Malcolm X Rises to the Challenge
AMERICA'S BLACK MUSLIMS AND POLITICAL ACTION
ce _.By Evelyn Sell
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The Black Muslims are increasingly thrust into national prominence as the Freedom Now movement sends its shock waves through Amer-~ ican life, To weaken and divert the civil-rights struggle, the white -capitalist_power structure has attempted to create a witch-hunt against theme. 0 ct eee me ee
In 1959 the mass news media "discovered" the Black Muslims, Radio programs, television interviews and debates, magazine articles and newspaper reports introduced the movement to the general American pub-= lic, Time magazine, for example, labeled Elijah Muhammad "a purveyor of. . . Old black hatred. . . calmly feeding the rankling frustration of urban Negroes. . . a scowling incendiary speaker... "
Time much prefers the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., whom they named "Man of the Year" in 1963. because he has "stirred in his people a Christian forbearance that nourishes hope and smothers injustice,"
~ - The Saturday Evening Post continued the- propaganda campaign against the Muslims in a January 1963 article entitled "Black. Mer~ '. chants of Hate." American newspapers are now making a fuss over the fact that the new heavyweight boxing champion of the world, Cassius .Glay, has admitted that he_has been_a Muslim for the past five years, The Detroit Free Press labeled the movement as "the: segregationist black supremacy sect."
The police powers of the capitalist state are used to harass the Muslims, The FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation] and local police across the country keép thé movement under survoillance,. Temples in Louisiana and New York have been violated by club=swinging cops. On the night of April 27, 1962, Los Angeles police fired into a crowd of Muslims. Seven of them were- shot3-one was killed and-another paralyzed for life, Jim Crow justice in America convicted == not the killer-cops but their victims! Thirteen Muslims were found guilty of assaulting an officer.
The U.S. Civil Service Commission has fired a dozen Muslims from government jobs and dropped.a number of others during their first year probationary period, Five Negro inmates in a New York prison brought a federal court suit against prison officials for suppressing their right to practice their religion while in jail.
Police intimidation and press-fed hysteria against the Muslims have gained them greater sympathy among rank-and-file Negroes and ©
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some Negro intellectuals, In an answer to the Saturday Evening Post attack, the assistant managing editor of Afro-American, Chester Hampton, wrote:
nm, . . Itm glad there is an Elijah Muhammad, First, I'm glad there is someone to care about the uncared=about. Then I'm glad there is someone. to keep the guilty reminded of their guilt. Then, I'm glad there is another organization making a contribution to civil rights for colored Americans,
"Yes, that's right. Because all the Constitutional rights and privileges America has been withholding might come flowing forth if the "powers that be! are sufficiently scared we might turn Muslim
Stinging Criticisms
Most nationally known Negro figures, however, condemn the Muslims, The outspoken Muslim criticisms of white Christian America are too blunt for the Negro diplomats in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People [NaacP] and the Urban League. The current struggle for leadership in the national civil=rights movement makes the old-guard leaders extremely touchy about possible rivals, The more the average Negro responds. to the Muslimst ideas and leader-~ ship, the more the white capitalist power structure and the current Negro power structure attack the Musiims,
The Muslims criticize the NAACP and the Urban League because they are controlled by white men. The Muslims oppose Martin Luther King, | rots passive resistance philosophy, calling it a "slave: philosophy" which preaches love for the oppressor. At the February 26 convention, Muhammad told the white newspapermen, "You were not sorry for my fathers. You think I ought to be sorry? What fool can love his own enemy?"
The sit-in movement is headed in the wrong direction, in the. opinion of the Muslims, Instead of "going into those stores where. we are neither wanted nor invited," Negroes should concentrate on developing their own businesses.
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"The ignorant, greedy preachers," say the Muslims, ", . . are the willing tools of the very ones who are responsible for our people's miserable plight. . [The white man] has trained these ignorant, greedy Negro preachers to parrot his religious lies. to us, a. pacifying religion that was skilifully designed to brainwash us and keep us in tour place,!"
Despite their sharp censure of Uncle Tom leaders and the goals of the integrationist movement, the Muslims call for the unity of all black people in the struggle against their common oppressor, In a Detroit speech in January 1960, Raymond Sharrieff, Supreme Captain of the Fruit of Islam, said, tReligious, economic and political dif-
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ferences are luxuries we American Black Men cannot afford. We must, in the Sixties, sit together and counsel,"
Need for Political Action
It is in the political area that this "United Front of Black Men" takes on crucial importance both for the future of the Muslim movement and the future of the whole Freedom Now struggle. As yot the Muslims have not participated actively in politics on a national or local basis, Their attitude has been that the white government is unjust and corrupt and "to integrate with evil is to be destroyed with evil, tt Hints have been ‘given, however, that a change | in policy is forthcoming,
At a Freedom rally held in 1960 in Harlem, Malcolm X stated that the movement would support “any fearless black leaders who will stand up and help the so-called American Negro get complete and immediate freedom,"
The March 19, 1963, issue of Muhammad Speaks reported Muhammad's ‘statement.on political action: "There. will be no real freedom for the so~called Negro in America until he elects his own political leaders and his own candidates. oon
"Black people in America must elect their own candidates instead of merely cxisting under those chosen by the descendants of the slave-~ holders who are primarily interested in keeping the slavomaster's children in a servant status,
“Our future lies in ecleeting our own."
