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Address of Malcolm X to The Harvard Law School Forum
March 24, 1961
Roger Fisher, Moderator
Mr. Malcolm X is a minister of Mosque No. 7, the Nation of Islam, Harlem, New York. Mr. X has agreed to speak to us on The American Negro: Problems and Solutions.
Malcolm X
We thank you for inviting us here to the Harvard Law School Forum this evening to present our views on this timely topic: The American Negro: Problems and Solutions. However, to understand our views, the views of the Muslims, you must first realize that we are a religious group, and you must also know something about our religion, the religion of Islam. The creator of the universe, whom many of you call God or Jehovah, is known to the Muslims by the name Allah. The Muslims believe there is but one God, and that all the prophets came from this one God. We believe also that all prophets taught the same religion, and that they themselves called that religion Islam, an Arabic word that means complete submission and obedience to the will of Allah. One who practices divine obedience is called a Muslim (commonly known, spelled, and referred to here in the West as Moslem). There are over seven hundred twenty-five million Muslims on this earth, predominantly in Africa and Asia, the nonwhite world. We here in America are under the divine leadership of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, and we are an integral part of the vast world of Islam that stretches from the China seas to the sunny shores of West Africa. A unique situation faces the twenty million ex-slaves here in America because of our unique condition. Our acceptance of Islam and conversion to the religion affects us also in a unique way, different from the way in which it affects all other Muslin converts elsewhere on this earth.
Mr. Elijah Muhammad is our divine leader and teacher here in America. Mr. Muhammad believes in and obeys God one hundred percent, and he is even now teaching and working among our people to fulfill God's divine purpose. I am here at this forum tonight to represent Mr. Elijah Muhammad, the spiritual head of the fastest-growing group of Muslims in the Western Hemisphere. We who follow Mr. Muhammad know that he has been divinely taught and sent to us by God Himself. We believe that the miserable plight of the twenty million black people in America is the fulfillment of divine prophecy. We believe that the serious race problem that [the Negro's] presence here poses for America is also the fulfillment of divine prophecy. We also believe that the presence today in America of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, his teachings among the twenty million so-called Negroes, and his naked warning to America concerning her treatment of these twenty million ex-slaves is also the fulfillment of divine prophecy. Therefore, when Mr. Muhammad declares that the only solution to America's serious race problem is complete separation of the two races, he is reiterating what was already predicted for this time by all the Biblical prophets. Because Mr. Muhammad takes this uncompromising stand, those of you who don't understand Biblical prophecy wrongly label him a racist and hate-teacher and accuse him of being anti-white and teaching black supremacy. But this evening since we are all here at the Harvard Law School Forum; together, both races face to face, we can question and examine for ourselves the wisdom or folly of what Mr. Muhammad is teaching.
Many of you who classify yourselves as white express surprise and shock at the truth that Mr. Muhammad is teaching your twenty million ex-slaves here in America, but you should be neither surprised nor shocked. As students, teachers, professors, and scientists, you should be well aware that we are living in a world where great changes are taking place. New ideas are replacing the old ones. Old governments are collapsing, and new nations are being born. The entire old system which held the old world together has lost its effectiveness, and now that old world is going out. A new system or a new world must replace the old world. Just as the old ideas must be removed to make way for the new, God has declared to Mr. Muhammad that the evil features of this wicked old world must be exposed, faced up to, and removed in order to make way for the new world which God Himself is preparing to establish. The divine mission of Mr. Muhammad here in America today is to prepare us for the new world of righteousness by teaching us a better understanding of the old world's defects. Thus we may come to agree that God must remove this wicked old world.
We see by reports in the daily press that even many of you who are scholars and scientists think that the message of Islam that is being preached here in America among your twenty million ex-slaves is new, or that it is something Mr. Muhammad himself has made up. Mr. Muhammad's religious message is not new. All of the scientists and prophets of old predicted that a man such as he, with such a doctrine or message, would make his appearance among us at a time as that in which we are living today. It is written too in your own scriptures that this prophetic figure would not be raised up from the midst of the educated class, but that God would make His choice from among the lowly, uneducated, downtrodden, oppressed masses, from among the lowest element of America's twenty million ex-slaves. It would be as in the days when God raised up Moses from among the lowly Hebrew slaves and commissioned him to separate his oppressed people from a slave master named Pharaoh. Moses found himself opposed by the scholars and scientists of that day, who are symbolically described in the Bible as "Pharaoh's magicians." Jesus himself, a lowly carpenter, was also missioned by God to find his people, the "lost sheep," and to separate them from their Gentile enemies and restore them to their own nation. Jesus also found himself opposed by the scholars and scientists of his day, who are symbolically described in the Bible as "scribes, priests, and Pharisees." Just as the learned class of those days disagreed with and opposed both Moses and Jesus primarily because of their humble origin, Mr. Elijah Muhammad is today likewise being opposed by the learned, educated intellectuals of his own kind, because of [his] humble origin. These modern-day "magicians, scribes, and Pharisees" try to ridicule Mr. Muhammad by emphasizing the humble origin of him and his many followers.
