Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements

Malcolm X

Grove Press, 1965 - Biography & Autobiography - 226 pages

These are the major speeches made by Malcolm X during the last tumultuous eight months of his life. In this short period of time, his vision for abolishing racial inequality in the United States underwent a vast transformation. Breaking from the Black Muslims, he moved away from the black militarism prevalent in his earlier years only to be shot down by an assassin's bullet.

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LibraryThing Review

User Review  - blake.rosser - LibraryThing

Regardless of what I think about Malcolm X the man or the activist, this is an invaluable collection of speeches, interviews, and historical narrative that traces the evolution of his thought in his ...

User Review -

A pretty decent book, if you have already read the autobiography then personally I wouldn't bother to read this. There are plenty of youtube videos of his recorded speeches.

Contents

• A DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE: 18
• THE BLACK REVOLUTION: 45
• LETTERS FROM ABROAD: 58
• THE HARLEM HATEGANG SCARE: 64
• APPEAL TO AFRICAN HEADS OF STATE: 72
• ATTHEAUDUBON: 88
• ATTHEAUDUBON: 115
• TO MISSISSIPPI YOUTH: 137
• PROSPECTS FOR FREEDOM IN 1965: 147
• AFTER THE BOMBING: 157
• CONFRONTATION WITH AN EXPERT: 178
• LAST ANSWERS AND INTERVIEWS: 194

About the author

Born in Omaha, Nebraska, and the son of a Baptist minister, Malcolm Little grew up with violence. Whites killed several members of his family, including his father. As a youngster, he went to live with a sister in Boston where he started a career of crime that he continued in New York's Harlem as a drug peddler and pimp. While serving a prison term for burglary in 1952, he converted to Islam and undertook an intensive program of study and self-improvement, movingly detailed in "Autobiography of Malcolm X." He wrote constantly to Elijah Muhammad (Elijah Poole, 1897--1975), head of the black separatist Nation of Islam, which already claimed the loyalty of several of his brothers and sisters. Upon release from prison, Little went to Detroit, met with Elijah Muhammad, and dropped the last name Little, adopting X to symbolize the unknown African name his ancestors had been robbed of when they were enslaved. Soon he was actively speaking and organizing as a Muslim minister. In his angry and articulate preaching, he condemned white America for its treatment of blacks, denounced the integration movement as black self-delusion, and advocated black control of black communities. During the turbulent 1960's, he was seen as inflammatory and dangerous. In 1963, a storm broke out when he called President Kennedy's assassination a case of "chickens coming home to roost," meaning that white violence, long directed against blacks, had now turned on itself. The statement was received with fury, and Elijah Muhammad denounced him publicly. Shocked and already disillusioned with the leader because of his reputed involvement with several women, Malcolm X went on a pilgrimage to Mecca and then traveled to several African countries, where he was received as a fellow Muslim. When he returned home, he was bearing a new message: Islam is a religion that welcomes and unites people of all races in the Oneness of Allah. On the night of February 21, 1965, as he was preaching at Harlem's Audubon Ballroom, he was assassinated.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements; Evergreen black cat book; Evergreen book
• Author: Malcolm X
• Editor: George Breitman
• Edition: illustrated, reprint
• Publisher: Grove Press, 1965
• ISBN: 0802132138, 9780802132130
• Length: 226 pages
• Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / Cultural Heritage; Social Science / Ethnic Studies / African American Studies