If and when the Muslims move into active politics, they will exert a significant force on the present capitalist two-party system, They are a tightly disciplined organization dedicated to act as their leader, Muhammad, tells them to act, “You can be sure of one thing," Malcolm X said; tovery. single Muslim man and woman will.vote the way Mr. Muhammad tolls him to vote."
It is precisely in those urban centers where the Muslim strength lies that the Negro vote is pivotal. Their active support for a candidate would have a tremendous effect on the Negro community.
An independent Negro party is now being formed in the United States. The Freedom Now party was launched last summer to run black candidates on a fighting program to achieve equality and first-class citizenship. Supporters are now petitioning in the state of Michigan to place the Frecdom Now party on the 1964 state ballot. What attitude will the Muslims take towards this party?
. Ferment in the Muslim ranks over the question of political action was sharply revealed when Malcolm X, Muhammad's right-hand man -and the country's No. 2 Muslim, announced on March 9 that he had resigned from the movement.
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Explaining that Elijah Muhammad had restrained him from participating more vigorously in the current Freedom Now struggle, Malcolm declared: "It is going to be different now. I'm going to join in the fight wherever Negroes ask for my help, and I suspect my activities will be on.a greater and more intensive scale than in the past...
"The Negroes still don't understand the power of the ballot in the North, We must make them understand that the Negro voters have it in their power to decide next November whether Johnson stays in the White. House or goes back to his Texas cotton patch. ..
"T am prepared te co-operate in local civil-rights actions in the South and elsewhere and shall do so because every campaign for specific objectives can only ehghten the political consciousness of the Negroes and intensify their identification against white society."
He has already accepted an invitation to help a civilerights committee in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana.
Malcolm X stated that his first task will be to build an organization based in New York City where he headed the Muslims! largest, most powerful temple. He claims the support of many Negro intollectuals and professionals who do not support the religion of Islam but who do agree with the Black Muslims! analysis of race relations in the United States,
The departure of Malcolm X from the official movement and his announcement of active participation in the Negroes! daily struggle for jobs, housing and schooling answers one of the major criticisms directed against the Muslims by many militant Negro intellectuals.
In an interview in May, 1963, James Baldwin, the prize-winning Negro writer, said of the Muslims, "If they were organizing rent strikes among the people who live’ in those ghettos in Harlem right now. « . if they were spotlighting conercte things, proving to Negroes that there were certain things they could do for themselves, , . If the Muslims were operating on that level I would have no quarrel with them, perhaps, but they're doing something clse, It's just another inflated store~front church," a
The entrance of Malcolm X and his followers into the civilrights street battles adds a secthing now force to a movement that is already boiling with civil disobedience demonstrations, rent strikes, school boycotts and country-wide protests.
In his first announcement, he said that he would promote "active self-defense against white supremacists."
"There is no use deceiving ourselves," he stated, “Good education, housing and jobs are imperatives for the Negroes, and I shall support them in their fight to win these objectives. But I shall tell the Negroes that while these are necessary, they ¢ cannot solve the main Negro problem, Lo
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"T shall also tell them that what has been called the 'Negro Revolution! in the United States is a deception practiced upon them,
‘"T shall tell them what a real revolution means -- the Frenoh .. . Revolution, the American Revolution, Algeria, to name a few. There. — can be no revolution without bloodshed, and it is. nonsense. bo des~ cribe the civil-rights movement in America as a revolution."
These fiery pronouncements from the man held by many observers to be the most brilliant Negro leader in the country were received coldly among the presently constituted respectable Negro leaders, James Farmer, national director. of the Congress of Racial Equality, was quick to disclaim any sympathies with Malcolm X's remarks, “All participants in CORE projects, " Farmer stated, "are pledged to nonviolence in every project. . A very perceptive remark on the situation. was made by Paul Zuber, New York Negro civil-rights attorney: "CORE can't get 400 members in Harlem, but Malcolm X can draw from 4,000 to'10,000 people when he speaks on 125th Street. I think the. power play’ is now on, and the . ultimate decision does not rest with Roy Wilkins [head | of the NAACP], Malcolm X or James Farmer 5 it rests. with e2, 000,000 Negroes living in this country."
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