Moses was raised up among his enslaved people at a time when God was planning to restore them to a land of their own where they could give birth to a new civilization, completely independent of their former slave masters. Pharaoh opposed God's plan and God's servant, so Pharaoh and his people were destroyed. Jesus was sent among his people at a time when God was planning to bring about another great change. The dispensation preached by Jesus two thousand years ago ushered in a new type of civilization, the Christian civilization, better known as the Christian world. The Holy Prophet Muhammad (may the peace and blessing of Allah be upon him!) came six hundred years after Jesus with another dispensation that did not destroy or remove the Christian civilization, but which put a dent in it, a wound that has lasted even until today. Now, today, God has sent Mr. Elijah Muhammad among the downtrodden and oppressed so-called American Negroes to warn that God is again preparing to bring about another great change, only this time it will be a final change. This is the day and the time for a complete change. Mr. Muhammad teaches that the religion of Islam is the only solution to the problems confronting our people here in America. He warns us that it is even more important, however, to know the base or foundation upon which we must build tomorrow. Therefore, although the way in which Mr. Muhammad teaches the religion of Islam and the particular kind of Islam he teaches may appear to be different from the teaching of Islam in the Old World, the basic principles and practices are the same.
You must remember: The condition of America's twenty million ex-slaves is uniquely pitiful. But just as the old religious leaders in the days of Moses and Jesus refused to accept Moses and Jesus as religious reformers, many of the religious leaders in the old Muslim world today may also refute the teachings of Mr. Elijah Muhammad, neither realizing the unique condition of these twenty million ex-slaves nor understanding that Mr. Elijah Muhammad's teachings are divinely prescribed to rectify the miserable condition of our oppressed people here. But as God made Pharaoh's magicians bow before Moses, and the scribes and Pharisees bow before Jesus, He plans today to make all opposition, both at home and abroad, bow before the truth that is now being taught by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.
We are two thousand years from the time of the great change which took place in Jesus' day. If you will but look around you on this earth today, it will be as clear as the five fingers on your hand that we are again living at a time of great change. God has come to close out the entire old world, the old world where for the past six thousand years most of the earth's population has been deceived, conquered, colonized, ruled, enslaved, oppressed, and exploited by the Caucasian race. At the time when Pharaoh's civilization reached its peak and his period of rule of the slaves was up, God appeared unto Moses and revealed to him that He had something different for his people. Likewise, God told Mr. Muhammad that He has something different for his people, the so-called Negroes here in America today--something that until now has never before been revealed. Mr. Muhammad teaches us that this old world has seen nothing yet, that the real thing is yet to come.
The Black Muslims who follow Mr. Muhammad are only now making their exit from the old world. The door to the new world is yet to be opened, and what is inside that door is yet to be revealed. The teaching of Mr. Muhammad among your twenty million ex-slaves is only to prepare us to walk out of this wicked old world in as intelligent, pleasant, and peaceful a way as possible. The teaching among the so-called American Negroes is designed only to show proof why we should give up this wicked old house. The roof is leaking, the walls are collapsing, and we find it can no longer support the tremendous weight caused by our continued presence in it. The knowledge of the deterioration and eventual collapse of this old building having come to Mr. Muhammad from Almighty God Himself (whose proper name is Allah, the Lord of all the worlds, the Master of Judgment Day), the Honorable Elijah Muhammad is pointing out these dangerous conditions and future results to us as well as to you who have enslaved us. With proper support and guidance our people can get out of this sagging old building before it collapses. But the support and guidance that we need actually consists of instruction in the origin, history, and nature of the Caucasian race as well as of our own black nation. We must have a thorough knowledge of the true origin and history of the white man's Christian religion as well as an understanding of the Islamic religion that prevails primarily among our brothers and sisters in Africa and Asia. You will probably ask us, "Why, if this old house is going to collapse or go up in smoke, are the Black Muslims asking for some states to be set aside in this country? It's like asking for a chance to retain rooms in a house that you claim is doomed for total destruction!"
