Malcolm X Speaks

After reading some of the speeches that Malcolm X gave over his life, he showed me how different his views on liberating African Americans from the injustices of the United States was too other civil rights leaders of that time. He also clearly expresses in his speeches that he is not a fan of these leaders and their methods. James Baldwin believes that for equality to happen whites and blacks need to work together and love each other. In The Fire Next Time, Baldwin expresses, "In short, we, the black and the white, deeply need each other here if we are really to become a nation[...]" (pg. 97).  He's saying that we need each other for this to work. Malcolm does not believe in this method at all. He doesn't believe having white people in the movement will help the movement at all. Malcolm exclaims, "It's just like when you've got some coffee that's too black, which means it's too strong. What do you do? You integrate it with cream, you make it weak. But if you poor too much cream in it, you won't even know you ever had coffee. It used to be hot, it becomes cool. It used to be strong, it becomes weak" (pg. 16). He believes that if you "integrate" whites into the movement they don't do any integrating at all. Instead, they infiltrate it, take it over, and make it weak. Lastly, Malcolm throws a lot of banter at Martin Luther King Jr. and some of the other leaders of the Civil Rights Movement because he says that they are like puppets for the white leaders. Malcolm expresses, "Reuther and those other three devils should get an Academy Award for the best actors because they acted like they really loved Negroes and fooled a whole lot of Negroes. And the six Negro leaders should get an award too, for best supporting cast" (pg. 17). Reading Malcolm X's speeches were a very interesting thing to read because it's something we never got into in high school. In my opinion, some of his methods for liberation in his first speeches were a bit extreme, but I can feel his passion for the movement while reading his speeches. I liked that about them.

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