeting of the Organization of African
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Speaker 2: Unity and met Africa's most high profile leaders, including Kwame
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Speaker 2: Nkruma of Ghana, Gamal ab del Naser of Egypt, and
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Speaker 2: Apid ben Bello of Algeria, who all offered him official
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Speaker 2: positions in their respective governments. He met with Fidel Castro
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Speaker 2: and was one of the first African American leaders to
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Speaker 2: meet the newly created Palestinian Liberation Organization, and was one
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Speaker 2: of the pioneers of a tradition of black Palestinian solidarity
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Speaker 2: that would be continued by the Black Panther Party and
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Speaker 2: the Black Lives Matter movement. A common misconception about Malcolm's
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Speaker 2: philosophical evolution is that his process of turning to Sunni
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Speaker 2: Islam softened his political positions. While it's true that Malcolm
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Speaker 2: abandoned some of the nation's more extreme separatist positions on race,
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Speaker 2: he remained a staunch Black nationalist.
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Speaker 7: I think what a lot of people are interested in,
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Speaker 7: Malcolm is whether this experience has made you feel that.
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Speaker 10: That your feelings have changed, that the animosity.
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Speaker 5: You have expressed in the past board all flights. The
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Speaker 5: other thing that I want to make clear, no matter
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Speaker 5: how much respect, no matter how much recognition, quite show
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Speaker 5: toward me, as far as I'm concerned, as long as
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Speaker 5: that same respect and recognition is not shown toward every
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Speaker 5: one of our people in this country, it doesn't exist
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Speaker 5: for me.
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Speaker 2: If anything, Malcolm's travel had led him to globalize his perspective,
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Speaker 2: seeing black liberation as something beyond the United States, and
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Speaker 2: that's something that was intimately tied to struggles for independence.
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Speaker 2: The Third World.
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Speaker 10: Has remained a domestic problem. It has remained within the
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Speaker 10: jurisdiction of the United States, and it has and as
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Speaker 10: such it has been impossible for the Afro Americans or
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Speaker 10: American Negroes to try and enlist the support of other
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Speaker 10: docskinned people who are being oppressed the world over in
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Speaker 10: that struggle. And the only way this can be done
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Speaker 10: is by internationalizing the problem.
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Speaker 7: If you take up arms, you'll end it. But if
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Speaker 7: you sit around and wait for the one who's in
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Speaker 7: power to make his mind that he should end it,
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Speaker 7: you'll be waiting a long time. And in my opinion,
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Speaker 7: the young generation of whites, blacks, brown, whatever else there
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Speaker 7: is You're living at a time of extremists and a
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Speaker 7: time of revolution, a time when there's got to be
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Speaker 7: a change.
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Speaker 2: The Nation of Islam had not taken Malcolm's exit and
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Speaker 2: public criticism of Elijah Muhammed's misconduct lightly. His family was
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Speaker 2: repeatedly threatened, their car was bumbed, and FBI surveillance records
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Speaker 2: show that law enforcement was aware that elements within the
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Speaker 2: nation were openly discussing his death. Then his house was
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Speaker 2: burned out. On February twenty first, nineteen sixty five, Malcolm
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Speaker 2: was addressing the organization of Afro American Unity in Manhattan's
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Speaker 2: Audubon Ballroom. He was shot twenty one times. Three Nations
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Speaker 2: of Islam members were tried and convicted of the murder,
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Speaker 2: but questions remained. At the time of his death, Malcolm
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Speaker 2: was under surveillance by both the NYPD and the FBI's
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Speaker 2: co Intel pro operation. For many there is simply no
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Speaker 2: doubt that one or both organizations had a hand in
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Speaker 2: his assassination. Malcolm's legacy went on to be preserved in
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Speaker 2: hip hop, film and literature, most importantly his own autobiography,
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Speaker 2: which continues to be celebrated and was named one of
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Speaker 2: the ten most influential nonfiction books of the twentieth century.
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Speaker 2: His politics continue to inspire generations of activism against racism
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Speaker 2: and imperialism.
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Speaker 7: Worldwide, people in power that misused it. And now there
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Speaker 7: has to be a change in a better world has
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Speaker 7: to be built, and the only way it's going to
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Speaker 7: be built is with extreme methods. And I, for one,
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Speaker 7: will join in with anyone. Don't care what color you,
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Speaker 7: as long as you want to change this miserable condition
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Speaker 7: that exists on as or thank you.
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Speaker 2: Malcolm's funeral was held in Harlem. Some estimate that up
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Speaker 2: to thirty thousand people attended. Actor an activist Ozzie Davis
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Speaker 2: delivered the eulogy.
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Speaker 6: Harlem has come to bid farewell to one of its
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Speaker 6: brightest hopes, extinguished now and gone from us forever. Many
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Speaker 6: will ask what Harlem finds to honor in this stormy,
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Speaker 6: controversial and bold young captain, and we will smile. Many
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Speaker 6: will say, turn away away from this man, for he
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Speaker 6: is not a man but a demon, a monster, a subverider,
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Speaker 6: and an enemy of the black man. And we will
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Speaker 6: answer and say unto them, did you ever talk to
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Speaker 6: brother Malcolm, did you ever touch him? Or have him
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Speaker 6: smile at you. Did you ever really listen to him?
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Speaker 6: Malcolm was our manhood, our living black manhood. This was
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Speaker 6: his meaning to his people, And in honoring him, we
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Speaker 6: arenor the best in ourselves. What we place in the
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Speaker 6: ground is no more now a man, but a seed, which,
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Speaker 6: after the winter of discontent, will come forth again to
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Speaker 6: meet us. And we shall know him then for what
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Speaker 6: he was and is a prince, our own black, shining
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Speaker 6: prince who did not hesitate to die because he loved us.
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Speaker 4: So you now use Shabbas and drop X.
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Speaker 5: I'll probably continue to use Malcolm X because and I'll
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Speaker 5: probably use it as long as a situation that produced
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Speaker 5: it exists