May 19th is Malcolm X birthday – a Black Holiday celebrating his life and legacy. In paying tribute to Brother Malcolm X I took quote excerpts from Brother Malcolm’s speech "The Ballot or the Bullet" delivered at King Solomon Baptist Church, Detroit, Michigan - April 12, 1964. In Malcolm’s speech quotes he provides us with the wisdom and principles of Unity & Black Nationalism as the basis for self-determination to achieve Black Power today.
Brother Malcolm’s wisdom quotes provides clarity today in the midst of dead-end Black religious debates saturated on Youtube between Christians, Muslims, Nation of Islam, Moorish Science Temple, Hebrew Israelites, Kemites, etc. These constant self-righteous religious sectarian debates fosters disunity creating confusion on who the primary enemy is which aids the overall divide and conquer strategy of white supremacy!
Let us reflect deeply on Brother Malcolm’s following
quotes:
“I am a Muslim minister. The same as they are Christian
ministers, I'm a Muslim minister. And I don't believe in fighting today on any
one front, but on all fronts. In fact, I'm a Black Nationalist freedom
fighter. Islam is my religion but I believe my religion is my personal
business. It governs my personal life, my personal morals. And my
religious philosophy is personal between me and the God in whom I believe, just
as the religious philosophy of these others is between them and the God in whom
they believe. And this is best this way. Were we to come out here discussing
religion, we'd have too many differences from the out start and we could never
get together.”
“So today, though Islam is my religious philosophy, my
political, economic and social philosophy is Black nationalism. As I say, if we
bring up religion, we'll have differences, we'll have arguments, and we'll
never be able to get together. But if we keep our religion at home, keep our
religion in the closet, keep our religion between ourselves and our God, but
when we come out here we have a fight that's common to all of us against an
enemy who is common to all of us. “
“The political philosophy of Black nationalism only
means that the black man should control the politics and the politicians in his
own community. The time when white people can come in our community and get us
to vote for them so that they can be our political leaders and tell us what to
do and what not to do is long gone.”
“By the same token, the time when that same white man,
knowing that your eyes are too far open, can send another Negro in the
community, and get you and me to support him, so that he can use him to lead us
astray, those days are long gone too.”
“The political philosophy of Black nationalism only
means that if you and I are going to live in a Black community and that's where
we're going to live, 'cause as soon as you move into one of their soon as you
move out of the Black community into their community, it's mixed for a period
of time, but they're gone and you're right there all by yourself again.”
“We must, we must understand the politics of our
community and we must know what politics is supposed to produce. We must know
what part politics play in our lives. And until we become politically mature,
we will always be misled, led astray, or deceived or maneuvered into supporting
someone politically who doesn't have the good of our community at heart. So the
political philosophy of Black nationalism only means that we will have to carry
on a program, a political program, of reeducation to open our people's eyes,
make us become more politically conscious, politically mature. And then, we
will - whenever we are ready to cast our ballot, that ballot will be cast for a
man of the community, who has the good of the community at heart.”
“The economic philosophy of Black nationalism only
means that we should own and operate and control the economy of our community.
You would never have found—you can't open up a black store in a white
community. White man won't even patronize you. And he's not wrong. He got sense
enough to look out for himself. It's you who don't have sense enough to look
out for yourself.”
"The white man, the white man is too intelligent to let
someone else come and gain control of the economy of his community. But you
will let anybody come in and control the economy of your community, control the
housing, control the education, control the jobs, control the businesses, under
the pretext that you want to integrate. Nah, you're out of your mind.”
“The political and the economic philosophy of Black
nationalism only means that we have to become involved in a program of
reeducation, to educate our people into the importance of knowing that when you
spend your dollar out of the community in which you live, the community in
which you spend your money becomes richer and richer, the community out of
which you take your money becomes poorer and poorer. And because these Negroes,
who have been misled, misguided, are breaking their necks to take their money
and spend it with the Man, the Man is becoming richer and richer, and you're
becoming poorer and poorer. And then what happens? The community in which you
live becomes a slum. It becomes a ghetto. The conditions become rundown. And
then you have the audacity to complain about poor housing in a rundown
community, while you're running down yourselves when you take your dollar out.”
“And you and I are in a double trap because not only do
we lose by taking our money someplace else and spending it, when we try and
spend it in our own community we're trapped because we haven't had sense enough
to set up stores and control the businesses of our community. The man who is
controlling the stores in our community is a man who doesn't look like we do.
He's a man who doesn't even live in the community. So you and I, even when we
try and spend our money on the block where we live or the area where we live,
we're spending it with a man who, when the sun goes down, takes that basket
full of money in another part of the town.”“So we're trapped, trapped, double-trapped, triple-trapped. Any way we go, we find that we're trapped. Any every kind of solution that someone comes up with is just another trap. But the political and economic philosophy of Black nationalism; the economic philosophy of Black nationalism shows our people the importance of setting up these little stores, and developing them and expanding them into larger operations. Woolworth didn't start out big like they are today; they started out with a dime store, and expanded, and expanded, and expanded until today they are all over the country and all over the world and they getting some of everybody's money.”
“So our people not only have to be reeducated to the
importance of supporting black business, but the Black man himself has to be
made aware of the importance of going into business. And once you and I go into
business, we own and operate at least the businesses in our community. What we
will be doing is developing a situation, wherein, we will actually be able to
create employment for the people in the community. And once you can create some
employment in the community where you live, it will eliminate the necessity of
you and me having to act ignorantly and disgracefully, boycotting and picketing
some cracker someplace else trying to beg him for a job. Anytime you have
to rely upon your enemy for a job, you're in bad shape.”
“Whether you are a Christian or a Muslim or a
nationalist, we all have the same problem. They don't hang you because you're a
Baptist; they hang you 'cause you're Black. They don't attack me because
I'm a Muslim. They attack me 'cause I'm Black. They attacked all of us for the
same reason. All of us catch hell from the same enemy. We're all in the same
bag, in the same boat. We suffer political oppression, economic exploitation
and social degradation. All of 'em from the same enemy.”
“So this government has failed us. The government
itself has failed us. And the white liberals who have been posing as our
friends have failed us. And once we see that all of these other sources to
which we've turned have failed, we stop turning to them and turn to ourselves.
We need a self-help program, a do-it-yourself philosophy, a do-it-right-now
philosophy, a it's-already-too-late philosophy. This is what you and I need to
get with. And the only time – the only way we're going to solve our problem is
with a self-help program. Before we can get a self-help program started, we
have to have a self-help philosophy. Black nationalism is a self-help
philosophy.”
“What's so good about it – you can stay right in the
church where you are and still take Black nationalism as your philosophy. You
can stay in any kind of civic organization that you belong to and still take Black
nationalism as your philosophy. You can be an atheist and still take Black
nationalism as your philosophy. This is a philosophy that eliminates the
necessity for division and argument, 'cause if you're black, you should be
thinking Black. And if you're Black and you not thinking Black at this late
date, well, I'm sorry for you.”
“So I say in my conclusion, the only way we're going to
solve it: we got to unite. We got to work together in unity and harmony. And Black
nationalism is the key. How we gonna overcome the tendency to be at each
other's throats that always exists in our neighborhood? And the reason this
tendency exists – the strategy of the white man has always been divide and
conquer. He keeps us divided in order to conquer us. He tells you, I'm for
separation and you for integration, and keep us fighting with each other. No,
I'm not for separation and you're not for integration, what you and I are for
is freedom. Only, you think that integration will get you freedom; I think
that separation will get me freedom. We both got the same objective, we just
got different ways of getting' at it."
