Malcolm X
Malcolm X was The Man, even as a boy. When his mother was pregnant with him the Klan rode up on his house in Omaha while his father was away preaching in Milwaukee. They threatened his mother because his father was a follower of Marcus Garvey. They rode around his house breaking all its’ windows with their gun butts.
When Malcolm was six, they killed his father, his mother went mad and his beloved siblings were separated to foster homes. Even so, Malcolm excelled in school, was well liked by teachers and classmates and became class president. In The Autobiography of Malcolm X he writes: “Somehow, I happened to be alone in the classroom with Mr. Ostrowski, my English teacher. He was a tall, rather reddish white man and he had a thick mustache. I had gotten some of my best marks under him, and he had always made me feel that he liked me. He was, as I have mentioned, a natural-born “adviser,” about what you ought to read, to do, or think — about any and everything. I know that he probably meant well in what he happened to advise me that day. I doubt that he meant any harm. It was just in his nature as an American white man. I was one of his top students, one of the school’s top students — but all he could see for me was the kind of future ‘in your place’ that almost all white people see for black people. He told me, ‘Malcolm, you ought to be thinking about a career. Have you been giving it thought?’
The truth is, I hadn’t. I never have figured out why I told him, “Well, yes, sir, I’ve been thinking I’d like to be a lawyer.”. . . Mr. Ostrowski looked surprised, I remember, and leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. He kind of half-smiled and said, ‘Malcolm, one of life’s first needs is for us to be realistic. Don’t misunderstand me, now. We all here like you, you know that. But you’ve got to be realistic about being a nigger. A lawyer — that’s no realistic goal for a nigger.’
. . . What made it really begin to disturb me was Mr. Ostrowski’s advice to others in my class — all of them white . . . They all reported that Mr. Ostrowski had encouraged what they had wanted. Yet nearly none of them had earned marks equal to mine . . . It was then that I began to change — inside . . . Where ‘nigger’ had slipped off my back before, wherever I heard it now, I stopped and looked at whoever said it. And they looked surprised that I did . . . I quit hearing so much ‘nigger’ and, ‘What’s wrong?’ — which was the way I wanted it.” –Malcolm X
Here is part of the eulogy delivered by his friend, Ossie Davis, at Malcolm’s funeral at The Faith Temple Church of God, in Harlem, February 27, 1965:
” . . . Malcolm was our manhood, our living, Black manhood! This was his meaning to his people. And, in honoring him, we honor the best in ourselves. Last year, from Africa, he wrote these words to a friend: ‘My journey’, he says, ‘is almost ended, and I have a much broader scope than when I started out, which I believe will add new life and dimension to our struggle for freedom and honor and dignity in the States. I am writing these things so that you will know for a fact the tremendous sympathy and support we have among the African States for our Human Rights struggle. The main thing is that we keep a United Front wherein our most valuable time and energy will not be wasted fighting each other.’ However we may have differed with him – or with each other about him and his value as a man – let his going from us serve only to bring us together, now.
Consigning these mortal remains to earth, the common mother of all, secure in the knowledge that what we place in the ground is no more now a man – but a seed – which, after the winter of our discontent, will come forth again to meet us. And we will know him then for what he was and is – a Prince – our own Black shining Prince! – who didn’t hesitate to die, because he loved us so.”
Cloth 27.95
Paper 15.00