God is giving to America every opportunity to repent and atone for the crime she committed when she enslaved our people, even as God gave Pharaoh a chance to repent before He finally destroyed that king, too proud to face his slaves and give them complete justice. We are asking you for a territory here only because of the great opposition we receive from this government in our efforts to awaken our people, to unite them and separate them from their oppressors, and to return them to their own land and people. You should never make the mistake of thinking that Mr. Muhammad has no place to take his followers in the World of Islam. No sir! He is not shut out from the world as many of you wish to believe. All who accept Islam and follow Mr. Muhammad have been offered a home in the Muslim world.
Our people have been oppressed and exploited here in America for four hundred years, and now with Mr. Muhammad we can leave this wicked world of bondage. But our former slave master is [continually] opposing Mr. Muhammad's efforts and is unjustly persecuting those who have left the Christian Church and accepted the religion of Islam. This is further proof that our Caucasian slave master does not want or trust us to leave him and live elsewhere on this earth. And yet, if we stay here with him, he continues to keep us at the very lowest level of his society.
Pick up any daily newspaper or magazine and examine the anti-Muslim propaganda and the false charges leveled against our beloved religious leader by some of America's leading reporters. This only points up the fact that the Caucasian race is never willing to let any black man who is not their puppet or parrot speak for our people or lead our people out of their enslaving clutches without giving him great opposition. The Caucasian slave master has opposed all such leaders in the past, and even today he sanctions and supports only those Negro spokesmen who parrot his doctrines and ideas or who accept his so-called advice on how our people should carry on our struggle against his four hundred years of tyranny.
The Christian world has failed to give the black man justice. The (American) Christian government has failed to give her twenty million ex-slaves (just compensation) for three hundred ten years of free slave labor. Even despite this, we have been better Christians than those who taught us Christianity. We have been America's most faithful servants during peace time, and her bravest soldiers during war time. But still, white Christians have been unwilling to recognize us and to accept us as fellow human beings. Today we can see that the Christian religion of the Caucasian race has failed us. Thus the black masses are turning away from the Church and toward the religion of Islam. Furthermore, the government sends its agents among our people to tell lies. [Those agents] make an all-out effort to harass us in order to frighten those of our people in this country who would accept the religion of Islam and unite under the spiritual guidance and divine leadership of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. Therefore, Mr. Muhammad has demanded that you and your government let us separate ourselves from you right here, into a separate territory that we can call our own and on which we can do something for ourselves and for our own kind; since you don't want these twenty million ex-slaves to leave you and return to their own land and people, and since your actions have proved that the Caucasian race will not receive them as complete equals. Since we cannot live among the Caucasians in peace, and since there is not time enough for us new Negroes to wait for the Caucasian race to be "reeducated" and freed of their racial prejudice, their inbred beliefs and practices of white supremacy, I repeat, "Let our people be separated from you, and give us some territory that we can call our own and where we can live in peace among ourselves."
According to recent news dispatches in daily papers throughout the nation, prison wardens all over this country are unjustly persecuting the inmates who want to change from the Christian religion to the religion of Islam and follow the spiritual guidance of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. Indeed, these prison wardens even admit that when inmates change from Christianity to Islam, they become model prisoners. Yet despite this, the prisoners are being persecuted and prevented from reading the Holy Koran, the same holy book that is read daily by hundreds of millions of our darker brothers and sisters in Africa and Asia. When the true facts about this religious persecution are made known among the seven hundred twenty-five million Muslims in the world of Islam, that strategic area that stretches from the China seas to the shores of West Africa, how do you think the American Caucasians will then look in the eyes of those nonwhite people there? The very fact that there is a concerted effort against Islam by prison wardens in this country is proof that the American government is trying to stamp out the religion of Islam at home, in a frantic effort to keep it from spreading among her twenty million ex-slaves whom she continues to confine to the lowly role of second-class citizenship. Further proof is the fact that these twenty million so-called Negroes have never been taught about the religion of Islam during the entire four hundred years, since the Caucasians first brought our people here in chains from our African Muslim culture. Yet Islam is, and always has been, the prevailing religion among our people in Africa. Indeed, the American Caucasian, in a last act of desperation, is accusing Mr. Muhammad of not being a true Muslim, and of not teaching true Islam. If the American Caucasian knows so much about true Islam and has suddenly become such an authority on it, why hasn't he taught it to his twenty million ex-slaves before now?
