FIST leader pays tribute to Malcolm X

Following are excerpts from a talk given by FIST (Fight Imperialism--Stand Together) organizer LeiLani Dowell at a Feb. 18 Workers World Party meeting in New York.

Malcolm X

Feb. 21 will mark the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X at the age of 39. He was by far one of our most dynamic leaders. His image is a symbol of revolutionary thought and action to this day.

What always impressed me the most about Malcolm X was his constant search for answers, and the ability to justify his actions, his ideologies, with facts and in plain, popular language--language that would galvanize a movement that continues to this day.

While he was able to defend Black nationalism as a justified response to hundreds of years of institutionalized racism, towards the end of his life he was seeking a more internationalist approach to ending oppression.

LeiLani Dowell

He declared himself as "one of the victims of America, one of the victims of Americanism," and connected the struggle of Black people in the United States with all peoples living under the gun of U.S. imperialism throughout the world.

Malcolm brought pride to Black people. He made us feel that we were entitled to be angry, to demand respect, to demand justice, in the face of the violence and brutal oppression we had faced since the founding of this country.

He told students at Oxford University, "I firmly believe that the day that the Black man takes an uncompromising step and realizes that he's within his rights, when his own freedom is being jeopardized, to use any means necessary to bring about his freedom and put a halt to that injustice, I don't think he'll be by himself."

Malcolm also pointed out the hypocrisy of a system that practices violence every second of the day, and then preaches nonviolence to those it oppresses. His popularization of the right to self-defense--with the phrase "by any means necessary"--was an extremely important contribution to the Black liberation struggles of the time.

He saw a movement for real change building and growing. During one of his last speeches, he said, "You're getting a new generation that is being born right now, and they are beginning to think with their own mind and see that you can't negotiate upon freedom nowadays. If something is yours by right, you either fight for it or shut up. If you can't fight for it, then forget it."

In a Village Voice interview, Malcolm said, "You have to wake the people up first, to their humanity, to their own worth, and to their heritage--and then you'll see action." I'm sure in the last few years of Malcolm's life, he would have taken the term "humanity" to mean the humanity of all, throughout the world.

Both Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. were embracing a more internationalist approach when they were gunned down. Malcolm X was preparing to raise the plight of African Americans to the UN before his death. The UN was different back then than it is now due to the presence of the former Soviet Union and the socialist bloc.

Malcolm had traveled to many parts of Africa, and seen the revolutionary struggles there, spoken with their leaders, and also traveled to Europe to speak with the youth there.

So is it merely coincidence that Malcolm's and King's lives were tragically cut short when their outlook was expanding to encompass the oppressed the world over? I don't think it is. This is what the ruling class had the most to fear from--the mobilization of forces on an international level, the fight for the rights of all, connecting the war at home and the war abroad and militantly supporting each other's causes.

FIST

We're living in an extremely difficult and outrageous yet exciting time because I think we're seeing this happen more and more here in the United States. On Oct. 17 of last year the legacy of Malcolm X was clearly manifested in the leaders of the Million Worker March.

And we're seeing it yet again with the Troops Out Now Coalition and the mobilization for March 19. An active, working coalition has been built here in New York with representatives from labor, youth and students, artists, veterans, AIDS activists, tenants' rights groups, LGBT communities, Arabs, Haitians, immigrant groups, groups in solidarity with Palestine, Venezuela, Cuba, El Salvador, Korea and the Philippines--all coming together to build for March 19, as well as support each other's efforts with respect to their communities.

Ossie Davis said it best in his eulogy of Malcolm X: "In honoring him, we honor the best in ourselves." So in the undying spirit of Malcolm X, let's keep up the struggle!