Love for Liberation by Robin J. Hayes

Author:Robin J. Hayes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Washington Press
Published: 2021-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

7

“Love Our Community”

Aimons Notre Communauté

انعمتجم بحأ

Penda Jumwiya Yetu

IN HARLEM AFTER New Year’s in 1965, Malcolm X revealed his political philosophy had evolved into a version of Black Marxism.1 The time he spent during the previous year with Kwame Nkrumah and Julius Nyerere—and in the emancipated spaces of Cairo and Algiers—buoyed Malcolm’s belief that African Americans needed to consider socialist solutions to their problems and avoid internal divisions. When he introduced Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer (still invigorated from her voyage to Guinea) to OAAU supporters in the Audubon Ballroom, Malcolm asserted, “Almost every one of the countries that has gotten independence has devised some kind of socialistic system, and this is no accident.”2 In an interview at New York’s public radio station, WBAI-FM, Malcolm explained that he wanted to show his constituency how socialism was directly relevant to their struggle against racism.

Malcolm commented that he now wanted to do more than “stand on the sidelines and make militant-sounding declarations.”3 However, the bulk of his professional experience was as a numbers runner, burglar, and orthodox minister of an unconventional branch of Islam. Unlike SNCC veterans, he had no background as a community organizer. His childhood friend recalled that Malcolm earnestly wanted to live up to his community’s expectations that he could lead the entire Black nationalist movement.4 “It was a task of frightening dimensions,” he observed.5

Meanwhile, the Nation of Islam continued to treat Malcolm X as a threat. As he juggled his responsibilities to the OAAU, his work with Alex Haley to complete The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and his appearances and speeches, the NOI targeted Malcolm and his supporters with violence and intimidation.6 Malcolm continued to publicly criticize NOI leader Elijah Muhammad. “There was no God in him,” he said during an interview.7 It was not uncommon for Malcolm’s appearances to conclude with brawls between his security and Nation of Islam supporters. “My death has been ordered by higher-ups” in the NOI, he stated to the Amsterdam News.8

By February 1965, the extraordinary burden of being Malcolm X—the radical, earnest, relentless, pious human rights activist/political theorist/international celebrity—who was invented by Malcolm Little, a penniless orphan from Nebraska, was palpable. His associates noticed that he no longer cared to present a meticulous image by dressing in a starched suit, bleached white shirt, tie, and shined shoes. A depressed fatalism clouded his conversations. Alluding to the mysterious circumstances surrounding his Garveyite father’s demise, Malcolm noted to a friend that “the males in his family didn’t die a natural death.”9

A visit to Selma, Alabama, in support of SNCC’s voter registration campaign (led by Nashville sit-in veteran Diane Nash and recent Guinea travelers James Forman and John Lewis) provided some relief. However, when he returned to New York on February 14, the home in Queens that he shared with his wife, Mrs. Betty Shabazz, and their four little girls was firebombed with two Molotov cocktails.10 He managed to help his wife and daughters escape as flames engulfed the building. Years later, NOI member Edward X was confirmed as the leader of the group who committed this arson.

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