The American Caucasian today also loves to print glaring headlines saying that the orthodox Muslims don't recognize or accept Mr. Muhammad and his Muslims as true Muslims. "Divide and rule" has long been the Caucasian strategy to continue white colonization of dark nations. The American Caucasian actually has settled twenty million black people here in this country by simply dividing us from our African brothers and sisters for four hundred years, converting us to his Christian religion, and by teaching us to call ourselves "Negroes" and telling us that we are no longer African. (I guess he says this because our exposure to this "superior" white culture makes us different, so-called civilized.) Since hundreds of thousands of the ex-slaves here in America today refuse to attend the church of the Caucasians who enslaved us, shun all further use of the word "Negro," and accept Allah as their God, Islam as their religion, and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad as their religious leader and teacher, these American Caucasians are reverting to the old trick of earlier colonialists: divide and rule. They thereby try to separate us from the Muslim world and to alienate us from our people in Africa and Asia who also serve and follow Almighty God, Allah.
There are probably one hundred thousand of what you (whites) call orthodox Muslims in America, who were born in the Muslim world and who willingly migrated here. But despite the fact that Islam is a propagating religion, all of these foreign Muslims combined have not been successful in converting one thousand Americans to Islam. On the other hand, they see that Mr. Muhammad by himself has hundreds of thousands of his fellow ex-slaves turning eastward toward Mecca five times daily giving praises to the great God Allah. No true Muslim in his right mind would denounce or deny this meek and humble little black man, born in Georgia in the very worst part of this country, as a leader, a defender of the faith, and a propagator of the faith, who has rekindled the light of Islam here in the West. His Caucasian opposers have never gotten even one responsible Muslim official to criticize or denounce Mr. Muhammad. They succeed only in getting some jealous, envious little peddler or merchant who migrated here and who wants to be recognized as some sort of leader himself and will therefore accept the Caucasian's bribe of thirty pieces of silver to attack this man of God. How could Mr. Muhammad ever make a trip into the forbidden areas of Arabia, to visit the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, and be welcomed and honored by its most respected religious leaders, the great Imams themselves, if he himself were not recognized as a great religious man, a man of God, doing miraculous works by spreading Allah's name here in the West among the twenty million ex-slaves of America? How could Mr. Muhammad visit the capitals of the Muslim world and be received by its respected leaders, if he were not also recognized and respected as a Muslim leader by them? He visited Al-Azhar, the oldest mosque and Muslim university in the world, and had tea with the Chief Imam, the Grand Sheikh Shaltuat, who kissed him on his forehead in true Muslim fashion. Yet the American Caucasians, hoping to block his success among our people, continue to oppose him and to say that he is not a true Muslim.
Again you will say, "Why don't he and his followers leave this house of bondage right now and go and live in the Muslim world?" All of the Nation of Islam can live in the Muslim world tomorrow, but the Honorable Elijah Muhammad wants justice for the entire twenty million so-called Negroes. You and your Christian government make the problem even more complicated. You don't want your twenty million ex-slaves to leave you, yet you won't share equal justice with them right here. Since you don't want them to leave this country with us, and you won't give them equal justice among your kind, we will agree to stay only if you let us separate ourselves from you right here. Just give us a portion of this country that we can call our own. Put us in it. Then give us everything we need to start our own civilization--that is, support us for twenty to twenty-five years, until we are able to go for ourselves. This is God's plan. This is God's solution. This is justice, and compensation for our three hundred ten years of slave labor. Otherwise America will reap the full fury of God's wrath for her crimes against our people, which are many. As your Bible says, "He that leads into captivity shall go into captivity; he that kills with the sword shall be killed by the sword." This is the law of justice; this is in your own Christian scriptures.
The black masses are shaking off the drugs, the narcotic effect of token-integration promises. A cup of tea in a white restaurant is not sufficient compensation for three hundred ten years of free slave labor. The black masses as represented by the Black Muslims will never be satisfied until we have some land that we can call our own. Again I repeat: We are not asking for territory here because Mr. Muhammad has no place else to take us. But we ask for the sake of the entire twenty million so-called Negroes, twenty million ex-slaves who, despite the fact that the Emancipation Proclamation was issued one hundred years ago, are still begging their former slave master for recognition as human beings. Mr. Muhammad is asking this government to stop toying with our people, to stop fooling them year in and year out with false promises of token integration. Token integration will not solve our problem. This is a false solution, a "token" solution. It is a hypocritical approach to the problem, a tricky scheme devised by you and propagated by your Negro puppets whom you yourselves have appointed as our leaders and spokesmen.
Integration is not good for either side. It will destroy your race, and your government knows it will also destroy ours, and the problem still remains unsolved. God has declared that these twenty million ex-slaves must have a home of their own. After four hundred years here among the Caucasians, we are absolutely convinced that we can never live together in peace, unless we are willing to remain subservient to our former masters. Therefore, immediate and complete separation is the only solution. NAACP Attorney Thurgood Marshall has admitted publicly that six years since the Supreme Court decision on desegregation of the schools, only six percent desegregation has taken place. This is an example of integration!
