MALCOLM X

Spellman : Please answer these charges that are often raised against you: That you are as racist as Hitler and the Klan, etc. That you are anti-Semitic. That you advocate mob violence. Malcolm X : No, we’re not racists at all. Our brotherhood is based on the fact that we are all black, brown, red, or yellow. We don’t call this racism, any more than you could refer to the European Common Market which consists of Europeans, which means that it consists of white-skin people—is not referred to as a racist coalition. It’s referred to as the European Common Market, an economic group—while our desire for unity among black, brown, red, and yellow is for brotherhood—has nothing to do with racism, has nothing to do with Hitler, has nothing to do with the Klan. In fact, the Klan in this country was designed to perpetuate an injustice upon Negroes; whereas the Muslims are designed to eliminate the injustice that has been perpetuated upon the so-called Negro. We’re anti-exploitati...

Nineteen hundred sixty-four will probably be the most explosive year that America has yet witnessed on the racial front; primarily because the black people of this country during 1963 saw nothing but failure behind every effort they made to get what the country was supposedly on record for. Today the black people in this country have become frustrated, disenchanted, disillusioned and probably more set for action now than ever before-not the kind of action that has been set out for them in the past by some of their supposedly liberal white friends, but the kind of action that will get some kind of immediate results. As the moderator has pointed out, the time that we’re living in now and that we are facing now is not an era where one who is oppressed is looking toward the oppressor to give him some system or form of logic or reason. What is logical to the oppressor isn’t logical to the oppressed. And what is reason to the oppressor isn’t reason to the oppressed. The black people in this...

Because 1964 threatens to be a very explosive year on the racial front, and because I myself intend to be very active in every phase of the American Negro struggle for human rights, I have called this press conference this morning in order to clarify my own position in the struggle—especially in regard to politics and nonviolence. I am and always will be a Muslim. My religion is Islam. I still believe that Mr. Muhammad’s analysis of the problem is the most realistic, and that his solution is the best one. This means that I too believe the best solution is complete separation, with our people going back home, to our own African homeland. But separation back to Africa is still a long-range program, and while it is yet to materialize, 22 million of our people who are still here in America need better food, clothing, housing, education and jobs right now. Mr. Muhammad’s program does point us back homeward, but it also contains within it what we could and should be doing to...

FBI Agent : Morning, how do you do. We are with the FBI. You have a couple minutes? We’d like to talk to you.
 Malcolm X : Come on in. 
FBI Agent : I am sorry, did we get you up? Malcolm X : I was on the telephone. Your name is? FBI Agent : Beckwith.
 Malcolm X : And your name is.? FBI Agent : Fulton.
 Malcolm X : Which office are you from?
 FBI Agent : From New York. There’s only one out here. We have two problems we would like to talk to you about. One...why don’t you take the article and read it. You might have been called by a couple of reporters, is that right? Malcolm X : Yes. FBI Agent : What did they quote you saying, nonsense? Malcolm X : I cussed them out. What paper is this from? FBI Agent : One of the New York ones, I don’t know, I think the Times , I am not sure. The problem in this connection is that we have every reason to believe that this fella lied to us when he gave us the original. Malcolm X : You should. FBI Agent : Now, of course, that...