Malcolm X has garnered the recognition many have sought for his contributions to the civil rights movement in the conservative Midwest state where he was born, after years of being rejected as too controversial to be honored.
As this sacred narrative we know as Black History unfolds and opens our celebrations of Black History Month, it is ever more important that we know our history and honor it in rightful and righteous ways by the way we live, struggle, and weave and work our way forward in the world.
Our annual reflective and resistance-focused celebration of the birth and life of Min. Malcolm X, May 19th and African Liberation Day, May 25th, finds us confronting an especially dangerous, difficult and demanding time. It is a taxing time of dealing with two global interrelated challenges: the pandemic of COVID-19 and the pathology of oppression in which this virus and other natural diseases and social sicknesses are rooted and replicated. Indeed, the pathology of oppression is a pandemic itself, i.e., a world-wide disease or social sickness clearly harmful to human life and even the well-being of the world.
Human Rights leader and outstanding orator Malcolm X aka El-Hajj Malik El- Shabazz was born in Omaha, NE, 1925.
On this day May 19, 1925, Human Rights leader and outstanding orator Malcolm X aka El-Hajj Malik El- Shabazz was born in Omaha, NE. Brought to you by the Black365 Calendar. For more information visit www.Black365.US
If we are to rightfully remember Min. Malcolm, we must seriously grasp and practice what he so meticulously taught us about valuing our lives, our work and our struggle. Here I use grasp to mean take in hand and heart his legacy, study and understand it, and hold it firmly as a valuable heritage and framework for continuing forward. Whether it is on his day of birth or his day of sacrifice and martyrdom, or any other day of the year, remembering and honoring him must offer some meaningful expression and evidence that his life and teachings help shape how we live our lives, do our work and wage our struggles to be ourselves, free ourselves, develop ourselves and come into the fullness of ourselves.
Malcolm tells us in his Autobiography that he felt and hoped that his “life’s account, read objectively. . .might prove to be a testimony of some social value.” And surely, it is a testimony of great social value. Indeed, it is both testimony and testament, righteous witness and a sacred will, awesome evidence and instruction on how we can live our lives, and if need be, give them up with the unwavering commitment and uncompromising courage Malcolm modelled and mirrored for us. Malcolm, honored teacher of the liberating truth, thus taught us how to live and die, and even before his death, he had already given his whole life to his people, his faith and the struggle. It was again one of his defining features which he described as “the one hundred percent dedication I have to whatever I believe in.”
Let me sum up, then, with this fundamental Kawaida revolutionary understanding which we have embraced since the 1960s about African liberation. We maintain that the quality of life of a people and the success of its liberation struggle depends upon its waging cultural revolution within and political revolution without, resulting in a radical transformation of self, society and ultimately the world.