A kidnapper, a robber, an enslaver, a lyncher is just another common criminal in the sight of God, and criminal acts as such have been committed by their race on a mass scale for four hundred years against your twenty million so-called Negros. It is true that today American professes to be sorry for her crimes against our people. She says she wants to repent, but in her desire to atone or make amends, she offers her twenty million ex-slaves flowery promises of token integration. Many of these downtrodden victims want to forgive America. They want to forget the crimes that you have committed against them, and some are even willing to accept the formula of token integration that you yourselves have devised as a solution to the problem created by your own criminal acts against them. In a court of justice the criminal can confess his crimes and throw himself on the mercy of the court if he truly repents, but neither the criminal nor his victim has any say-so in suggesting the sentence that is passed upon the guilty or the price that the confessed criminal must pay. This is left in the hands of the judge. We are living in the Day of Judgment right now. God is the Judge that our American slave master must now answer to. God is striking this country with tornadoes, storms, floods, rain, hail, snow; and terrific earthquakes are yet to come. Your people are being afflicted with increasing epidemics of illness, disease, and plagues, with which God is striking you because of your criminal acts against the twenty million ex-slaves.
Instead of repenting and truly compensating our people for their three hundred ten years of free slave labor that built this country for you, you buy out the Negro leaders with thirty pieces of silver and have them sell our people your token integration. When one uses a token on the bus or streetcar, that token is a substitute for the real money; token means a substitute, that which takes the place of the real thing. Token integration takes the place of the real thing. Two black students at the University of Georgia is token integration. Four black children in New Orleans' white schools is token integration. A handful of black students in the white schools in Little Rock, Arkansas is token integration. None of this is real integration; it is only a pacifier to keep these awakening black babies from crying too loud. According to the above-mentioned rate of desegregation since the decision of the Supreme Court, it will take us another thousand years to get the white man in the South sufficiently "re-educated" to accept our people in their midst as equals. And if the rest of the truth is told, it will take the white man here in the North, West, and East just as long as his brother in the South.
To many of you here at the Harvard Law School Forum this sounds ridiculous; to some it even sounds insane. But these twenty million black people here in America now number a nation in their own right. Do you believe that a nation within another nation can be successful, especially when they both have equal educations? Once the slave has his master's education, the slave wants to be like his master, wants to share his master's property, and even wants to exercise the same privileges as his master while he is yet in his master's house. This is the core of America's troubles today: there will be no peace for America as long as twenty million so-called Negroes are here begging for the rights which America knows she will never grant us. The limited education America has granted her ex-slaves has even already produced great unrest. Almighty God says the only way for America to ever have any future or prosperity is for her twenty million ex-slaves to be separated from her, and it is for this reason that Mr. Muhammad teaches us that we must have some land of our own. If we receive equal education, how long do you expect us to remain your passive servants, or second-class citizens? There is no such thing as a second-class citizen. We are full citizens, or we are not citizens at all. When you teach a man the science of government, he then wants an equal part or position in that government, or else he wants his own government. He begins to demand equality with his master. No man with education equal to your own will serve you. The only way you can continue to rule us is with superior knowledge, by continuing to withhold equal education from our people. America has not given us equal education, but she has given us enough to make us want more and to make us demand equality of opportunity. And since this is causing unrest plus international embarrassment, the only solution is immediate separation. As your colleges and universities turn out an ever-increasing number of so-called Negro graduates with education equal to yours, they will automatically increase their demands for equality in everything else. Equal education will increase their spirit of equality and make them feel that they should have everything that you have, and their increasing demands will become a perpetual headache for you and continue to cause you international embarrassment. In fact, those Negro students whom you are educating today will soon be demanding the same things you now hear being demanded by Mr. Muhammad and the Muslims.
In concluding, I must remind you that your own Christian Bible states that God is coming in the last days or at the end of the old world, and that God's coming will bring about a great separation. Now since we see all sorts of signs throughout the earth that indicate that the time of God's coming is upon us, why don't you repent while there is yet time? Do justice by your faithful ex-slaves. Give us some land of our own right here, some separate states, so we can separate ourselves from you. Then everyone will be satisfied, and perhaps we will all be able to then live happily ever after and, as your own Christian Bible says, "everyone under his own vine and fig tree." Otherwise all of you who are sitting here, your government, and your entire race will be destroyed and removed from this earth by Almighty God, Allah.