39 YEARS AFTER ASSASSINATION:
MALCOLM X INSPIRES MILITANT STRUGGLE AGAINST RACISM

By Monica Moorehead

On Feb. 21, 1965, revolutionary Black nationalist leader
Malcolm X was assassinated while making a speech at the
Audubon Ballroom in Harlem, N.Y. He was only 39 years old. To
this day, it is still widely believed throughout progressive
sectors that the U.S. government was very much behind his
death.

Consider the fact that the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a
repressive arm of the U.S. Justice Department, began keeping
a file on Malcolm X--then Malcolm Little--in March 1953, upon
his release from prison. It was during his prison term that
he became politically radicalized and joined the Nation of
Islam, a Black Muslim organization.

The file on Malcolm X, more than 3,600 pages and 19 sections,
was part of the FBI's Counter Intelligence Program--
COINTELPRO--which targeted political formations and
individuals advocating various forms of liberation struggles
of oppressed nationalities.

Malcolm X evolved into one of the most dynamic
representatives of the NOI and the Black struggle. He
traveled throughout the United States. speaking to
predominantly Black audiences and to many white college
students about the political and economic oppression of Black
people inside the United States and worldwide.

Malcolm used historical facts and disarming political
formulations to explain in a popular manner why Black
nationalism was a more than justified response to an
institutionalized racist ideology, as opposed to being "anti-
white"--a distorted view projected by the big-business media.

He popularized the concept of Black people's right to armed
self-defense against the state-sponsored racist terror of the
police and the U.S. government. This concept helped to give
birth to the Black Panther Party in Oakland, Calif., in 1966,
and to other revolutionary formations like the Young Lords, a
Latino youth organization.

He along with Martin Luther King spoke about the right of
Black people to reparations for the generations of racism
brought about by the legacy of slavery. He created the
immortal phrase "By any means necessary" in relation to the
various tactics Black people should use to win liberation.

In the aftermath of his travels to Africa, the Middle East
and elsewhere, Malcolm X was in the process of developing an
anti-imperialist perspective when he was tragically struck
down. He had just formed the Organization of African-American
Unity as a vehicle for uniting other political currents
within the Black liberation movement. He was planning to
bring worldwide attention about the plight of African
Americans to the United Nations.

Thirty-nine years after his death, Malcolm X remains a
revered figure of defiance against all forms of racist
oppression, especially among the youth as well as progressive
and oppressed sectors of work ers. The left wing of the U.S.
anti-war movement, most notably, the Interna tional ANSWER
Coalition--Act Now to Stop War & End Racism--has been
inspired by the legacy of Malcolm X, using his image in
demonstrations to urge, "Stand against war and racism."


  rodneyc..

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