The classic collection of major speeches, now bundled with an audio download of Malcolm X delivering two of them. Malcolm X remains a touchstone figure for black America and in American culture at large. He gave African Americans not only their consciousness but their history, dignity, and a new pride. No single individual can claim more important responsibility for a social and historical leap forward such as the one sparked in America in the sixties. When, in 1965, Malcolm X was gunned down on the stage of a Harlem theater, America lost one of its most dynamic political thinkers. Yet, as Michael Eric Dyson has observed, “he remains relevant because he spoke presciently to the issues that matter today: black identity, the politics of black rage, the expression of black dissent, the politics of black power, and the importance of consolidating varieties of expressions within black communities—different ideologies and politics—and bringing them together under a banner of functional solidarity.” The End of White World Supremacy contains four major speeches by Malcolm X, including: “Black Man's History,” “The Black Revolution,” “The Old Negro and the New Negro,” and the famous “The Chickens Are Coming Home to Roost” speech ("God's Judgment of White America"), delivered after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Several of the speeches include a discussion with the moderator, among whom Adam Clayton Powell, or a question-and-answer with the audience. This new edition bundles with the book an audio download of Malcolm's stirring delivery of “Black Man's History” in Harlem's Temple No.7 and “The Black Revolution” in the Abyssinian Baptist Church.
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Subtitle is four speeches. Feels like a more descriptive subtitle would read: four sermons. There are some very memorable, recognizable quotes pulled from this collection. X makes some powerful arguments, and I recognize how much Islam was a part of this man's life for a crucial period of his life, but it felt like what he was attempting to communicate was so often throttled by his obligation to preach.
I suppose, similar to Martin Luther King Jr., the role that religion played in people's lives was more likely to be prevalent at the time he was speaking, and so it was a natural connection to make, but at least for this modern atheist, it was a very alienating framing.
Having read Peniel E Joseph's The Sword and The Shield, which touches on Malcolm X's history both within the Nation of Islam and subsequently outside of it, the choice of these speeches matched with who they chose to write the introduction and what they chose to focus on within the introduction, but looking at X's whole history, and representing this collection as focused primarily on the ending of white supremacy feels...off. The fact that that history also covers Malcolm's move from a more separatist to a more integrationist position later in his speaking career makes this selection even more jarring, because it's as much standoffish/isolationist as it is attempting to foster a better community.
He does a good job of calling people on their bullshit, identifying underlying structural racism that his interlocutors don't seem to have taken into account. I appreciate the emphasis on education, recognizing the injustice in the obfuscation of true history that would give power, confidence back to Black people.
If you could separate out his need to pontificate on his spiritual leader's behalf from his need to speak frankly to people about internalized racism, colonialism and white supremacy, I think these would be perennially, broadly relevant speeches, but a lot of it feels cult-like in its obeisance to the one individual human person Elijah Muhammad, and the overwhelming insistence on all the benefits coming from being Muslim. I get that X had to fight very hard against Islamophobic propaganda, I'm just very repelled by all forms of proselytizing.
